One more thing Dave...some people may tell you otherwise but I would also purchase the Westside Pheasant, especially considering your location. Kind of spendy, I think it's like $92 this next year, but well worth it.

The Cherry Valley and Stillwater units can be crowded because they get all the King County guys, but the Crescent Lake site in Monroe is not crowded on the weekdays at all. Mon-Thurs it will just be you and a couple of guys tops. Wednesdays are a release day and you might have some more hunters. Weekends can be crowded in the morning but you can pretty much hunt by yourself most afternoons.

Just like everything else, practice makes perfect. The only way a dog gets to be a good hunter is with experience....the number of hours spent in the field. Alot of guys have the "I only hunt wild birds in E. Wa attitude." But when you are training a young dog they are really missing the boat IMO.

How many trips to the eastside would an average guy, busy with family stuff, get to make per year? Two per month at best, if they're lucky? So at the end of the first year the dog who just hunts the eastside has maybe made 4 or 5 trips, and has 8-10 days of hunting experience...say 50 hours in the field. Contrast that to a guy who hunts 3 or 4 days a week on a W. Wa site, plus goes east a couple of times. At the end of the first year that dog has hundreds of more hours of experience.

In short, use the Westside sites for your training. I figured my dog probably had more hours in the field at the end of her first year or two than a dog who "only hunts the eastside" has in its' lifetime....and she turned out to be a pretty damn good hunting dog.