Sorry Lewis River, re-reading my post sounded very smart a$$ish. There are birds all along I-5 in both Cowlitz Co and Lewis Co. There are some decent numbers around Ryderwood, Silver Lake has a few scattered in timber co. land, I' ve heard of some in the Rose Valley area, and various other locations. Note that this is going off of info from the WDFW and hear-say from others who have seen them. My eyes haven' t seen any in Cowlitz Co, so I' m not swearing to it. I can attest to the presence of birds in Lewis Co though. This has all come about in the last 10 years or so, through efforts from the NWTF and the WDFW. The birds seem to prefer private land, where they are often treated as family pets and get little to no pressure. I don' t know specifics about numbers. If you look at the harvest reports though, there aren' t many birds killed anywhere on the west side. Maybe if WANWTF sees this he can post on it a little more.

As I' ve stated MANY times, what this boy from MS calls a " huntable population" and what the WDFW calls it are 2 totally different things. IMHO, there aren' t enough birds around there to justify my drive from Puyallup to hunt them unless I have private land to hunt unpressured birds. Lewis River keep this in mind while you' re out hunting this fall: if you can find a bird to hunt on private land, e-mail me. You can do the shooting, and I' ll do the calling for you come April 15.