2018 Spring Season

Just checked. Our Spring season starts 1 April & goes until the middle of May or June depending upon which hunting area the applicant put in for. Approximately 800 tags were drawn. In Washington there is a two bear limit. 2 on the wetside or one wet & the other on the Eastside (can’t take 2 bear on Eastside the same year). 

General season is open from 1 August to sometime in November. Some areas produce color phase, some don’t. Average taken 200# up to 250#. Larger bears are out there but fairly smart. State bear population steady (slightly increasing in some areas)
25,000.

Opening day of WA spring season reports of sightings on both sides of the Cascades beginning to trickle in. WDFW hauled in an old boar freshly killed & were on their way to donate to the Tulalip Tribe. No cla4ification if they shot it or if it was a road kill. Another bear got into a chicken coup & rabbit hutches. Hutches destroyed, 8 rabbits gone. Bear returned 5he next night to find landowners had strung hot wires out. Another hunter reported a bear destroyed his deer decoys (left the bear decoy alone). No official “bear down” reports yet.

I can’t hunt ‘til the general season this year. That won’t keep me out of the woods though.

While the Spring season started the 1st & bear activity is being reported in some units, some units, due to elevation & snow do not see much activity until the end of May.

All the hunters on the bear forum of Hunt WA are waiting for the 1st bear down report.

Short update today. Sorry for no details. Two bears have now been reported down on the Hunt Washington forum. To review, this is a special damage control hunt in specific areas as a request of timber companys who are experiencing significant damage to 10-40 year old timber by bears peeling the bark to eat the sugar-laden cambium layer of mostly Douglas Fir trees (cash crop of Pacific Northwest timber companys). A limited number of (lucky) hunters are drawnfor each specific area they have put in for. Any legal type of hunting weapon may be used to take 1 black bear. Modern firearm, muzzleloader, crossbow, compound or traditional. Unlike the general season, hunters are not required to wear a specific amount of blaze orange clothing on the upper torso. Again, hound & hunting over bait was taken away from us several years ago (healthy bear population w/bear encounters on the increase in some areas...duh).

On 11 May a mature, color phase boar was taken in the Wanaha special hunt area. This is in the SE corner of our state just across the border from Eastern Oregon. Solo hunter had to pack it out (he did it). No details but the bear was a beautiful color...slightly more red than the beloved Hershey Bar. Not what we call a “pumpkin head” & definitely old.

Yesterday a jet black, 250# boar was taken in what the hunter described as the Quinault area. There isn’t a special hunt area by this name. Up on the Olympic Penninsula there is the Quinault Reservation. He did state this was the 2d bear taken this year. WDFW only allows 1 bear out of the 2 bear limit to be taken during the Spring special hunt. I’m guess’in that he was hunting on the Reservation. The Quinault Nation has fish & game laws that are compatible but different to the State of Washington. An example is that while the Reservation is within Washington’s boundrys, you can legally hire a reservation guide & take a bear over bait. This hunter also stated this was the 31st bear taken in his lifetime (!).

Hope this isn’t too boring for you hunters waiting for your season to start, hope it is an incentive or an encouragement for your own season to start.