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http://www.omniture.com --> Sections Home Page Local News AP News Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Readers Photo Gallery Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Readers' Choice Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Neighborhoods Employment Guide Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend November 2, 2006 His 20-year story is no bull UNION CREEK — Frank Kirkland began his Oct. 21 not expecting it to be much different than every day over the past two decades during which he's been part of what may be the most futile elk camps ever found in the Oregon woods. A rifle-toting stroll at dawn down a closed forest roadway, peeking up game trails and into open meadows for bulls that never seem to materialize for Kirkland or his two life-long hunting companions who collectively never have bagged a bull. "What I did was pretty basic," said Kirkland, 49, of Portland. "Pretty much what I always do." But this time, an elk did on cue what it never has done. One appeared in a meadow not 70 yards away, unaware of Kirkland's presence. Advertisement "It was standing out there, feeding," Kirkland said. "It raised its head up, and I saw antlers. It put its head back down, then came up again." Wow, he said to himself. It's a bull. It really is a bull. "After that, it was pretty much history," he said. Two quick shots dropped the 4-by-5 point bull in the forest, ushering the veteran hunter into this year's elite version of the 6 Percent Club — that group of six out of every 100 general-season elk hunters who bag a bull in the High Cascades of eastern Jackson County. And it wasn't like 6 Percent Club veterans were holding a seat for Kirkland or hunting partners and fellow Portlanders Scott Wittkop and Bill Ayer. The trio have hunted bull elk together, without success, all across Oregon since the early Reagan years. Deer hunting? That usually has gone pretty well. But the trio has been zero-for-elk since they first set their sights on Oregon's largest game animal. Now, finally, after more than 60 unused general-season rifle tags ended in the garbage, one of the camp's tags finally got stretched around an antler. "After all these years, it was hard to believe, really hard to believe," Kirkland says. "You know the saying that even a blind dog eventually will find a bone. Well, I kind of feel like that blind dog." Kirkland was one of what appears to be several wide-eyed hunters who fared well in the seven-day hunt that ended Friday. A combination of good bull ratios and some pre-hunt snow likely led to an above-average season, say state wildlife biologists who took notice of Kirkland's bull and his party's penchant for failure during a weekend check of hunters. "All those unfilled tags is quite a contribution to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife," says ODFW biologist Mark Vargas in Central Point. "It's good that he's successful, but it's too bad it took that long." For years, Kirkland, Wittkop and Ayer criss-crossed eastern Oregon in their annual quest for a bull elk. But repeated failures sent them looking elsewhere this summer, and newspaper accounts of good bull ratios in Southern Oregon sent them to the map. "We looked at it until we saw quite a few closed roads in one area and we thought, let's try it," Kirkland says. "It" was Huckleberry Campground on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest land due east of Crater Lake National Park. They had no idea they had fingered Elk Hunter Central, one of the High Cascades' busiest places during the general rifle season. They just got lucky to find a campsite there Oct. 19, setting up Kirkland's 15-square-foot walled tent complete with propane heater, woodstove and a once-beige carpet floor speckled with mud from past futility. No matter that they did virtually no scouting and didn't realize until they reached camp that their ATVs wouldn't help them on closed roads. Elk camp has represented an escape from Kirkland's days of carpentry work, exchanging the Portland skyline for the Cascades tree line and the serenity it brings — particularly when you don't have any carcasses to gut and skin. "That's what I use for my annual decompression," Kirkland says. After shooting his bull just 90 minutes into his week, Kirkland found himself in a strangely unfamiliar position. Other hunters were coming to his camp to see a bull, hear the story, share the bond. "I didn't tell them it was my first," he says. But he fessed up to a Jackson County sheriff's deputy, who spread the word. By mid-week, Kirkland was all decompressed out. Not joining his partners in the field, he puttered around camp until he couldn't take it any longer. "It got rather boring," he says. So Kirkland grabbed a side-arm and his camera for a different kind of shooting. He took a series of photographs that he posted on an Internet photo gallery when he returned to Portland with his prize. Dressed out at 297 pounds, the bull went to a Portland butcher for processing. With no precedent for how to share the bounty, Kirkland said he was unsure how the camp's lone bull will be parceled out. "We've never really talked that much about it," Kirkland says. "I guess I'll give them some of it. A couple of steaks." Kirkland plans to have the skull plate and antlers mounted. The hide will be tanned to become a blanket for his bed or the back of his sofa, testimony to the moment that the blind dog had his day. "If I had to give up elk hunting today, I'd be totally happy," Kirkland says. "I have, for me, what I consider my trophy elk. "It would be hard to top this," he says. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems Online Casino Reviews Men's Clothing Fundraisers UK Homeowner Loans Discount Hotel Reservations Send Flowers Casinos Canada Texas Electric Choice Compare Electric rates in Texas Windermere Van Vleet Trunks, Footlocker Online poker at AbsolutePoker.com