G'day from Australia! Ive been invited to come and stay with a friend who lives in Spokane for a few weeks and thought its about time I hunted overseas. I've yet to work out all the details and thought that you fine people could offer some advice. My mate has offered for me to speak to one of his hunting obsessed friends and he thinks he would likely take me out too. I'm interested in hunting deer (not fussed what species, both would be great) and hopefully elk (my holy grail of hunting targets). I'm completely happy with representative trophies of each but of course bigguns would be great!! I've yet to talk to my mates friend and find out how confident he would be of getting me onto animals but thought I would enquire about which guides are the best in the area or if DIY is the way to go?? I'm relatively new to bowhunting (only been at it a few months) but have rifle hunted for ages. I will take my own bow and use my mates rifles so either is an option for me. Can I use archery equipment during rifle seasons? Being quite new with the bow and totally unfamiliar with the majority of your hunting methods- treestsnds, blinds, bait stations etc, I am concerned about my likely hood of success if I went out on my own. It seems that the airfares are going to be very cheap and I don't have to pay for accommodation, so ill save some coin there. The Aussie dollar is expected to crash soon so the cost of a guided hunt is going to be quite substantial and I would like to avoid any excessively expensive guides. As I said I'm not looking for the biggest heads if they're gonna cost too much, just something ill be proud to hang on the wall. Hell! May as well ask.. If anyone reckons they could get me onto deer or elk around Spokane next year I would be more than happy to take them out for Red Stag, Fallow Buck or the Mighty Sambar deer in Australia for absolutely nothing and at anytime Between march and September.. Plus we don't need tags here so very affordable I'm very excited about this proposed adventure and wish to have all the info so I can make the best decision and have the greatest success.. Thanks very much in advance.. I greatly look forward to hearing from you
Remember, while you're up and about. We're sleeping..So you're going to have to give us a bit to try and help you out. I can't really recommend a guide for you because I'm on the other side of the country, but Google can help you out in that regard. You stated that you'd like to avoid expensive guides. That's a relative term, what might be expensive to you, might be average to someone else, and visa versa. I'l tell you what I can though. 1. In the western states, they mostly hunt mule deer and elk, the same way you hunt red stags. Spot and stalk. 2. You should be concerned with your likelihood of success with or without a guide. There's no guarantee that you'll tag an elk with a guide, there are no refunds, there are no second chances. 3. I haven't looked into Washington state specifically, I'll leave that up to you. On average, you should expect a 5 day hunt for elk and mule deer combo to be something in the range of $5-10,000. If you want to specifically hunt Roosevelt Elk, you're going to spend $15-20k. That doesn't include your non-resident tag that will cost you somewhere between $500-$1000. 4. I don't know whether or not Washington has archery w/firearm season. All states have different rules and regulations, so spend some time on their website to find out. 5. Also, most states have a "lottery" to get specific hunting tags. This may be the case with Washington, not sure, you'll have to check. http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01589/wdfw01589.pdf
Thanks for the input mate! It seems I can get non resident tags easily enough. And if I went the guided option they would organise them for me.. A lot of the guides offer elk/deer combo hunts but anything over 3-4k is too much for me. Perhaps semi guided might be the way to go.. Or maybe ill do a guided deer hunt and try elk on my own. I have full use of all equipment and clothing so I could do a backpack hunt provided I could find land on which to legally do it. I think ill wait to talk to my mates friend and see what he thinks. Cheers again mate
