NACHES, Wash. — At the Hoodoo Mountain Resort he owns in central Oregon, Chuck Shepard is often the smiling, hand-shaking guy who greets people in the parking lot or the ski lodge.

Chuck Shepard

No, he’s not running for office. He’s just running his business.

And now that Shepard’s Hoodoo operation is taking over as campground concessionaire for the Naches Ranger District, visitors at the campground can expect to see that same kind of personal touch from Shepard.

When visitors go online to Hoodoo’s site to check out what sites are available at campgrounds and what they have to offer, for example, every individual campsite rating — A, B or C — will have been determined by Shepard himself. Because he will have been to every one.

And when a camper wants to complain about something — poor maintenance at a campground, or a surly campground host — that e-mail won’t go to an underling, one of Shepard’s approximately 500 employees. It will go to Shepard himself.

“I’m fairly eccentric, I guess,” admitted Shepard, whose business interests include the ski area, real-estate and land-management companies and a growing campground management empire that already encompasses the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, Willamette (Ore.) and Deschutes (Ore.) national forests.

“How would I know what changes need to be made if I don’t see the complaints and talk to people directly?” Shepard said.

“As the CEO of my companies, the most important thing I do is talk to my customers. At my ski area, I’m sort of famous for being in the parking lot and greeting people, finding out about their experience. It helps me know what’s going on.”

And if somebody is e-mailing a complaint about a campground host, Shepard says, it will be going to “somebody that will know what they’re talking about and will do something about it. Over the 10 years Hoodoo has been involved in campground management, “we’ve fired at least six hosts that started with an e-mail from a camper.”

Hoodoo bid for and won the Naches district’s five-year campground-management contract previously held by Northwest Land Management. District recreation specialist Jacqueline Beidl said campers can expect to see some price changes, but that “in most cases they’ll be a little bit lower.”

Shepard, whose company has become the largest campground concessionaire in Washington and Oregon — “by far,” he claims — said he believes in charging prices based on quality.

“Our philosophy is the campgrounds that are less popular or perhaps not as nice as some others should be priced less,” he said. “Northwest Land Management’s philosophy seemed to be that all the campgrounds should be priced pretty much the same.”

Hoodoo’s camping fees throughout the district will range from $14 to $20, with the priciest ones having either better amenities, better views or perhaps better waterfront locations. At the high end will be Indian Creek ($20) and Bumping Lake ($18-$20), while Hell’s Crossing, Soda Springs, Little Naches, Windy Point and Willows will all be on the other end of the scale at $14 each.

Last year, fees at most campsites in the Naches district were either $17 or $19.

All sites at any one campground, though, will be the same, whether Shepard has rated the site an A, B or C. NLM charged more for what are called “premium sites,” such as water-frontage sites.

The fee for a second vehicle will cost a bit more with Hoodoo — half the basic camping fee ($7 for a $14 site, for example), as opposed to the straight $5 charged by NLM. Day-use fees at campgrounds will be a flat $5 per vehicle.

Beidl said part of the reason Hoodoo’s bid was successful was the company’s wide-ranging business model, which includes a contractor’s license and the ability to make campground improvements the Forest Service might otherwise have to bid out.

“Hoodoo has demon-strated they’ve got the crews and the technological expertise to be able to do a lot of the things, and make a lot of the changes, that we’d like to see at some of these campgrounds,” Beidl said. “I think we’ll see a lot of improvements in the campgrounds over time because of that.”

If you are near a quiet river or lake edged with trees and hear a loud, rattling call, look around. That sound betrays the location of a belted kingfisher.

It would be great if all birds were as easy to identify as the kingfisher. If it’s perched, you can’t miss its oversized head, its shaggy “hairdo” and dagger-shaped bill.

How to spot one: Look for it perched on a branch overlooking its favorite fishing hole, or perhaps hovering over water, using its rapidly beating wings like a helicopter.

If you have the opportunity to take a closer look, note its medium size — roughly between that of a jay and a crow — and the slate blue above and white on its belly. The male has a gray-blue band across his breast; females have two bands, blue above and rust below. It is distinctive in flight, too, with prominent white patches that flash as the bird alternates a series of slow beats with a few very rapid downbeats, as if changing gears.

In this copyrighted 2006 photo by Spokane area wildlife photographer Tom Munson, a kingfisher uses its sharp beak to spear its next meal from a pond at the base of Mount Spokane. See more of Munson’s work at www.pbase.com/clinton62. (TOM MUNSON/Special to the Herald-Republic)

Diet: Kingfishers are well-named as they eat mostly small fish, up to 5 inches long. When a kingfisher sights a fish, it dives head-first into the water and stabs its prey. They also tackle frogs, tadpoles, aquatic bugs and crayfish. They occasionally eat small mammals and birds, even lizards.

Social life: Male kingfishers court their chosen mate by bringing fish and feeding her. After this brief dating scene, the birds select a nest site on the side of a steep dirt bank, more sandy than clay. Vertical sides of irrigation canals are a favorite spot in the Yakima Valley.

Both sexes dig a long tunnel, sloping slightly upwards with a chamber at the end. They build no nest but the female simply lays six or seven white eggs on the dirt. Incubation for 22 or so days is by female at night. The male takes over early in the morning and continues to incubate off and on during the day.

Both parents feed the young, at first by regurgitating partially digested fish into their mouths. Later, the young are fed whole fish. The male usually brings in more food than the female. The young leave the nest after 27 to 29 days.

What you may not know: Worldwide, there are 90 species of kingfishers, many of them in Asia, Africa, and Australia. Many are land birds, feeding on rodents, retiles, or insects. The laughing kookaburra, a famous Australian bird, is actually one of the largest of the world’s kingfishers. This woodland bird is well-named; its wild call sounds like a human laughing.

• Wildlife Moment, focusing on native wildlife, typically runs in Outdoors on the first Tuesday of every month, with the cooperation of the Yakima Valley Audubon Society.

There is an old saying about spring and how a young man’s thoughts turn to love during that time of the year. I can’t find any adage, though, about how in the middle of winter a man, no matter how young or old, will turn his thoughts to spring and all that might come with it. But it happens. I am living proof.

Over the past few days, my thoughts have turned to warmer temperatures and all that the springtime months offer in the outdoors, and I know this feeling of yearning will only get stronger — especially this year.

Love even has a small part in all of this, for over the years I have grown to love spring turkey hunting and spring salmon fishing more than just about anything else I do all year.

I have to admit, when I was a young man other kinds of love played a part in all of my activities — and it didn’t matter what time of the year it was, quite frankly. During the courtship of my wife, which was a lengthy five-year period, I missed many a fishing and hunting trip for activities such as dances and dates.

But now, after 32 years of marriage, our schedules and our interests meld together quite nicely, and I can turn to thoughts of strutting gobblers and hard-fighting salmon without worrying too much about upsetting other commitments.

Both of these seasons are still weeks or even months away, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be thinking about them, anticipating them, getting ready for them.

Over the past seven or eight years, turkeys — and the pursuit thereof — have become more and more of a priority with me. Once you have finally buffaloed one of these crafty critters, there grows a passion to do it over and over again. If it were easy, that passion would be void. But it is not easy. With turkeys it is rarely easy. The challenge is what creates the fire.

Throwing gas on that fire is knowing there seems to be even more turkeys around this year, and with the mild winter, the birds should have come through in good shape.

My son Kyle, friend Rob Robillard and I hunted turkeys in December during the late fall season up in Stevens County, and the birds were everywhere. They’ll be there come the April 15 opener. Or, at least, that is every turkey hunter’s hope.

The chance to chase spring salmon will come sooner than the turkey season. In fact, it is about this time every year the first of the spring salmon are caught in the lower Columbia River.

The best fishing, however, won’t be for another month or more, in the Columbia below Bonneville Dam. Then, as the fish move upstream to the popular fishing holes such as the Wind and Drano and the Klickitat, it may be late April or even May before the fishing gets red hot.

And it is even looking good for another season on the Yakima River, which most likely wouldn’t be until May. Depending on spring runoff and other factors, could this be the spring we get more than just a week or two of good salmon fishing on the Yakima?

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Of course, with a near-record run of spring chinook salmon forecast for the Columbia and tributaries, it makes it easy to start dreaming about the days of fishing ahead.

With some 470,000 chinook headed up the river, it leads a person to believe he has a better-than-average chance of catching one or two of these prized fish to take home for the barbecue.

Not only is it the thrill of catching one of these fantastic fish, it is the anticipation of eating what is arguably the best eating salmon in the world.

There are still six weeks of winter to get through, but no matter what some oversized gopher in Pennsylvania predicts today, spring — and all of the opportunities it brings — is definitely on my mind. It can’t get here soon enough, if you ask me.

• Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.

The latest in a series of elk-poaching incidents near the Clover Springs elk feeding site has Washington

Department of Fish and Wildlife enforcement officials looking for assistance.

Do you know someone who has recently come home with, begun showing around or started bragging about a fresh new set of what are probably some pretty big elk antlers?

On the night of Sunday, Jan. 23, someone shot and killed a large bull elk near the Clover Springs site, which is along Clover Springs (1600) Road off Nile Loop Road.

The bull must have been a pretty impressive rack of antlers, too, because the poachers simply chain-sawed the antlers off, took them and left the body lying there.

WDFW enforcement Capt. Rich Mann said WDFW staffers or volunteers were at the site until 4:30 p.m. that day, so the poaching must have taken place sometime after that. Snow that night also covered all of the vehicle tracks.

Typically, poaching around any feed site is reported by people in the area, Mann said.

“The locals kind of watch the area, but nobody happened to see that one. We’ve had really good support, but on this one we don’t have anything on it.”

Anyone with any information is asked to call the state’s confidential poaching hotline at 1-877-WDFW-TIP (877-933-9847), or the regional WDFW enforcement office at 509-457-9315.

Clover Springs is just one of a half-dozen places in which volunteers with the WDFW provide winter feed to help the animals through the coldest months of the year.

In two different poaching incidents on Jan. 16 and a third on Jan. 23, nearby residents or passersby reported the violations, and Mann expects the county to file charges in each case.

In another case in December, a Yakima man killed a large, 7-by-7 branch-antlered bull in the Cowiche Mountain area, and prosecutors are expecting to file charges on that one as well.

The Clover Springs site has endured a higher incidence of poaching, Mann said, because it’s more remote than some of the other feed-site areas around Central Washington.

“If you compare it to our other feeding sites, it’s out of the way. It doesn’t have a lot of public around it,” Mann said. “(The main feed lot at) Oak Creek is extremely visible. If somebody went in and shot an animal there, the public would probably mob them.”

CWU outdoor speaker series set this month

This month’s annual Outdoor Speaker Series put on by the Central Washington University Outdoor Pursuits and Rentals will feature Thursday-evening lectures and presentations from Northwest adventurers.

Rob Gibson of the Washington State Department of Transportation will open the series this Thursday with a presentation on “the four-legged friends who patrol Alpental’s backcountry” — the dogs that assist in search-and-rescue missions in the Alpental valley north of Snoqualmie Pass. (Some of the rescue dogs will be on hand, and attendees will receive complimentary gift collars.)

The following Thursday (Feb. 11) will feature a presentation on bicycle-touring the Pacific Coast and Europe by CWU student (and Outdoor Pursuits employee) Kurt McCanles, whose bike trip last summer included much of the West Coast and 13 European countries.

On Feb. 18, another OPR employee and CWU student, Conor Byrne, will discuss the history of climbing on Alaska’s Denali (Mount McKinley), and Byrne’s summit attempt last summer by way of the Muldrow Glacier route, one of the world’s longest summit routes.

On Feb. 25, mountain climbers Jens Holsten and Max Hasson will discuss free-climbing in the Stuart Range, where the two were among the first climbers to scale the west face of the North Gunsight peak completely “free” — that is, without the use of ropes.

For more information on the series, call 509-963-3537 or e-mail outdoorpursuits@cwu.edu.

All events begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Student Union and Recreation Center, room 137B, and are free and open to the public.

*******
Sportfishing rules go before commission

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission will consider adopting the 2010-12 package of sportfishing rules and making updates to the Columbia River sturgeon management policy during its meeting Friday and Saturday at Olympia’s Natural Resources Building.

More than 100 sportfishing rules, all developed with public input and discussed at the commission’s November and December meetings, will be up for adoption. They range from a set of protective measures for rockfish to a new harvest schedule and daily bag limit for Dungeness crab in Puget Sound. Among them: a requirement for the use of single-point, barbless hooks for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River from the mouth to McNary Dam.

For more details on the rules package, go online to: wdfw.wa.gov/fish/regs/rule_proposals .

The commission will also  consider updates to its policy managing the Columbia River sturgeon population, with white sturgeon declining in numbers and this year’s mainstem harvest already having been cut by 20 to 50 percent.

The commission also is scheduled to discuss the Columbia River spring chinook management policy in light of the 2010 fishing season. Although this year’s upriver spring chinook run is expected to be one of the strongest on record, a recent negotiated agreement requires the states of Washington and Oregon to take additional steps to ensure that catch-balancing objectives for tribal and non-tribal fisheries are achieved.

*******
Blankenship, Turnbull top Button shooters

D.J. Blankenship and Jim Turnbull captured the men’s division’s two buttons in a four-man shootoff that included Sean Dailey and Dale Klingele in Sunday’s fifth round of the Yakima Valley Sportsmen trap club Button Shoot at the Pomona range.

Bob Gray had the 25×25 round to take the first button in the senior division, with Dennis Martinen hitting 24 for the second button. Sarah Boyle of White Swan topped the juniors.

Bob Gray’s 25 helped Yakima to a 97×100 on the Telephonic competition, with nine shooters turning in 24×25 rounds. Ken Smith and James Klingele split the Annie Oakley pot, while Rick White took the long-shot jackpot.

Shooting starts every Sunday at 9:30 a.m.

*******
BIRD ALERT

An afternoon bird walk — with a focus on Buchanan Lake as a waterfowl night roost — produced some interesting birds, including a male lesser scaup escorting three females at the concert pond on the Zirkle Pathway.

On Buchanan Lake, the walkers noted 80 common goldeneyes, close to 300 Canada geese, mallards, a few wood ducks and American wigeon. Along the Greenway adjacent to the Arboretum was a western screech owl and a varied thrush. A white-throated sparrow danced back into view and provided great looks as it foraged for a minute or so in an open area along the Poppoff trail.

A late afternoon hike up a steep track from the Yakima Canyon put one local birder above the din of traffic and in company with eagles. First noted was a lone adult bald eagle across the Yakima River on the west side of the river. Next came a pair of golden eagles cavorting in the air currents.

Moments later two pairs of bald eagles played in the wind at eye level, far out over the canyon. Higher up the track, gray-crowned rosy and horned larks could be heard calling overhead. On the hiking descent, a canyon wren sang its lovely pure-tone chant from the cliffs across the river.

A tour of the Horse Heaven hills gave proof spring isn’t far off, with western meadowlarks singing in the grasslands and the sighting of two male mountain bluebirds. Also spotted were Townsend’s solitaire, red-tailed hawk, rough-legged hawk, American kestrel, great-horned owl and northern shrike.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963

— Kerry L. Turley

*******
AROUND AND ABOUT

WINTER LOGGING: Winter logging operations are underway in the Wildcat area off of Forest Service Road 1306, which will be cleared to its junction with the 1362 road. Users should pay particular attention to signs and truck traffic especially during mid-week.

Forest Service Road 1702 is open to four-wheeled traffic. Due to ongoing logging operations, the Rock Creek Sno-Park has been moved to the upper Sno-Park location. The 1701 road is open to motorized vehicles, but  anyone driving this road should pay attention to logging truck traffic.

WHERE TO SNOWMOBILE? According to the law-enforcement folks who work the high country, as well as local businesses and groomers, the best snowmobiling right now is in the Pinegrass area south of Rimrock, and Timberwolf north of Rimrock. The South Fork Tieton (1000) Road is beginning to show asphalt along the lower portions. The Little Naches has had more snow disappearing that falling, while Government Meadows conditions has decent snow that’s steadily deteriorating.

*******
ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ hardy Tuesday group will meet at 8 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot and head out to whatever ski, snowshoe or hike the trip leader has planned. Pack a lunch, bring lots of water and be prepared for anything.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies, in a change from the club’s newsletter, will hike on Oak Creek Road. For meeting time and place, call Norb John at 509-697-5641.

SNOQUALMIE PASS — The weather was cold and wet, with a hint of drizzle, but that didn’t keep Holly Allen from brimming with enthusiasm.

Nyssa Spring puts toe-warmers into her boots to help keep her feet warm during the midpoint break of a guided snowshoe trip with her Riverside Christian classmates on Jan. 14 at Snoqualmie Pass. (SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic)

“Is anybody else as excited about this as I am?” the Riverside Christian High School senior blurted as she and 18 others hiked along the Snoqualmie Summit roadway, each of them carrying a pair of snowshoes.

No one responded, but it was clear Allen wasn’t the only one excited about the prospect of strapping on those snowshoes and heading out on a two-hour trek on the snow-covered trails north of the Snoqualmie ski resort.

This was, after all, actually part of the school day — teacher Don Giuntoli’s “life sports” class at Riverside Christian, in which students learn the value of lifelong physical fitness through activities such as water skiing, horseback riding, martial arts, snow skiing and, yes, snowshoeing.

This excursion, the first time on snowshoes for most of these students, was part of a program jointly run by the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanogan-Wenatchee national forests out of the Forest Service’s Snoqualmie Pass visitor center.

Kim Larned, the interpretive ranger who leads many of the guided snowshoe treks — including this Riverside Christian group — has seen the program’s popularity skyrocket. Last year, about 1,000 people took the guided trips, which range from easy, 90-minute beginner treks to half-day marathons.

“There’s kind of a debate about whether we should even be doing this,” Larned says, “because it’s really not what the Forest Service mandate is about.”

Aaron Ackerman and a group of students from Riverside Christian snowshoe up a trail during a recent guided trip at Snoqualmie Pass. (SARA GETTYS/Yakima Herald-Republic)

But the program does provide a needed public-relations boost to a federal agency often perceived as not being particularly user-friendly, and Larned says, “That’s what I argue every time they start going into ‘We’re going to need to close the Visitors Center this winter.’”

That would have been a disappointment to those Riverside Christian students like Allen, who was practically giddy with enjoyment at being out on snowshoes during a school day.

*******

At a clearing a couple hundred yards up the trail, Larned announced that the group would race across the snow-covered meadow, to see how quickly the kids were taking to the snowshoes. The “race” was punctuated by laughter, and at the finish Allen was shouting to the world, “I beat a basketball player! I can’t believe it, I beat a basketball player!”

Kelly Keenapple, a junior who competes in both the school’s volunteer and basketball programs, grimaced melodramatically. “Don’t put that in the paper,” she said only half-jokingly to a reporter jotting down notes.

A few of the students have snowshoed before. Senior Willie Gunnoe — one of the fastest finishers in the “race” — had gone twice before. Skyler Verstrate, a junior who was born in Alaska, said he had been on snowshoes “too many times to count.” But when it was suggested he could probably teach the class, he shook his head.

“No, not hardly,” said Verstrate, who had brought along three pairs of his own snowshoes to lend to classmates. “Every time you do stuff like this, you learn different things.”

Larned was patiently focused on making sure the students learned about more than snowshoeing, quizzing them about forest life at every rest stop.

A group of students from Riverside Christian takes a guided snowshoeing trip, led by interpretive ranger Kim Larned at Snoqualmie Pass.

“So,” she asked at the first break, “what happens to a deciduous tree in the winter?”

“It stays green,” someone responded.

“No, it drops its leaves,” Larned said, going on to discuss the differences between those trees and evergreens — and how to tell how old each tree was.

“This is a western hemlock,” she said. “Anybody want to tell me how old this tree is?”

“Really old,” senior Nyssa Spring cracked.

Larned nodded, ignoring the chuckles. “That’s actually a good answer,” she said. “This is about 800 years old. OK, how do you tell how old it is?”

“Core it,” answered Sam Buchanan, a sophomore.

“That’s right,” Larned said, seemingly impressed. She described how a botanist can, by screwing in a borer into the trunk of the tree and removing a “core” that looks something like a pencil, with tree rings that enable the botanist to determine the age of the tree.

She paused at a tree that had been struck by lightning, with the bottom of the tree largely cored out.

“Our normal snow depth here would be about 8 feet higher than it is now,” Larned said. “If we were at normal depth, this would be a great place for a fox or weasel to get down in there and spend the night.”

*******

At later stops, Larned discussed lichen growing on the trunk of the tree and how animals can gain nutrients by eating it, and about how much of the foliage east of the Cascade crest have qualities similar to those of desert plants — “even with everything dripping like this in the rain and snow.”

By the second stop, the simple exertion of the snowshoe trekking had prompted some of the students to peel off their jackets. Even the few who had worn cotton sweatpants didn’t seem to mind the snowy cold.

After a while, the students made their way up the steep grade — their snowshoes’ crampon-like cleats easily gripping the snow — and Larned announced that this will be the turnaround spot. Just up ahead was the border for the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, where the “12 heartbeats” rule applies: No more than 12 beating hearts are allowed in any group on the trail within a designated Wilderness, and this group exceeds that.

From left, Mark Charcus, Willie Gunnoe, Gage Neiffer, Aaron Ackerman, Jasen Morrow, and Kelly Keenapple have a snack at the midpoint of their snowshoeing trip at Snoqualmie Pass on Jan. 14.

The trek down the trail went significantly faster than the way up, though on the steep downhills, some of the students found their snowshoes becoming inadvertent skis and ended up on their rears.

“I keep falling down,” Holly

Allen said, laughing as she tried to negotiate the steepest section. “I might as well just stay down and slide instead of getting back up.”

She did just that, sliding down to the next level area, and then looked back to see most of the group behind her doing the same. She beamed triumphantly and said, “I started that.”

Buchanan was having no trouble with his snowshoe skills, using them as virtual skates at times. At one point, though, he ended up off the beaten path and on a creek bank. “Oh no,” he said ominously. “Walk on water skills.”

Huh?

He grinned sheepishly. “It’s from a video game.”

Larned continued her interpretive talks on the way down, telling them about the “moles, voles and shrews” living primarily underneath the snow during winter, “because on top of the snow they’d be pretty easy prey for predators.”

At the last stop before the end of the trek, Larned asked the assembled students how they liked snowshoeing. “Does this sound like something you’d want to do?”

There was general nodding all around. Kelly Keenapple responded uncertainly, “Yeah … one more time before my life’s over.”

It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago we were loading our gear and some eager dogs into the rigs for our annual trip to Eastern Montana for the opener of pheasant season.

The memories of that hunt and many others come quickly to mind as I think back over the past four months. Not all were as successful — or as far away — as our first hunt to the badlands of Montana in early October, but each was an adventure and all were fun.

Normally by this time in January, memories are all that remain of the fall and winter hunting seasons. But this year, thanks to a slightly altered waterfowl season, duck and goose hunters still have some hunting left. Most the waterfowl seasons this season remain open through Sunday, and with this milder weather there should be some good opportunities during these final few days.

Many times, as some of the ponds and creeks in the Yakima Valley thaw after a real cold spell, the ducks and geese begin migrating back into our area from the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

Reports last week from local waterfowlers indicated a new infusion of birds, and the hunting picked up.

Of course, there are always a few local ducks and geese that hang around no matter how cold it gets, but some of my best duck hunts in years past have come after a nice thaw. This weather reminds me of some of those hunts.

Hitting spots like the Sunnyside Wildlife Area, the Satus Wildlife Area and the Toppenish Wildlife Refuge might certainly be worth the effort if you have a hankering to wring the very most out of this year’s bird hunting license and waterfowl stamp.

These milder days bring on ideas of other outdoor quests as well. Seeing the ice melting from the I-82 ponds and some of the other local lakes gets the old fishing bug a-biting. Our region offers year-round fishing for trout and other fish in virtually every one of the local lakes and ponds, so anglers can wet a line just about whenever the spirit moves them.

Fishing the local lakes is one option. Another is to try fishing on the Columbia and some of the waters near the dams on the big river.

At last weekend’s Tri-Cities Sportsmen Show, a number of anglers were discussing the fairly consistent fishing for steelhead and walleye above and below the McNary Dam and in the Columbia near Richland.

Reports of good steelhead fishing are coming from the Ringold area of the Columbia as well, and the tens of thousands of steelhead heading through Eastern Washington up the Snake River make for plenty of chances to catch fish all the way up to Clarkston.

Fishing for the large triploid trout at Rufus Woods above Chief Joseph Dam on the Columbia is yet another option. I fished there in late December, and even with water temperatures in the upper 30s, we caught several of the fat rainbows.

According to guide Shane Magnuson, the optimum water temperature there is around 42, and these warmers days should be pushing the water temps up into that zone. Might be time to head up there and see about hooking into one of those monster trout.

Nearby at Lake Roosevelt, water temperatures don’t seem to be having any affect on the fishing. All winter long, anglers fishing for the planted rainbows in the huge lake above Grand Coulee Dam have been having good success. Biologists for the Colville Tribe, which plants the lake annually, say this winter has been one of the best ever and anglers are catching plenty of the 14- to 20-inch trout.

Mix in a few of those fat, landlocked salmon swimming in Lake Roosevelt, and you have a recipe for some fantastic fishing and some really good eating.

Yes, it’s still the middle of winter. But with non-mid-winter-like weather and some extended seasons, there is plenty to do outdoors, and time to make a few more memories in the days ahead.

• Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.

After dominating the Rocky Mountain Snowmobile Hillclimb Association’s semipro class so thoroughly that he was named RMSHA’s racer of the year, David Sharp Jr. — a 17-year-old East Valley High junior — qualified for the finals in three of five professional classes during his first outing as a pro.

At RMSHA’s opening race in Preston, Idaho, Sharp Jr. — who is still a year under the association’s minimum age for pros, but was petitioned up because of his skill level — tied for third (fourth in the tiebreaker) in pro 800 stock, RMSHA’s largest pro class. He also placed seventh in pro 800 improved, and eighth in pro 600 modified.

His uncle, Brad Sharp, won the pro master stock class and placed fourth in pro master improved stock and sixth in pro 600 stock. He also qualified in two other classes but had motor problems and had to sit out the finals.

David Sharp, recuperating from an offseason snow-mobile accident, entered three pro master classes and ended up second in all three — stock, improved stock, and modified.

Brian Thierolf of Yakima was eighth in pro 700 stock, and Josh Koreski of Yakima placed ninth in pro 1000 improved stock.

********
WRESTLING

Toppenish second in 29-team field

Armando Hernandez (103 pounds) and Aaron Arredondo (119) each captured his weight class in Saturday’s Clearwater Classic in Lewiston, Idaho, leading the Toppenish wrestling team to a second place finish.

The Wildcats finished with 186.5 points, trailing champion Post Falls, Idaho (200.5). The tournament drew 29 teams from Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Toppenish placers: 103: 1, Armando Hernandez; 112: 2, Jose Barrera; 119: 1, Aaron Arredondo; 125: 2, Julian Romero; 135: 5, Ralph Osorio; 140: 5, Adan Chavez; 171: 2, Andres Chavez; 215: 2, Narciso Gutierrez.

When I bought the airline tickets to Atlanta, I was not exactly sold on the trip.

However, my wonderful bride, Liz, was really looking forward to visiting all the Civil War battlefields from Georgia to Virginia. She’s a history buff with a serious interest in “The War of Northern Aggression,” as some Southerners refer to it.

Don’t get me wrong, though — I like old-timey stuff as much as the next Trout Bum, and a road trip is always to be savored.

About the time I realized my wife was out of the deciding stage and on to the get-the-airplane-ticket stage, I e-mailed a client and friend, Steve Philips, who lives in North Carolina. Steve does business in Seattle a week a year and always spends a day fishing with me.

To say Steve exudes Southern charm would be an insult to the folks who brought him up. He is truly a Southern gentleman.

All I wrote was, “What are the chances you could get us a redfish guide out of Charleston on October 13?” I received a one word e-mail: “DONE,” with his cell number.

That is what I like about the few Southerners I have known: They are either in or out. It’s never “Let me check my Blackberry and I’ll get back to you,” or some other weak-kneed excuse.

The first full day of our road trip took us to Savannah, Ga., where we hired a carriage tour of the old city. Established in 1733, Savannah tucks small, shady parks into every other block, each one full of ancient oak trees draped with Spanish moss and a lot of statues of guys on horseback.

The highlight for me was seeing the bench where Forrest Gump was filmed waiting for the bus with his box of chocolates.

We had planned to go to Paula Deen’s restaurant for dinner (and a stick of butter) but found ourselves out on Tybee Island at suppertime. We actually ate at Bubba Deen’s, her brother’s restaurant. I know it’s confusing, y’all.

By the time we arrived and toured Charleston, S.C., for a couple days, I had seen a seen a lifetime’s worth of old-timey. Yeah, it’s inspiring to stand on a porch where General Washington once made a speech, but I needed a day off.

When Steve picked me up at 9 the next morning, the plan was to have breakfast and meet up with our guide at 11:30 at the Isle of Palms marina. But there was a marathon race going on as we crossed the bridge to Sullivan’s Island. By the time we finally got to the restaurant, many of the runners were already inside drinking Bloody Marys.

These are my kind of health nuts. It was so NOT West Coast. You have got to love these people.

We arrived at the marina in plenty of time to meet our guide, Zack. He was about 35, looking to be 20. What is it about fishing guides? Cut the Hollywood ponytail-Zen Master-hillbilly guide routine, dude. We’re here to go fishin’!

And fish we did.

Zack worked out of a beautiful Hells Bay Flats Skiff with a 60-horse Yamaha, and with a turn of the key we were flying out of the marina and through the sawgrass channels of the inland waterway.

The conditions were perfect, about 85 degrees, no wind and a dropping tide. The oyster beds were coming up fast in the lowering water like black islands, and the baitfish were boiling all around us. Zack cut the motor and poled into a sawgrass cove about 20 inches deep.

The water color there is a light brown, so you have to see either the tails or the wake of the redfish. Truth is, I couldn’t see either at first.

The trick is to get the boat stationed within casting distance without spooking the redfish while they are busy churning up the mud bottom looking for shrimp. Then you calculate your cast with a shrimp imitation to drop in just above and beside the feeding fish and start stripping the line.

Well, that all sounds very straight-forward in concept, but these redfish were really spooky. During the course of the afternoon, we blew several excellent chances, I think I heard Zack talking to himself a little bit. Something about a blind squirrel and an acorn.

Zack turned out to be an excellent guide; his job is simply to provide opportunity. It was up to Steve and I to make the argument.

Steve, Zack and I had a great afternoon catching redfish and finding some common ground — north or south, east or west.

It’s never really about the fishing, is it?

• Trout Bums At Large, written by Randal Sumner, appears six times a year on the last Tuesday of every other month. Sumner, a fly fisherman since 1972, is owner of Blue Skies Guide Service on the Yakima River. Trout Bums can be reached at randal@blueskiesfishing.com

A photographic presentation by well-known wilderness photographer and guidebook author Alan Bauer will be the focus of Wednesday’s Cascadians meeting at the Living Center Retirement Community’s Meyer Auditorium (215 N. 40th Ave., just off Summitview).

Wilderness photographer Alan Bauer will give a presentation this week. (Courtesy photo)

“This title covers areas that are quite accessible for the Yakima Valley area,” Bauer said, “since I know many people do head north to hike the regions on the east slopes of the Cascades by Wenatchee, Leavenworth, Lake Wenatchee and even the Entiat Mountains and Lake Chelan areas.

“Of course, then the book covers all of the Cascades and Puget Sound lowlands on the U.S. (Highway) 2 corridor, ranging from these east-slope regions all the way over Stevens Pass to the Puget Sound and even Whidbey Island. It was the most challenging book I did for the series for me, being very rugged and some long, steep hiking.”

Bauer was the primary photographer for the entire five-book series, including co-authoring one of them; for the latest book, Craig Romano is listed as the author and Bauer the photographer.

Bauer is also well-known as the co-author of the popular “Best Desert Hikes: Washington,” also published by The Mountaineers Books and now in its second printing.

The evening begins with a Cascadians potluck dinner at 6 p.m., but non-members may attend Bauer’s presentation (admission is free), which will begin about 7:30 p.m.

DNR unveils rec plan for Ahtanum Forest

The Department of Natural Resources last week released its recreation plan for the Ahtanum State Forest, designed to guide recreation opportunities for the foreseeable future on the 76,000-acre area about 20 miles west of Yakima.

The plan was the result of a two-year process in which DNR staffers worked with a citizen advisory group represented by a broad spectrum of user groups.

“I grew up hiking and hunting in the Ahtanum State Forest and have seen a lot of overuse and abuse,” said Ron Rutherford, who represented the four-wheel community on the work group. “This plan will guide recreation in Ahtanum for the next 15 to 20 years and provide a proactive approach to managing recreation, rather than dealing with issues each year as they come up.”

Plan highlights include pursuing “sustainable sources of funding” for trail and facilities maintenance (including improved trails signage) and an enforcement/educational presence; promoting new trails for both motorized and non-motorized user groups; and improving winter recreation opportunities.

The plan is available online at www.dnr.wa.gov.

********
Speaker to focus on energy, shrub-steppe

Conservation expert Julie Conley will give a lecture on balancing the state’s wind-energy goals with the need to protect Central Washington’s shrinking shrub-steppe resources next Monday at Yakima Valley Community College.

The Feb. 1 presentation, set for 7 p.m. in Glenn Anthon Hall (Room 119), is co-sponsored by the Washington Native Plant Society and YVCC. Conley, the coordinator for the South Central Washington Shrub-Steppe/Rangeland Partnership, has worked for conservation districts in eastern Oregon and locally for The Nature Conservancy.

********

DNR meetings will include Ellensburg

A Feb. 11 hearing at Ellensburg’s Hal Holmes Community Center will be the only Central Washington stop of seven public meetings being put on by the state Department of Natural Resources to present its Draft Strategic Plan, which identifies and prioritizes DNR activities for the next five years.

The Ellensburg meeting will run from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The meetings begin Monday in Seattle and continue with sessions Feb. 2 in Bellingham, Feb. 3 in Spokane, Feb. 4 in Tacoma, Feb. 9 in Port Angeles, Feb. 10 at the Cowlitz PUD in Longview and the finale in Ellensburg.

The plan is available online at www.dnr.wa.gov.

********
WDFW sued over its Whisky Dick grazing

As it has done twice before when the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has announced its intention to graze the Whisky Dick and Quilomene state wildlife areas, last week the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project sued to prevent it.

Western Watersheds’ filing in Thurston County Superior Court challenged the WDFW’s Final Environ-mental Impact Statement (FEIS) on commercial livestock grazing in those two wildlife areas of eastern Kittitas County.

Among other things, the suit seeks a reversal of the state’s action and asks the court to determine “that WDFW acted unlawfully” in approving the FEIS, and asks for a ruling that would prohibit “WDFW from allowing an increase in acres grazed on its lands pursuant to that FEIS.”

Even before the suit, the WDFW’s hopes to graze the wildlife lands as part of its role in the Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management (CRM) Plan was considered a long shot because of a lack of funding. There’s no money currently budgeted to facilitate the grazing.

********
Yakima Outdoors site expands its database

If you haven’t checked out YakimaOutdoors.net since the site has updated its database with mapped outings and an outdoors forum, you should.

The searchable database already has more than 100 outings, including many bike rides, and you can peruse them simply by clicking an area on the site’s regional map and looking through what’s available. Users can also enter their own outings.

The site, funded by the Cascadians’ board in cooperation with Mighty Tieton and The Nature Conservancy, has been largely pioneered by the outdoor club’s über-active hiking leader Ted Gamlem.

“The idea is that the Cascadians are doing this for the community, so anybody can go in there and participate,” Gamlem said, adding that with new users adding their favorite outdoor treks, “There’s all kinds of potential detail.”

********
Hill, Lee top field in fourth Button Shoot

Dan Hill and Craig Lee each broke 24 of 25 targets and captured the two men’s division buttons in the fourth week of the Yakima Valley Sportsmen trap club’s 10-week Button Shoot.

Jon Cichowski of Ellensburg and Yakima’s Tom Schmitt each went 23×25 to take the senior division buttons.

Yakima’s scores in the state’s “Telephonic” competition was 97×100, with James Klingele firing the day’s only 25×25 and 24s being turned in by Rick White, Craig Lee, Dan Hill, Wayne Klingele, John Steklenburg and Paul Klingele.

Shooting is from 9:30 a.m. to noon every Sunday.

********

BIRD ALERT

An immature gyrfalcon was spotted this week along Larue Road near Highway 97, marking the county’s second gyrfalcon sighting this winter following the recent report of a mature bird along North Wenas Road.

Grazing the fields nearby and less than a mile east of the highway were around 1,000 geese — mostly Canada geese, but with a few cackling geese, one white-fronted goose and one snow goose.

Local birders out looking for owls at dusk on Marion Drain spotted at least three short-eared owls, heard several great horned owls and had several barn owls fly high overhead.

A Yakima Audubon field trip to Cle Elum and South Cle Elum tallied 37 species, including hooded merganser, Cooper’s hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, rough-legged hawk, bald eagle, Eurasian collared-dove, Steller’s jay, mountain and black-capped chickadees, pine siskins, and evening grosbeaks. In the Teanaway area the group found three flocks of wild turkeys, and good scope views of a Townsend’s solitaire along Bettas Road.

Snow Mountain Ranch with its varied habitat is becoming a good birding destination. Sightings there this week included a juvenile Northern goshawk, wood duck, Lewis’s woodpecker and western scrub-jay.

A Yakima birder searching along the North Fork Road near the Tampico store encountered ruffed grouse, bald eagle, hairy woodpecker, Steller’s jay, common raven and, around the Ahtanum Meadows Sno-Park, 30 red crossbills.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963

— Kerry L. Turley

********
AROUND AND ABOUT

ST. HELENS PERMITS: Next Monday at 9 a.m. will mark the beginning of sales of Mount St. Helens 2010 climbing permits, which will be sold online through the Mount St. Helens Institute at www.mshinstitute.org.

RAZOR CLAM DIG NIXED: Rising marine toxin levels have prompted state biologists to delay or possibly cancel this weekend’s razor clam dig scheduled at Long Beach, while a final decisions about digs at Twin Harbors, Copalis and Mocrocks beaches won’t be determined until Thursday. The Twin Harbors dig had been originally scheduled to open Wednesday.

HUNT REPORTS DUE: The state wildlife department is reminding hunters that reports on their hunting activity on their black bear, deer, elk or turkey tags are due by Sunday (Jan. 31). Hunters can report by phone (877-945-3492) or online (https://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov). Failure to meet the deadline can result in a fine.

PACS TO MEET: The Eastern Washington Cascades and Yakima Provincial Advisory Committees (PACs) will meet from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Feb. 3 at the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest headquarters in Wenatchee. On the agenda (open to the public): issues and updates related to the Stehekin River Corridor Implementation Plan, the Bureau of Land Management Plan, and Holden Mine cleanup.

INSTITUTE SEEKS VOLUNTEERS: The nonprofit Mount St. Helens Institute is seeking volunteers for 2010 to do such things as educate the public, help lead volcano climbs, visit local schools and monitor campgrounds, as well as helping with events such as the institute’s May 15 “It’s a Blast: Volcano Science in Your Backyard” science event at Johnston Ridge Observatory. A full list of positions is available online (www.mshinstitute.org), or contact Hailey Heath at hheath@mshinstitute.org or 360-449-7883.

********
ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday group meets at 8 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot and heads out to whatever hike, cross-country ski or snowshoe trek the leader has decided upon, based on conditions. Come prepared for an adventure.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies plan on doing a snowshoe/cross-country ski trek to North Fork Tieton, regardless of the weather, and they’re desperate for snow. For meeting time and place, call Eleanor Hungate at 509-972-3427. For people who would prefer a hike to a snow trek, call Jeanne Crawford at 509-966-8608.

SATURDAY: There will be two Cascadians’ trips. One will be a cross-country ski trek to the Hogback, an opportunity to ski the meadows above the White Pass Ski Area. For meeting time and place, call Jeff Hagen at 509-966-5432. The second trip will be a snowshoe trek led by David Hagen, for which the destination had not been determined at press time. Call Hagen at 509-965-3697 for information.

NACHES — Last Wednesday’s icy rains drowned out Irene Davidson’s plans for the day.

Irene Davidson, the new District Ranger of the Naches Ranger District, poses with a Smokey Bear sculpture last week in front of the ranger station. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

Huh? The district ranger — the boss, the one at the head of the table, the big cheese — was going to get down and dirty doing bat surveys in a grimy cave?

“Why wouldn’t I?” laughed Davidson, an 18-year Forest Service veteran who had been a district ranger in Aspen, Colo., prior to accepting the Naches position. “I should, at least once every year, visit every area on the district. I should be out at a timber sale, I should be out at a stream survey — and yes, I should be out with our biologists at Boulder Cave.

“This is a wildlife-related activity. Any activity that’s being planned in our district, at least every once in a while I should be out there, just to stay in touch. I make decisions about all these things. I should get to know what’s going on.”

Davidson, 52, already has a good working knowledge of the Naches district’s primary issues after spending six weeks working alongside retiring ranger Randy Shepard before taking the reins officially on Jan. 4.

“I’m six weeks ahead — actually, probably more like three to six months ahead — of where I would be,” Davidson said, crediting Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest supervisor Becki Heath for authorizing the on-the-job orientation. “I haven’t heard of that happening before.”

The issues she is facing here, of course, run throughout national forests on the western half of the continent — flagging budgets, infested forests (mountain pine beetle in Colorado, bark beetle and western spruce budworm here), the ongoing balancing act between

access and forest health, and, of course, finding a way to make prescribed burns palatable for neighboring communities.

“The issues here aren’t different. They’re just different in scope,” Davidson said. “I don’t think we’re so bad here in terms of budget. Our budget’s been flat, but it’s not dive-bombing. “The only one area we’re hurting on is the NOVA.”

(State legislators swept the Nonhighway and Offroad Vehicle Activities fund, typically used for motorized trail-use maintenance, into the state’s general fund to prevent several dozen state parks from closing.)

A lifelong hiker and camper — “I wouldn’t call myself an avid backpacker,” she admitted — Davidson said she feels at home at Naches. She was raised in Albany, Ore., where her mother still lives, and her husband, Bruce — a botanist working with a a Forest Service enterprise unit — has roots and family in Pasco and northern Oregon.

Of course, this “homecoming” hasn’t been without its problems. A frozen drain at the home she and her husband bought near Tieton

resulted in a flooded basement two weeks ago, drenching a couple of televisions, several boxes of family heirlooms and all of Davidson’s high school annuals.

“We saved a lot of photos, though,” she said. “It actually turned out better than I expected.”

She could say the same thing about her position at Naches, which, she said, she hopes will be her last job in the Forest Service.

“That’s my plan,” she said. “To retire here.”

And, somewhere down the line, being able to count some bats.

Sturgeon cuts likely for Columbia anglers

With surveys indicating white sturgeon are declining in number, fishery managers in Washington and Oregon are considering reducing this year’s harvest by 20 to 50 percent.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff updated commissioners at this month’s Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting, and Allen Thomas of The Columbian in Vancouver reported that at least four commissioners are leaning toward a hefty cut in harvest. The commission is set to adopt its policy at its Feb. 6 meeting in Olympia.

Also at its January meeting, the commission as expected approved the second phase of a major land exchange between the WDFW and the Department of Natural Resources. The WDFW receives 25,849 acres of shrub-steppe and low-elevation forests while transferring 12,424 acres of high-elevation timber land to the DNR.

*******
Yakima Basin expert speaks to fly fishers

Yuki Reiss, recovery program coordinator of the Yakima Basin Fish and Wildlife Recovery Board, will be the guest speaker at tonight’s monthly meeting of Yakima Flyfishers/Trout Unlimited.

Reiss will discuss the biology and natural history of bull trout populations in the Yakima Basin, go over what recovery efforts are happening, and ways to get involved in the process.

The 7 p.m. meeting will be held downstairs at Glenwood Square (5100 Tieton Drive, Yakima) in the meeting room at Bert’s Pub.

*******
Button shooters right on target Sunday

Despite drizzly weather and a foggy background, shooters at Sunday’s third round of the Yakima Valley Sportsmen trap club’s 10-week Button Shoot had to bring their “A” game.

Burton Gray of Ellensburg and James Klingele of Yakima each shot 25 straight targets to take the men’s division’s two buttons. The senior division was nearly as impressive, with Tom Pratt, Dennis Martinen and Wayne Klingele all tying at 24×25, with Klingele winning the shootoff for the button. Lauren Boyle captured the junior button.

Rick White and James Klingele split the week’s Annie Oakley pot, and Yakima turned in a 99×100 score in the state “telescopic” competition with 25s by Rick White, James Klingene and Burton Gray.

The club’s all-you-can-eat crab feed will be Saturday at 6 p.m. Tickets are $30. Call Paul at 509-945-0604 for tickets.

*******

BIRD ALERT

Wow, what a great week for birds of prey. While birders searched in vain for last week’s gyrfalcon, they saw plenty of raptors in the fields around the Wenas area including northern harrier, Cooper’s hawk, red-tailed hawk, rough-legged hawk, American kestrel, prairie falcon and great horned owl.

One hot spot this week was a large field along Marion Drain, west of Lateral C. In just over an hour, birders spotted 12 northern harriers, a bald eagle, a sharp-shinned hawk, a northern goshawk, an amazing 25 red-tailed hawks, two rough-legged hawks, two American kestrel, a prairie falcon, barn owl and a short-eared owl.

A Harlan’s hawk was also noted just west of Lateral B. The other “raptor” they noted in numbers was northern shrike, with seven tallied in the area.

The adult peregrine falcon continues to be seen in Toppenish; be sure to check all the water towers, as it likes to move around. A prairie falcon was sitting on one of the bird perches of a residence along Lombard Loop Road in Sawyer; three bald eagles were spotted along the Yakima River; and a Tampico resident observed a northern goshawk perched on the telephone pole outside his house right next to the bird feeders.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963

— Kerry L. Turley

*******
AROUND AND ABOUT

BOATING SAFETY CLASS: The Coast Guard Auxiliary has scheduled a boating safety class for March 19-20 at Mount Olive Lutheran Church. Graduates of the class will qualify for a boater safety education card, required for anyone 30 years old and under who plans to operate a boat of 15 horsepower or greater. The Auxiliary will have a boot at next month’s Central Washington Sportsmen Show (Feb. 19-20), where volunteers will be selling the class textbook (“About Boating Safely”) at a $5 discount. For more information, call Jeanne Cook at 509-678-4268.

COWLITZ SMELT: Without another poor run of Smelt expected back to the Columbia and its tributaries, the recreational smelt season on the Cowlitz River will consist of only four Saturdays — Feb. 6, 13, 20 and 27 — with dipping limited to 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on those days. Daily limit is 10 pounds.

*******
ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday trekkers will meet at

8 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart parking lot and head out to whatever hike, cross-country ski or snowshoe activity the group leader has selected, based on trail conditions. Come prepared for weather and a long day with plenty of water and lunch.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies group will hold a walking tour of the Chestnut/Yakima Avenue historic district. For meeting time and place, call Claudia Christie at 509-388-9307.

SATURDAY: The Yakima Valley Audubon will host a “winter birding” trip to the Cle Elum area, where winter brings in northern species rarely seen in the Yakima area like Bohemian waxwings and pine grosbeaks. For meeting time and place and to reserve a spot on the trip, call leader Denny Granstrand at
509-453-2500.

The state wildlife department believes it has crossed its T’s and dotted I’s sufficiently enough to move on with managed cattle grazing this spring on the Whisky Dick and Quilomene wildlife areas in eastern Kittitas County.

Even as project opponents prepare to haul the issue back into a courtroom, there remains one critical character missing in the state’s voluminous final environmental impact statement (FEIS) justifying the process:

The dollar sign.

“There’s no funding to implement this thing,” said Jennifer Quan, lands program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The FEIS calls for 550 animal-unit months (AUMs) — the equivalent of 550 cows and 500 calves grazing for one month — annually for five years over 51,104 acres in the Whisky Dick/Quilomene area, nearly 90 percent of which is owned by the WDFW.

But to make it happen, fences will need to be built. Piping and troughs will need to be installed to keep the cattle out of the streambeds. The state will have to pay for monitoring to ensure the grazing not only meets the objectives of the Greater Wild Horse Coordinated Resource Management Plan (CRM), but also adheres to the state’s rangeland standards.

And the wildlife department, which already spent roughly $362,000 over the last biennium to implement the CRM and pay for the FEIS, simply doesn’t have the money.

“We can only do what we can do,” Quan said. “We’re going to have to rely on the CRM to either help with the labor and materials, or find other people to help with that part.

“We don’t have a supplemental request in for it. It’s not in the governor’s budget. I’m of the mind that if we don’t have the money or resources to do it, we can’t do it.”

Jack Field of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association admitted he was “not very optimistic” after looking at the budgetary constraints facing most state agencies, noting it was “going to be very difficult to find any additional funds at the state level. I’m sure what this will mean is we’re going to have to look for other funding sources.”

The state can expect to add more legal fees to the litany of expenses related to its Kittitas grazing.

The Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project — which has taken the wildlife department to court over its grazing policies twice in the past three years — is poised to do so again.

Executive director Jon Marvel said Western Watersheds expects to file suit in Thurston County Superior Court prior to the Jan. 18 deadline mandated by the Washington Administration Procedures Act.

“We think it’s absurd,” Marvel said. “A state with a multi-million dollar budget shouldn’t be throwing money down the drain like this. And if ranchers have to get free grazing from the state of Washington, they shouldn’t be in business anyway. It’s part of this crazy perception that cattle ranching is important and wildlife isn’t.”

What is important to the wildlife department, though, is the ability to be able to minimize checkerboard land management and develop large swaths of land that can be managed for wildlife — even if it means having to bend a bit to cattle and farming interests.

“We’ll be willing to work with the grazing industry, but we’re going to have the last at-bats,” WDFW regional director Jeff Tayer said, using a baseball metaphor to indicate the department’s ability to pull the plug if, he said, “things go completely bad.”

“That’s the dynamic that’s woven through this whole thing, at least with the Wild Horse CRM,” Tayer said.

“The key is figuring out what are the big-ticket items you have to have, and being willing to give up the things you don’t have to have (in order) to get ahead. What are the have-haves? Well, the main have-to-have is you don’t do permanent damage to the habitat. The grass grows back. I’m willing to compromise on the things we don’t have to have in order to protect the things we have to have.”

The final Whisky Dick/Quilomene grazing plan actually expanded on the previous policy, upping the animal-unit months from 500 to 550 and more than doubling the acreage involved from 22,554 to 51,104.

Tayer said the WDFW’s biologists believed spreading the grazing over a wider landscape “would have lesser impact” on the pastures and leave more forage for wildlife. The Skookumchuck Creek Drainage, he said, was specifically excluded from grazing because of issues related to endangered steelhead.

But only the bottom part of the drainage will be excluded, argued Don Johnson, a retired university professor of natural resource management who has been opposed to the Whisky Dick grazing.

The water at the bottom “comes through 50 miles of riparian area,” he said, adding that cattle grazing upstream would “break open all the cattle trails on the steep sidehills. … You’ll have no cover on the trails, you’ll have erosion that will run downhill through the riparian steelhead waters.”

Tayer maintained that the Coordinated Resource Management Plan’s long-term goals were critical — especially the aspect of being able to create manage large, unbroken blocks of land that might otherwise remain in checkerboard ownership or be subdivided.

“The people involved in opposing the Whisky Dick CRM,” he said, “are not the same people, generally, that are involved in trying to protect habitat from all the other permanent impacts that happen.

“They’re not dealing with the consequences of doing nothing.”

• Outdoors editor Scott Sandsberry can be reached at 509-577-7689 or ssandsberry@yakimaherald.com