Document text
Since You Asked: A&H youth hunt never just for locals Thursday Apr 6, 2017 at 12:01 AM I have a complaint about the youth turkey hunts at C2 Ranch outside of Lake Creek. Why must they be open to people from the Willamette Valley and not just kids from around the Rogue Valley? It seems like local kids should at least get preference over outsiders. — C.T., Medford For the hunt this April and the previous eight, the C2 Ranch outside of Lake Creek hosts 10 youth turkey hunters as part of an arrangement with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Access and Habitat Program. The ranch gets about $9,000 in habitat work done on the ranch, mainly buckbrush mowing and fertilizing, to improve big-game habitat there, says Vince Oredson, who manages the program. In exchange, the ranch hosts annual youth deer and turkey hunts, with the latter starting this weekend. They are a popular draw not only for locals but for youth hunters from across Oregon, with each hunter given a daylong turkey hunt guided by one of the ranch hands. This year, 95 kids applied from all over Oregon, and 10 were chosen at random. This year, winners come from as close as Keno and as far away as Warrenton. "I don't have a single one from the Rogue Valley," Oredson says. "That's how 'random' works." It's the first time since the program began in 2009 that no locals drew the hunt, Oredson says. The reason it's open to youths statewide is because the A&H Program covers all of Oregon, Oredson says. The program gets $4 from every hunting license sold, so it stands to reason that not just locals should benefit from it. "Since every hunter in Oregon pays into it, we feel it's fair to give everybody a chance to get one of those hunts," Oredson says. — Send questions to “Since You Asked,” Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by email to [email protected]. We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them.