Hunting Archery Duck Deer

The only difference deer hunters may see here this fall and winter is a new youth-only hunt in the Applegate Unit sporting 25 tags in a hunt set to occur during the Christmas break from school.

The hunt was approved last year by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, and the commission will vote on the 25-tag allotment during its regular big-game tag package approval June 9 in Salem.

The local package is put together by Mark Vargas, the Rogue Watershed wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Vargas also plans to ask the commission to create a similar youth hunt with an estimated 25 in the Chetco Unit beginning in 2007.

“They have the woods to themselves and it’s a good change to get a deer your first time,” Vargas says. “You take a kid fishing and he doesn’t catch any fish, they might not want to go again. Well, it’s the same thing with hunting.”The proposed hunts are part of a package the ODFW is taking comment on this month.

The spring black-tailed deer survey estimates Jackson County’s deer population at 16,800 animals, up from two years ago but still well below the ODFW’s management goal of 24,000 animals.

The two-year increase, however, is positive despite diseases and lost deer habitat here but it’s too early to say the depressed migratory blacktail herds are well on the mend, Vargas says.

“If we can get another year or two (of increases), then maybe we can say the deer populations are coming back,” Vargas says. “But whether they get to the pre-1994 levels, I don’t know.”

Vargas also is recommending only two minor changes to the controlled hunters for Roosevelt Elk in Southern Oregon. Vargas recommends an increase from 40 tags to 45 tags in the Chetco Unit Bull Elk hunts No. 1 and No. 2.

The Chetco Unit’s bull-to-cow ratios have increased above management targets in recent years, allowing for more hunting opportunity, Vargas says.

Proposed statewide changes include a 5 percent drop in bighorn sheep tags, a 4 percent increase in pronghorn tags and an 8 percent increase in spring bear tags.

Statewide proposals include a 10 percent increase in bull and either-sex elk tags and a 2 percent drop in antlerless elk tags.

The annual adoption of tags does not affect general-season hunts.