Call to Arms for Washington residents

[ztirffritz]

The new director of the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife has asked for input about concerns or needed changes from residents.  If you have some time, take a few minutes and suggest that the WDFW update their airgun hunting regulations:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wildfuture/

[Loki_762]

Thank you for the link.  I dropped them a line.
Chris

[ztirffritz]

The wdfw director is also touring the state to do meet n greets throughout the state. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the meeting in Yakima due to some scheduling issues with my wife and childcare.  If you're able to go though, here's the schedule:

The meetings are scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. at the following dates and locations:

Sept. 10 – Selah Civic Center, 216 1st St., Selah.
Sept. 30 – Center Place, 2426 N. Discovery Place, Spokane Valley.
Oct. 6 – WDFW Mill Creek Office, 16018 Mill Creek Blvd, Mill Creek.
Oct. 8 – Saint Martin’s University, Norman Worthington Conference Center, 5300 Pacific Ave. SE, Lacey.
Oct. 14 – Water Resources Education Center, 4600 SE Columbia Way, Vancouver.
Oct. 20 – Port of Chelan County Confluence Technology Center, 285 Technology Center Way, Wenatchee.

I have some materials provided by Crosman if anyone is interested in going to the meetings. PM me and I'll share them.

[Kels73]

I submitted a note to him. Thanks for posting this.

[DragonKiller]

Awesome! I had started a personal project to try and petition for a equipment rule change to allow for air guns, at least for small game hunting to start.  I stalled out on it for a few different reasons, but seems like a great chance to pick it back up!  Wish I would have seen this thread earlier, but thanks!

[ztirffritz]

I wasn't able to make it to his meeting in Yakima.  My wife had an emergency at work so I had to stay home with the boy.  Hopefully some of the other Washingtonians chimed in though.

[ztirffritz]

I'm sure this isn't the best location for posting this info, but as it only applies to Washington residents, it seemed like the best fit.

I finally found a page on the WDFW website for how to submit a request to change their rules.  It isn’t exactly an easy process though…

http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/regulations/how_to_participate.html

“The public can also petition the Fish and Wildlife Commission to change a rule or reconsider a specific rule adoption. The petition process is a more formal process. See RCW 34.05.330 for more information on petitions. If you would like to go forward with a formal petition, you can download the form at http://www.ofm.wa.gov/reports/petition.pdf.”

I submitted a petition to the WDFW requesting that they change WAC 232-12-047 (3)  as follows:

Original wording:
(3) It is unlawful to hunt game birds or game animals, except bullfrogs, in a manner other than with a firearm, a bow and arrow, a crossbow, or by falconry.

Revised wording:
(3) It is unlawful to hunt game birds or game animals, except bullfrogs, in a manner other than with a firearm, airgun, a bow and arrow, a crossbow, or by falconry.

I don’t expect this to amount to anything, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Even if they act on the petition, it won’t happen for at least 3 years as that is how long it takes between revision cycles for the WDFW.

This would open up small game and fowl hunting only.  There is another line of code that explicitly requires centerfire firearms larger than .24cal for Big Game hunting.  I’ll need to tackle that later.

[DragonKiller]

That is the same route I have been slowly working on... I am getting a more detailed idea put together to propose though. Was going to start with just small game, as well as give references to most or maybe all of the other states that allow game species hunting with airguns, and what their minimum caliber and/or fps/fpe rules are.
Nice work getting it petitioned though! It won't hurt to have multiple people sending the same general ideas!

[ztirffritz]

I just received the response phone call from WDFW about the petition I submitted.  Again, a very nice and pleasant conversation.  The guy was very open to the idea of adding airguns, but he said the earliest it could happen would likely be 2018.  He said there were two options: 1) I leave my petition in place and the Game Council will review it and recommend that it be included in the next round of rule making (ie 2018) or 2) I could retract my petition and he would add the requested change for the 2018 round of rule making.  He said the end result is the same either way, but option 2 will have less paperwork and create less ill-will and bureaucratic hoops.  He agreed that my suggested route of getting small game changes first was a sound strategy.  The idea is that once there are enough people open to the idea of hunting with airguns and enough people knowledgeable about the potential of airguns then more people could back the second change required to include big game.  Apparently there was already a proposed rule change in the 2015 round of rule making to allow airguns for small game, but no one publicly supported it so it was dropped.  Unfortunately, I hadn't even found the web page discussing this process in the WDFW site until after the 3-year process was concluded for 2015.  So for all of you in WA, whether you hunt or not, we need your voice if/when this proposed change is opened to public comments.
    I'll be emailing the guy I spoke with to officially retract my petition, but he also asked that I include some links to information about airguns, calibers, ballistics data, etc.  I specifically asked for the word 'airgun' rather than 'air rifle' because I wanted air shotguns to be included for hunting fowl and small game.  So if any of you manufacturers are reading this and want to send me some gear to test and review for the WDFW PM me for my address :-)  Just kidding (not really).  I have an airgun introduction presentation that I received from someone either on this forum or AirgunNation.  I also have some material from Chip at Crosman and some materials that I've put together on my own.  If anyone wants to contribute information I'm open to whatever you've got.  Just remember, I'm aiming for 'small game' only.  There's a chicken vs egg problem in that there's very little public support for this change because no one can currently hunt small game with airguns in WA.  Crosman's chart showing other state's airgun hunting positions should help to show that WA is behind the times in this matter.  I tried to put together some material to show the HUGE differences between the 'Red Rider' era BB guns vs the Air Force Texan .45cal and .50cal Sam Yangs etc.  I'd LOVE it if someone more knowledgeable than me could put together a chart comparing various FPE ratings of common air rifle calibers(.177, .20, .22, .25) vs common hunting caliber powder burners for small game (.177 HMR, .22LR, ?).

[Mukilteo]

I'll be watching for the outcome.

[DragonKiller]

Frank, I haven't been on the forum for a few months again. Has there been anymore progress with this? I'm guessing not as you mentioned before it likely won't happen until the 2018 review. There have been some great new air rifles/guns coming out lately and I'd really like to do more with them in the small game world.

Anyway, I'd still like to help out with this project as it spins up some more. Let me know what I can do to help, but you've already covered everything I had in mind, if not more.

[ezman604]

Moving this to the Airgun Legislation Gate. This gate is for shooting events in the state.