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CLEAR Temp: 50 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Thursday, November 21, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend September 26, 2002 Diamond Lake restoration group sets public forum Outdoor Notes By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune A group looking to restore Diamond Lake is holding a public forum Wednesday night in Medford to discuss the lake’s troubles and ways to fix them. The Diamond Lake Project Working Group will offer presentations on water quality, fisheries, economics and recreation at Diamond Lake, where an explosion of tui chubs has damaged trout fishing and triggered toxic algae blooms that caused the lake to be closed temporarily the past two summers. Speakers will update the public on current information and discuss management options. Participants can then talk individually with the speakers and other representatives of the Project Working Group. The Medford meeting will be from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Red Lion Hotel, 200 N. Riverside Ave. A similar meeting will be held Thursday in Klamath Falls at the Klamath Falls Museum, 1451 Main St. The group is holding public meetings around Southern and Western Oregon, culminating Oct. 9 in Eugene. The group includes state Rep. Susan Morgan, R-Myrtle Creek, as well as representatives from several county, state and federal agencies. The Rogue Flyfishers Association is taking reservations now for its Rogue River Steelhead Tournament set for Oct. 5. The tournament is the Medford-based association’s main fund-raiser for the year. It formerly was the single-fly competition. But the association changed the format to make it a day of competitive steelhead fishing on the Rogue — but not one in which contestants are immediately ousted after losing the one artificial fly they were allowed to use for the entire tournament. "We just thought the one-fly concept works well for trout, but not steelhead fishing," says tournament organizer John MacDiarmid. In the current format, anglers are grouped into two-person teams and fish all day on the Rogue from a driftboat rowed by a volunteer oarsman. Anglers can use only barbless flies, and winners will be determined by adding the length of all the adult steelhead caught that day. Contestants, however, will be penalized for any wild fish that die or are deemed unable to survive the catch-and-release process. The contest is preceded by a continental breakfast, and a 6 p.m. dinner-auction will follow that night at the Red Lion Hotel. Cost is $135, with includes entry into the contest, breakfast, dinner and a tournament T-shirt. The association hopes to raise $5,000 from the event, with $2,000 earmarked to assist Oregon WaterWatch in its efforts to raise money for the removal of Savage Rapids Dam from the middle Rogue. Anyone interested in signing up or in need of more information may telephone MacDiarmid at 664-8391 or Bill Rittenhouse at 858-5981. WHITE CITY — Exactly 150 young hunters spent 433 hours in the Denman Wildlife Area last weekend during the annual youth pheasant hunt, shooting 105 birds for a success rate of .7 birds per hunter. But the most important number to state biologist Mark Vargas was zero. "Zero accidents is what really made it a success," says Vargas, of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "It’s always good to have no accidents. That makes it beautiful." The youth hunt at Denman has been accident-free since 1990, when ODFW first set aside tracts of land for a weekend of youth-only hunting. Young guns hit the fields after pen-raised pheasants. This year, only 300 birds instead of the traditional 400 were planted because of a lack of local birds, Vargas says. The success rate was lower than most years because the hot and dry conditions made hunting difficult. "The hunters couldn’t stay out in the field very long, and the dogs couldn’t get any scent of the birds," Vargas says. The area available to most hunters in northeastern Oregon’s Heppner Unit has been reduced by 37,000 acres with the closure of private lands that were open to hunting for more than three decades. Pioneer Resources elected to close its land along the western edge of the Heppner Unit to hunting because of a pending sale of the property. The affected areas include Opal Butte, French Pass, Parkers Mill, Tupper Creek, Board Creek, Thorn Creek and a small tract near Blake Ranch. New signs have been posted alerting hunters that trespassing in not allowed in these areas. The Pioneer Resources land was included in the Heppner Regulated Hunt Area, a cooperative program to provide hunter access. Other lands in the regulated hunt area and public lands will remain open to hunting. Hunters who have questions about the closure can telephone the ODFW’s Heppner office at 1-541-676-5230. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search M Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy web master feedback A D V E R T I S E R S