Headlines

Nearly two dozen bison are roaming a reservation in Northcentral Washington after tribal wildlife managers released them “to live in the wild” there today.

You may have heard me say this before, but with all of our deer hunting coverage, the October issue of Northwest Sportsman is one of my absolute favorites of the year to put together. Yet something’s been missing each fall, and I’m rectifying it this season. 

Deer managers and biologists at the Washington and Oregon Departments of Fish and Wildlife provide their thoughts on this season’s blacktail, mule deer and whitetail prospects.

One of the Northwest’s largest independent fishing and hunting retailers has a new owner.

Get it done, WDFW! That would be my official public comment on the agency’s proposal to allow anglers and hunters to use their phones for storing their licenses as well as electronically tagging big game and reporting their catches.

WDFW announces that winter crab season will open October 1 in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, San Juan Islands, Admiralty Inlet, waters off Camano Island and in northern Hood Canal.

Elk hoof disease may be causing more widespread changes in the ungulates’ bodies than was previously known and which might also be passed down to their calves, according to researchers looking into the debilitating condition striking wapiti in Southwest Washington and beyond.

Public comment has opened on a federal plan to restore grizzly bears to Washington’s North Cascades, and the National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service are taking input on three alternatives.

A memorandum signed by President Biden today directs a host of federal agencies “to prioritize the restoration of healthy and abundant wild salmon, steelhead, and other native fish populations to the Columbia River Basin.”

A bill that would reauthorize funding hunter education and archery programs in schools passed the US House of Representatives in a near-unanimous vote yesterday and the Senate today, it has been reported.

WDFW announced that razor clam digging has been greenlighted for Long Beach, Twin Harbors and Copalis starting September 29, but marine toxin levels are postponing the season opener at Mocrocks.

Governor Jay Inslee is acknowledging the monumental importance of hunting and fishing to conservation in Washington in a proclamation he signed ahead of tomorrow’s national day of recognition for the beloved ways of life.

WDFW will hold an online town hall the evening of October 25 to begin talking to anglers and the public about the shape of the 2023-24 coastal winter steelhead season for streams from Forks to Naselle.

CWD was detected in northern Idaho in 2021, just 30 miles from the Oregon border. It is always fatal to deer and elk and there is no cure. The more animals that are tested, the more certain ODFW can be that the disease is not in the state. If it is detected, ODFW can implement its…

A recently approved habitat conservation plan for private timberlands in the Clackamas and Molalla River basins east of Portland is being called a first of its kind for Oregon and is expected to result in improved Chinook, coho and steelhead habitat.

Federal governments on both sides of the North Cascades appear to be moving forward more seriously now with plans to reintroduce grizzly bears in the rugged border-straddling range.

An agreement between the federal government and Northeast Washington tribes will “fund efforts to test the feasibility of, and ultimately to reintroduce salmon in blocked habitats” of the Upper Columbia River.

ODFW reports having to release over 400,000 fall Chinook and 23,000 winter steelhead being reared at the Elk River Hatchery earlier than planned after level three evacuations caused by a wildfire burning in the Coast Range.

Fall salmon fishing on the Lower Columbia has been reopened from Puget Island to Warrior Rock and extended from Warrior Rock to Bonneville Dam effective September 22, state managers decided this afternoon.

Latest catch stats for the Hanford Reach of the Mid-Columbia show increasing fall Chinook catches and word that the daily limit for upriver brights may increase to two if the good early dam counts continue to track.

Mid-September 2023 fall Chinook, coho and steelhead catch stats for the Lower Columbia and select Southwest Washington tributaries.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission took action today to “make it unlawful to organize, sponsor, conduct, or participate in a contest that has the objective of killing unprotected mammals native” to the state.

Oregon is putting out the word that those who turn in poachers stand to earn twice the reward money and here are three recent cases they need info on.

Even as Washington razor clam managers have their eye on somewhat elevated marine toxin levels, they’re announcing the fall season could begin September 29 and tentatively set 36 days of digging through the end of the year.

With catches during the September nonselective coho season nearing the quota even after an impact-neutral rollover from the summer hatchery fishery, the Oregon Coast between Cape Falcon and Humbug Mountain will close for coho retention as of September 18, said state managers, who will reevaluate next week “to determine if any more days can be…

Columbia fishery managers this afternoon extended recreational salmon season from Warrior Rock to Bonneville Dam through September 21 and OKed a three-day reopener from Puget Island up to the rock starting September 15. That was the easy part; the tough part saw ODFW and WDFW slip well out of concurrency on commercial gillnetting.

A fishing derby on the Coquille River targeting smallmouth has been extended through October 1, and it and other population reduction efforts appear to having an effect on the smolt-eating bass.

WDFW catch stats for fall Chinook on the Hanford Reach of the mid-Columbia for early September 2023.

Oregon wildlife troopers are asking for tips to help solve the illegal poaching of a pair of mule deer in two different parts of the state east of the Cascades in late August.

Lower Columbia salmon managers reopened Chinook retention at Buoy 10 starting tomorrow, September 8, a day earlier than their staffers initially proposed.

Youth hunters will again have a chance to hunt pheasants at Southwest Washington’s Shillapoo Wildlife Area in mid-September, thanks to a weekend-long event hosted by the Vancouver Wildlife League and WDFW.

Another petition that would have more tightly shackled Washington wolf management has been withdrawn – if only temporarily.

Washington state has recently become ground zero in the fight to save hunting, with their bear and cougar seasons currently under attack.