There are basically 2 ways to hunt Hood, guided and unguided. Cavscout pretty much covered the guided part of it. Some TAs (training areas) are fully unguided all year, others are guided only. A handful of others are archery only all year. But you can archery hunt all units during archery season, minus the live fire areas. For unguided, you can set up your own blinds, feeders, trail cams, the whole bit. Pretty much do as you please. During the general season, no rifles are allowed, only shotguns with slug or muzzleloaders. Theft is a big issue. There's been countless pop up blinds, feeders, and trail cams disappear. One of the game wardens got busted with a garage full of them a few years ago. Thankfully, I've never had anything stolen.
There is a land release that comes out weekly which shows which areas are open for the upcoming week. There is somewhere around 50-60 units covering probably well over 100,000 acres. Generally there are lots of TAs closed at certain times during the season. So you wont even have the opportunity to hunt your setup on some weekends or during the week. The TA I hunt in has not been open during the middle of the week for the past 2 years.
When you sign up, they assign you a number. You have to check in to an area by using their automated phone system. There's about 20 different phone numbers you can call to do this. You are allowed to check in at midnight the day before you want to hunt. So if I want to hunt Saturday, I stay up until midnight on Thursday night. Only a certain number of people are allowed into a TA at a time, so it's literally a mad dash to get checked in. The phone system bogs down and sometimes it never connects, just rings and rings. So you hang up and try another number. Multiple times, I have called and been connected at 11:59, and get a messages saying I am not able to check in yet. Call back and get reconnected at 12:01 and the area is already full. They went to a online based system this year, but I hear that it still sucks.
Each TA has it's own quota for doe and buck. These are determined from deer surveys done by biologists, which just drive around in trucks and spotlight at night to determine deer numbers. Quotas are usually set low for archery season, then reset for general season. Once an area is shot out, that's it for that TA. Each deer or hog killed has to be taken to their check station on post where they age, weigh, and score the deer. This sucks for me because where I hunt is about 5 miles from my house as the crow flies, but I have to drive 30 miles to get to the check station.
