The window of opportunity to hold down this year's costs for hunting and fishing in Washington is closing.
On Thursday, Sept. 1, the cost of many hunting and fishing licenses, permits, endorsements, stamps and tags goes up.
For a list of the new fees, check out wdfw.wa.gov/licensing/license_fees.html. The current and soon-to-be old prices are on pages 12 and 14 of the individual 2011 hunting and fishing regulations pamphlets.
This is not an across-the-board fee increase as some documents for youth, seniors and people with disabilities will actually drop in price.
Basic hunting and fishing licenses in Washington are valid from April 1 to March 31, so an immediate purchase will last you in good stead through all fall bird and big game seasons as well as fall/winter lake and steelheading seasons at the lower cost.
This new permanent increase in hunting and license fees is the first in more than a decade, according to Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, and will raise $8 million to bridge a projected gap between revenues and the agency's operating costs in the next two years.
Licenses buyers will note that the 10 percent surcharge tacked on last year to tide the department over through the earlier budget crisis ended in June.
Revenues from hunting license sales and a portion of those from fishing licenses go into the Wildlife Fund, which is a specially earmarked state government account that is a key source of department operating monies.
WDFW also receives allocations from the state's general fund, certain federal excise taxes and grants and from the new Discover Pass.
License purchasers should note that if they confine their activities to just WDFW owned or leased lands they do not need to buy the Discover document. You will receive a complimentary (no fee) vehicle access permit with your hunting and fishing license purchase good on WDFW water accesses and wildlife areas.
But if you do plan to visit state parks or department of natural resources administered lands the additional $30 Discover Pass is required.
HUNTING DOG TUNE-UPS
You can exercise your canine hunting companion at the Whatcom Wildlife Area's Lake Terrell Unit this month in advance of this fall's bird seasons that start in early September.
Activities should be confined to the headquarters area, and exercising duos are asked not to venture into the nearby barley-planted fields.
A Western Washington Pheasant permit is required to train dogs here and hunters may only enter the field between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of the regular hunting seasons, birds may be pursued and flushed, but may not be harmed or injured in any way.
For a listing of other state fish and wildlife sites open to dog training now, check page 21 of the Washington Migratory Waterfowl and Upland Game Seasons pamphlet now available at hunting and fishing license dealers.
RANGES IN PRE-SEASON MODE
With fall hunting seasons approaching, one of the items on your preparations list should be a check of your shooting skills, the accuracy of your sighting optics and the quality of your latest hand-loaded ammunition.
Besides the impromptu sites that have sprung up all over, there are four structured, safe shooting ranges where accomplishing these tasks, especially sight-ins, can be done quickly and effectively.
In addition, there are two archery oriented facilities offering different types of realistic shooting scenarios on which to perfect your prowess with a bow and arrows.
One range is publically owned, while the other three are privately operated by local groups under corporate charters.
Plantation Rifle Range: 5102 Samish Way near North Lake Samish interchange on I-5. Online at co.whatcom.wa.us/parks/range/riflerange.jsp. Range phone: 360-676-9770. Covered outdoor high-powered rifle (300-yard max.), indoor pistol and smallbore (25-yard max.), outdoor pistol and smallbore (100-yard max.) and a trap range. Day use or annual fee. Operated by Whatcom County Parks and Recreation Department.
Custer Sportsmen's Club: 3000 Birch Bay-Lynden Road just east of the Birch Bay-Lynden Road Interchange on I-5. Online at http://www.custersportsmensclub.com/. Range phone: 360-366-3150. Covered outdoor high-powered rifle and numerous other shooting discipline venues. Private club-operated facility available for scheduled public use with various fees.
Lynden Shotgun Club: 8823 Weidkamp Road northwest of Lynden south of West Badger Road. Online at lyndenshotgunclub.com/index.html. Range phone: 360 354-2331. Trap and skeet ranges. Summer operation includes Tuesdays and Thursdays evenings and Saturdays. Private club-operated range available for scheduled public use with various fees.
Bellingham Gun Club: 941 Larsen Road off Northwest Road. Range phone: 360-384-1001. Trap and skeet ranges. Summer operation includes Wednesday evenings and Sundays. Private club-operated range available for scheduled public use with various fees.
Custer Archers: this department of the Custer Sportsmen's Club operates two ranges:
? Lake Terrell Range in the Intalco (Alcoa) Unit of the Whatcom Wildlife Area: 40 silhouette targets on walk-through course plus a 10- to 70- yard sight-in range. Entry to the area is off Lake Terrell Road at Douglas Road. Daily use fee is on the honor system. Self-monitored range safety rules. These ranges close Wednesday, Aug. 31, for a refurbishment project and in anticipation of coming hunting season.
? Birch Bay-Lynden Road Range at Custer Sportsmen's Club: 3-D target range. Online at custersportsmensclub.com/archery.html. Range phone: 360-354-2331. Archery discipline chair: Andrew Gamble. Private club-operated facility available for scheduled public use with various fees.
WRITTEN AUTHORIZATIONS EXPLAINED
If you are eligible, you should have received or will shortly get a postcard from the fish and wildlife department explaining this year's procedure for securing written authorizations to hunt band-tailed pigeons, sea ducks, brant and/or snow geese.
If you are on the department's comprehensive hunter list for any or all of these species, regardless of whether you reported in a timely fashion at the close of the 2010 seasons, you will be able to draw the written authorization(s) you want for the 2011-12 season.
If you have never held a written authorization for any or all of these game bird species, you can go online now at wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/permits/migratory/index.html and make your first time application.
For all would-be 2011 holders, the department will not start issuing the written authorizations until Thursday, Sept. 1.
And they will not be mailed out.
You will have to go to a hunting and fishing license dealer to close the deal because there will be a $13.20 basic fee that must be paid. In addition, each report card (up to four) will cost $.50 extra.
Waterfowl Section Manager Don Kraege said the fee was authorized by the 2011 Legislature and was made necessary by the rising costs of managing these specialty migratory bird species.
The costs of survey flights alone have reached $75,000 annually just to determine if populations are at threshold huntable levels.
Failure to carry out requisite oversight activities in an effort to reduce spending could eventually have an effect on hunting seasons for these species, said Kraege, hence the need for the fee to cover these ever-more expensive costs.
FISHING RULES CHANGES
Dedicated crabbers in Birch Bay and Drayton Harbor will already know this, but it happens almost anticlimactically, Strait of Georgia waters opened Monday, Aug. 15, to personal use gathering of Dungeness and red rock crab for the summer. Crabbing is open Thursday to Monday each week to the end of September. Online: wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/shellfish/crab/area.php?id=13.
Okanogan County's Salmon Creek for the next 2 1/2 months has had limits for eastern brook and smallmouth bass relaxed in anticipation of the repatriation of native summer steelhead. Anglers may keep 10 each of the exotic species with no size limits. Online: fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/erule.jsp?id=1080.
So many anglers started flocking to Westport to plumb the ocean for salmon in late July when the fishery went to seven days a week with a two chinook limit that it tipped the recreation catch rates wildly out of whack. To slow down sport landings to a rate that will enable the quota-driven season to stay open for its full, planned duration, managers have throttled it back to five days a week, allowing just one keeper king per angler a day. Those were the limits when it started. Online: fortress.wa.gov/dew/ferules/efishrules/erule.jsp?id=1084 and fortress.wa.gov/dfw/erules/efishrules/erule.jsp?id=1085.
The Skagit River from Gilligan Creek to Dalles Bridge (near Concrete) opened Tuesday, Aug. 16, for coho and pink salmon. See page 35 in the fishing pamphlet.
Greater Bellingham Bay, including Samish Bay except for the inner Fish Point closure, also opened Tuesday, Aug. 16, for the fall chinook fishery. Anglers may keep four salmon a day including two chinook. See page 113 in the fishing pamphlet.
Doug Huddle, the Bellingham Herald's outdoors correspondent, since 1983, has written a weekly hunting and fishing column that appears Fridays. Read and comment on his blog at blogs.bellinghamherald.com/outdoors.
