Known as the Cooperative Sustained Yield Unit, the agreement guaranteed “a continuous and ample supply of forest products” for Simpson in portions of Mason and Grays Harbor counties. By 1986, the arrangement has provided 3.5 million board feet of timber for mills in McCleary and Shelton.

That was good news for deer and deer hunters, because blacktails are primarily browsing animals. They prefer to feed on new-growth shrubs and forbs, rather than the grasses that elk like. As a result, they are much more prolific and abundant in areas that have an open canopy and a range of different ages of vegetation.

Historically, such openings were provided primarily by wildfire, floods and windstorms. In the last century, logging has accounted for the bulk of these forest openings.

Deer are happiest in areas with a rich mix of open areas that produce new growth for food, and nearby older forests that provide security and thermal cover.

This sort of habitat matrix is created on a large scale by a fairly rapid timber rotation -- and that’s exactly what happened in the Cooperative Sustained Yield Unit.

“Long-term declines are expected and are occurring on U.S. Forest Service land where there is little timber harvest and a push for older stand age-classes. In addition, declines are occurring where canopy closures are occurring over large expanses of even-aged timber.”

Of course, an active logging schedule isn’t the only thing that creates good deer hunting. Deer do best in areas where they don’t have to compete with elk for space and forage.

According to the WDFW’s Olympic Elk Herd Management Plan, there are roughly 1,900 elk in the both the Wynoochee and Satsop units, compared to 1,800 in the Clearwater (between the Hoh and Queets valleys) Unit alone. Similarly, the southern Olympics’ GMU 63 (Wynoochee, Satsop, Copalis) had more than 13,000 deer at the last survey, while the rain forest’s GMU 65 (Sol Duc) only had 3,128.

That means there are approximately four times as many deer in the forests and foothills between Shelton and Aberdeen than in the Clearwater, Matheny, Quinault Ridge, Skokomish and Sol Duc combined.

SUCCESS RATES
Fifteen years ago, 2,878 hunters tramped the Wynoochee Unit, while 2,753 hunted the Satsop and 2,409 the Skokomish. Last year, the numbers were smaller across the board, as they were everywhere. Yet the overall harvest for the Wynoochee and Satsop units was surprisingly similar to 1991. During 2005, hunters killed 352 bucks in the Wynoochee Unit, 396 in the Satsop and 134 in the Skokomish. In 2000, the harvest was 326, 449 and 157, respectively.

The 2005 harvest is actually higher than it was 15 years ago -- at 322, 354 and 296. The Skokomish harvest’s decline -- from 296 in 1991 to 157 in 2000 and 134 in 2005 -- is certainly the result of its 2-point-minimum buck regulations.

Although hunting pressure and harvest remain more or less unchanged along the south flank of the Olympics, hunter-success rates have varied from year to year.

Fifteen years ago, hunters enjoyed 31 percent in the Wynoochee Unit, 23 percent in the Satsop, and 16 percent in the Skokomish. The rates fell to 11 percent, 19 percent and 10 percent, respectively, in 2000, then ticked up to 18.6, 19.6 and 12.8 in 2005.

Most likely, these figures reflect the difference in weather from one season to the next.

When it comes to blacktail deer, success rates are directly related to the presence of leaves on deciduous trees and brush. Hunters do much better when early-autumn storms strip the leaves and make the ground softer. They do poorly when the leaves remain and the woods are dry and crunchy.

GATES CHANGE EQUATION
One thing that has changed the most in the region is the way hunters pursue deer. Over the last decade, hundreds of miles of timber road in the upper reaches of the Wynoochee, Satsop and South Fork of the Skokomish river basins have been either gated or decommissioned. This has fundamentally changed the nature of hunting in the area. The formerly popular, if highly disagreeable, practice of driving log roads in big trucks and glassing clear cuts is now impossible over much of the deer range.