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Elk season off to slow start By Mark Freeman Prime stalking weather and healthy Roosevelt elk counts didn�t appear to deliver the bulls to rifle hunters this week in the mountains of eastern Jackson County. Despite fresh mountain snows and rains that took the crunch out of the forest floor, the first part of the general elk season in the South Cascades came as a disappointment to hunters who did not fare well in their quest for a Roosevelt bull elk. While officials have no accurate barometer for true hunter successes in mid-season, unofficial surveys made last weekend by state police and biologists turned up far more unhappy hunters than happy ones in the county�s elk-rich Rogue Unit. "It was pretty spotty," says Merv Wolfer, acting Rogue District wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "There were a few bulls taken here and there, but overall, it didn�t seem as successful as I would have expected with this weather." But with hunter-friendly storms Wednesday and promises of more for the remainder of the week, elk hunters have a chance to salvage the season by finding some bulls in the woods today and Friday, the final two days of the one-week general season. "Typically, hunters do get quite a few elk during the week," Wolfer says. "So hopefully, that will happen this year." The much-anticipated Cascades general elk season for rifle hunters began Saturday and runs through Friday for those who hunt in the Rogue, Evans Creek and Dixon units of the South Cascades. Hunting in the Applegate Unit of western Jackson County falls under the new Mid-Coast/Valley season, which this year runs Nov. 11-14. About 3,300 hunters hit the woods in the Rogue Unit � where the number of elk is about the same � in search of the big branch-antlered bulls that make the hunt one of the most anticipated and popular general-season hunting weeks in the region. Usually, hunters end up fighting blue-bird weather in their quest for elk. But a Friday night storm dumped as much as 6 inches of fresh snow at the 4,000-foot level, leaving hunters with good tracking and stalking conditions for bulls hovering around the Crater Lake National Park boundary. Such conditions had Wolfer predicting a bull harvest of at least 200, and possibly one rivaling the 1996 record of 262 bulls taken by hunters in the Rogue Unit. But this week�s hunt did not match the anticipation. Most hunters say they had trouble finding tracks, and many who did find fresh elk signs did not find anything to shoot in the bulls-only hunt. "Overall," Wolfer says, "the hunters seemed to have trouble finding the elk." Many of the hunters had experiences not unlike those of Matt Frank, of Trail, who stumbled upon more two-legged critters than four-legged ones while hunting the high-elevation areas of the Dixon Unit near the Rogue-Umpqua Divide. "On opening day, I saw six hunters and two elk," Frank says. "I saw a cow and a calf about 30 yards behind a guy who was sitting there with a Blazers jacket on and a gun in his hands, absolutely oblivious to the fact that there were elk near him." While Frank never saw a bull, he did find the time in the woods worthwhile. "Up in the woods with fresh snow on Sunday, it was absolutely beautiful," he says. Granted, average success rate for the general elk season is about 6-7 percent; even a record-setting hunt would see nine out of every 10 hunters going home empty-handed. The good news is that those hunters who did tag an elk likely found a nice branch-antlered bull, according to Wolfer, who says officials checked very few hunters who had shot younger spike elk. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.