Air gun hunting in Washington

64% against? Really? How the heck would anyone other than an airgunner even know it was an idea?
Total Vote count?
Darn odd.


John

I think this is rediculous. They should do this, before people are able to vote have an education class! Get people up to date on the new airguns. I feel it should be mandatory if people want to vote!

It's ridiculous. I am sure most of that 64% was from people who have never used a pellet gun. When I spoke with Fish and Game almost 8yrs ago they told me air guns don't make enough energy to kill a rabbit humanly if you didn't hit it exactly in the heart. It dosnt make any sense. You can hunt coyote with one as it is not a classified animal. I guess they haven't heard that the UK has been doing it forever. All the laws come from.the half of the state that lives in condos and townhomes and not from the half that lives in areas appropriate for hunting. They will legalize marijuana but not hunting birds with a pellet. It's better to blow it to bits with a 12g

Maybe you guys should vote on splitting the state in half right down the Cascades. The East side would be the 51st state and be named Liberty!
It's bad enough that I have to pay aa higher tax on my vehicle registration to improve the roads in King county and Seattle instead of fixing the roads I use on the other side of the state!!!!

Here is another great fact. The East side of the state produces 80% of the cannibis In the state and 90% of total sales are on the West side

WDFW are just bureaucrats. To be honest II can't believe the people in this state hold office and are so ignorant in the field they represent. Not just WDFW. You can hunt any unclassified animal in the state with a pellet gun. Atleast threw my correspondence. I was told I can hunt coyote with a pellet gun becuase it is not a classified animal. I can not hunt a squirrel because it is a classified game animal. So prong horn antelope isn't a classified animal so you could hunt one with a rock if you wanted to. That's the law of Washington. Unless you can get the people of the East side of the state to join in you are left with the anti hunting.anti gun activist of the Puget sound, which o assume is the 64%. Good luck I've been trying a th WDFW for almost a decade. They are not interested in changing anything with out the promise of more more income for the department

They could educate people with air guns the same way they run the hunters Ed program. They have no incentive. For the most part WDFW only cares about salmon

My mistake about pronghorn looks like it was added in 2016

Oh the eastern grey was introduced on the west side along time ago you don't find them outside of urban areas atleast I haven't. I tried to explain to WDFW that a pellet gun generates enough energy to take small game. They pretty much told me that they want people to use over kill weapons to insure death if you missed a brain or fitals. They want your weapon to cause death from shock. From what I got from emails is most hunters don't shoot but once a year during hunting season. So they should not rely on marksmanship, but rather shock and trama. For me that contradicts the hunters Ed program. Archery is another strange place. It's perfectly legal to hunt elk with a 40ib bow. You can use a recurve, compound,or long bow. But 40ibs for an elk is kinda week for such a large animal. It's legal,but it would be wise to go higher.....I to wish there were more air gun opportunity here aswell, but I feel like it would be best to just move to another state. The people I spoke with in WDFW I sent them equations stating how to find FPE and a list of what was considered high enough energy to take such animals from all sorts of resources Even some of there own, but it hasn't changed anything or their thought process. 

When I wrote to fish and game I asked about nutria and rabbits. They told me that anyone can remove nutria from there property with a pellet gun, but you can hunt not rabbits with a pellet gun. Because rabbits are classified. They told me any unclassified animal is fair game which includes coyotes. My argument with them was. If I can leagal hunt an animal the size of a coyote with a pellet gun then I should be able to hunt a smaller weaker skinned animal such as a rabbit. Nope no rabbits ONLY because of the classification. It maybe easier to have the class of animal changed. I gave up on it some time ago. It seemed like the Dept head didn't grasp that if I can kill a medium sized animal with said weapon then surely I should be able to kill a smaller with same said weapon. It just kept going back to classification. They also told me that a property owner could remove any nuisance animal from there property with any means they feel is apropriate, So.......can I remove a nuisance deer with a benjamin bulldog?

I know coyote is an unclassified animal,so is European wabbit. If I can kill those with a pellet gun then I should be able to kill other animals like Bobcat and quail with the same weapon... It's the classification system that needs to change.

Maybe we should hunt these animals and take pictures of the animal and weapon used and send it to WDFW to prove that they are capable, and try to explain how other similar sized game animals could be hunted with the same weapon? I have seen and heard this discussion every year for a few years. For awhile it seemed they were going to allow airguns, I thought it got somewhere in 15-16. I spoke with a game warden around that time and it seemed it was true but I don't know what happened.

The less the government is involved the better i like it.sooner than later airguns are going to be regulated .When I was a kid you could go out in the woods with your pellet gun and have a good time and not be harassed by wild life officers so the less we all ask for gov regs the better. Just my opinion.

Is it going to be on the ballot in a couple months? I'm ready to start hunting like I do I AZ!

Yes, it's ridiculous here! Both hunting and fishing. They don't even know how to manage fisheries. BC lakes have outstanding fishing on the west side of the mountains. WA stinks. They are all "put and take", instead of being managed. They put pen raised fish into the lakes in March and then open the lakes to fishing in April. The fish are within 4' of the surface and eat Powerbait that tastes like fish farm food. If they actually "Managed" both fish and wildlife, it would be a lot better. 

But as was said, they are bureaucrats/managers that have no clue as to how to regulate. My wife's aunt works for the state making crazy money in Olympia. She has moved around managing one department and another. It doesn't matter what the subject content is or if she knows what would be good for transportation or DSHS or whatever. She is paid to manage the people, who also don't actually know much about their subjects.