My choice to hunt ML this year had nothing to do with number of areas. I wanted fewer people and longer time in the woods, which is exactly what I got. I saw 3 deer opening day, 0 for the next three days, 5 on the 5th day, 16 the 6th day. I rested the 7th day for modern opening hunts with family. Not one elk. I hunted many local areas with limited access and walked and rode my bike. Except Ft. Lewis, where I walked and road hunted. What makes me mad is the state acting like they are doing us a favor by having fewer areas, when they are not. What needs to happen is the seasons need to open at different times. Our hunting license is from April to March each year. Why not open Archery and ML as normal each Sept and Oct in all the areas. Then break for two weeks. Open modern for normal lenght. Break for a week or two and finish Archery and Ml into the first couple weeks of Jan. I have hunted modern for 11 years in this state. The past five years have been too crowded. Between the increase in hunters and the private timbers shutting down access, it will only get worse. Look at it this way. You stick 2600 hunters in a 618 square mile area. How likely is it that someone may get injured because some moron shoots at a noise? Remeber even a .22 goes for 1.5 miles. That is what you have if you hunt the Vail Tree farm during Modern season. That is why I changed methods. What happens when you start sticking 150 camo clad ML hunters in an area that is 300 square miles? I took my girlfriend and her 14 year old daughter out this year modern season. We saw tons of animals, 31 deer over two days and tons of hunters close to 500. The daughter even took her first deer ever, a spike. This does not mean I will go back to modern yet, even though the area we hunted was closed to ML. All I want is equal access to equal areas. The archers got it when they raised their voices, we ML should too.