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63 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, September 17, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Rogue Valley's Finest EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend August 26, 2004 Rain a blessing for bowhunters By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune For the bowhunter who put down his quiver and did the great August rain dance, hunters like Jesse Bogart thank you. Be it divine intervention, good fall karma or simply a meteorological anomaly, whatever brought unseasonable rainstorms to Oregon this past week has hunters like Bogart itching to hit the woods for Saturday’s start of the big-game bowhunting seasons. Deer and elk usually benefit from a forest so dry and crackling that simply a few steps send a high-decibel warning sirens. But rain can soothe and quiet a forest floor to give those with arrows a rare chance to shoot them on opening weekend. "Usually, it’s so dry that you can’t even walk," says Bogart, 32, of Medford. "The rain definitely helps. We’re going to be doing a lot more walking this season." Advertisement But whether wet weather has Bogart walking into a buck or bull this weekend or going on an unspoiled hike probably has little to do with rain. Though more than an inch or rain has fallen during the past four days across most of the hills encircling the Rogue Valley, the precipitation likely isn’t enough to dramatically alter conditions or induce deer and elk to move, state wildlife biologists say. The rain likely does more to improve hunters’ outlook on opening weekend than it does to improve their chances of bagging an early-season buck or bull. "It does something for the ground," says Mark Vargas, Rogue District wildlife biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "But, probably, it does just as much for (hunters’) psyche." Still, no one should shun the power of positive thinking. Especially among the bowhunting ilk who usually treat opening weekend as a fun two days of paying your dues for late-season success. "It’s been years since we’ve had (preseason) weather like this," says Don Pritchett, veteran bowhunter and owner of Dew Claw Archery Supplies in Medford. "It’ll be great to be out there. It’ll be fun." The fun begins Saturday when general archery seasons open on both sides of the Cascades. For deer, bow hunting opens Saturday and runs uninterrupted throughout Sept. 26 throughout the state, before halting to give rifle hunters a place in the woods. The bow season resumes Nov. 6 in the Rogue and Evans Creek units, then ends Nov. 28 — the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The bag limit for western Oregon black-tailed deer hunters and mule deer hunters in eastern Oregon remains the same — one buck not having less than a forked antler. For elk, the seasons mirror the first-season deer hunt, with the exception of a handful of northwest Oregon units sporting a late-season antlerless hunt. The elk limit in most units statewide remains one elk. The tag-sale deadline is Friday night. Most bowhunters tend to target the larger and more prized elk, but the vast majority carry both tags to take advantage of whatever legal animal presents itself. Typically, early-season hunting is marred by hot, dry weather that causes deer and elk to hunker down. Hunters tend to fare better late in the season, which is marked more by cooler, wetter weather and occurs as animals begin their migration from high-elevation summer range toward the valley floor. Vargas says local hunters can expect successes similar or less than average as deer numbers continue to decline. Elk numbers are holding steady but the animals are continuing a shift toward private land. About 17,000 hunters ply western Oregon’s woods with their bows, and roughly 10 percent of the hunters successful. But the most-watched statistics now don’t come from Vargas at the ODFW’s office. They come from Roger Garig of the National Weather Service’s Medford office. Garig and his brethren don’t track deer; they track weather fronts and they’ve been just as busy at the radar screens as Vargas has been in the field. From Saturday morning to Wednesday morning, several forest areas logged significant rain for this month. The best rains came at Crater Lake National Park, which received 2.31 inches in those four days, Garig says. But that won’t help hunting, which is banned within park boundaries. Prospect, however, tallied more than an inch of rain during those four days, while Tokatee Falls in Douglas County soaked in .75 inches, Garig says. Alas, these flirtations with rain are fleeting. Garig says the clouds will part and the sun will shine Saturday and Sunday, when temperatures will hit the high 80s and low 90s — at or slightly above the average late-August highs of 88 degrees. So the rain dancers jigged, well, just a little early. "I think the bowhunters will be happy," Pritchett says. "At least they won’t be sweating as much." 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