Document text
Mark Freeman Commentary Special deer tag goes for a record $27,000 Stephen Walker had finished the rack of lamb and marinated sweet potatoes he cooked for a Saturday family dinner, then checked his watch to see if it was time to make Oregon hunting history. It was 8:35. Dessert would have to wait. Walker put down his napkin, excused himself from the table and ambled to the telephone in the den of his Santa Barbara, Calif., home. When Walker hung up the phone 10 minutes later, he had laid claim to the most expensive deer tag ever sold in Oregon. Walker's $27,000 bid, via telephone, captured the special auction tag that will make the 53-year-old Californian the first person since the Kennedy administration to stalk trophy mule deer with a rifle within southeast Oregon's mule deer sanctuary. Walker's tag will allow him entry into the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge with a rifle and scope to chase mule deer bucks now hunted there only with muzzleloaders and bows. A veteran of expensive auction hunts in Nevada and Utah, Walker put up the big bucks for the Hart Mountain tag because he figured it was his best shot at the biggest of big bucks next season. Oops: bear hunting info was from 1998 The 4,700 bear hunters who received postcards about the upcoming controlled spring hunt need to ignore the card. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has committed the controlled hunt "oops" of the year -- so far -- by mistakenly mailing postcards with 1998 hunting information. The incorrect postcards were mailed a week before Wednesday's application deadline. Agency managers scrambled this week to send new postcards out to warn those who received the errant postcards. ODFW spokesman Randy Henry also wants this year's spring bear hunt applicants to realize that the goof-up does not affect this year's drawing. But the confusion is enough that the ODFW has extended the 1999 spring bear hunt application deadline one week to Wednesday, Feb. 17. In addition, the drawing for bear tags will occur Feb. 20, instead of Feb. 13 as planned. The tag-purchase deadline for successful applicants also has moved back a week to March 31. "We want to make sure no one loses opportunity because of the error," Henry says. The mistake occurred when Oregon's State Printing Division was testing the notification and mailing process for the upcoming draw. The division used information from the 4,700 hunters who applied for spring bear hunts in 1998. But the division then, mistakenly, mailed the errant results. The "ignore our last postcard" postcards were mailed Tuesday. This year's spring bear seasons occur sporadically from early April into late June within 11 hunting units across Oregon. The ODFW has authorized 4,025 spring tags. They include 2,000 tags for the Southwest Oregon hunt, which runs April 1 through May 9. The Southwest hunt is in the Dixon, Melrose, Tioga, Sixes, Powers, Chetco, Applegate, Evans Creek and Rogue units -- except for a strip of land within a mile of the Rogue River between Grave Creek and Lobster Creek. "Looking at the different states, I thought this would be the best tag of the year," Walker said Saturday by telephone, shortly after winning the auction tag. "I was willing to go considerably higher," he said. But all other bidders in person or by phone at Saturday's Oregon Hunters Association fund-raising banquet chose against out-bidding Walker. The banquet's 350 guests buzzed all week over how high the tag would sell -- with estimates up to $40,000. Still, Walker's bid came in $5,000 higher than the previous Oregon record -- $22,000 paid for for an Eastern Oregon mule deer tag sold in 1997 at the Mule Deer Foundation national convention. "I figured it would be $25,000 to $30,000," said Beth Waterbury from the Oregon Access and Habitat Program, which offered the tag in conjunction with the antelope refuge. "But this is really exciting," Waterbury said. "We look at it in terms of this: It's a lot of habitat work." Of his $27,000, $2,700 goes to the OHA's Rogue Valley Chapter and $12,150 each goes to the state Access and Habitat Program and the federal refuge. "I think it's a great opportunity to hunt an area that hasn't been hunted in over 30 years with a rifle," Walker said. "And I'm glad to be helping out with conservation, too." Archers and muzzleloaders have hunted mule deer on the 285,000-acre federal refuge for decades, and many have reported seeing world-class bucks that are hard to get close to. Not since 1961 has anyone been allowed to hunt there with a rifle. That created an incredible allure when Oregon and the refuge agreed to offer one auction and one raffle tag for rifle hunting the refuge's mule deer bucks. It certainly piqued Walker's interest. Walker is a 53-year-old former pension investor who retired to the sporting life in 1990 -- instantly making him the hero of hunters and anglers worldwide. His combination of wealth and opportunity has sent him hopscotching the West for trophy big-game animals by purchasing auction tags like this one. But Walker is not the stereotypical Great White Hunter using wealth and influence to carve a bloody path through the food chain. "He's not that way," said Elvin Hawkins, who has guided Walker on several bighorn sheep hunts. "He's a conscientious, considerate conservationist," Hawkins said. "And he's a good hunter. As good as most of my guides." While holding a spendy Nevada tag two years ago, Walker passed on several shots because he did not see any mule deer to his fancy. He also has donated money for bighorn sheep transplants in Oregon. It was on a bighorn sheep hunt with Hawkins at Hart Mountain three years ago that Walker became enamored with the refuge's big mule deer. When he read a magazine story about the Hart Mountain mule deer auction, he talked with Hawkins about the tag-holder's possibility of bagging a real trophy buck. The pair hatched a plan to get that tag, with Hawkins attending the banquet and bidding for Walker, who kept in contact with Hawkins via cellular telephone. Hawkins will again guide Walker into Hart Mountain, where Walker's tag allows him to hunt refugewide from Sept. 1 through Nov. 30. Walker said he expects to take a buck whose typical antlers will score about 205 points on the Boone and Crockett Club scoring system. If so, that would place him in the top two or three typical mule deer racks in Oregon history, according to the 1996 Record Book for Oregon's Big Game Animals. But a 205 score would not get into the Boone and Crockett Club's top 50 typical mule deer category dominated by deer from Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah. Walker said he will not pass on a nontypical mule deer, if that buck's irregular and asymmetrical antlers will score in the 250-260 point range. "I'm a pretty patient hunter," Walker said. Either way, Walker said he hopes to bring a mule-deer story out of his Hart Mountain hunt that will inspire a few more of his ilk to bid a similar tag for the year 2000 well past his $27,000. "I'm going to put a lot of effort into this," Walker said. "I want to find the biggest buck we can so next year, this tag will be worth a lot more (money) at auction for the state of Oregon." And with that, Walker excused himself Saturday night to finish his dessert with his family in Santa Barbara. (Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470.) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA