Hunting Archery Duck Deer

Wildlife biologists at the Baker City office of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) recommend the state’s Fish and Wildlife Commission sell more buck deer tags for this year’s hunting seasons in Baker County.

(Fish and wildlife commissioners will set tag quotas in early June; commissioners rarely tinker with ODFW biologists’ recommendations, however.)

The deadline to apply for tags is May 15.

The biggest proposed increases are for the biggest of Baker County’s four hunting units: Sumpter.

ODFW suggests the state boost the buck tag total for the Sumpter unit to 2,000 — an increase of 300 tags compared with 2005, said Ryan Torland, a biologist at the agency’s Baker City office.

Deer herds in the Sumpter unit are doing well, based on the annual spring census ODFW biologists conducted in March, Torland said.

In fact, the ratio of fawns to adult deer — a key statistic in estimating a herd’s health — was higher than it’s been for at least 15 years.

Based on that bumper crop of fawns — about half of which will be young bucks this fall — biologists believe the Sumpter herds can handle heavier hunting pressure during this year’s buck season, which is scheduled for Oct. 1-12, Torland said.

Deer haven’t fared quite so well, however, in the county’s three other units: Keating, Pine Creek and Lookout Mountain.

In Keating, for instance, biologists counted 10 bucks for every 100 does during the post-hunting season survey last fall. ODFW tries to maintain a buck ratio of at least 15 per 100, Torland said.

Keating’s solid fawn ratio this spring (highest since 1997) somewhat balances the buck numbers, though, so ODFW recommends 500 buck tags for the unit — the same as last year.

The situation is similar in the Pine Creek unit, except the buck ratio there last fall was just nine per 100 does, Torland said. As a result, ODFW suggests the state trim buck tags for Pine Creek to 300, 50 fewer than last year.

Biologists propose a slight increase for Lookout Mountain, from 150 tags to 170.

Continued from Page 1A

The limiting factor in that unit isn’t deer, but access for hunters, Torland said. Lookout Mountain has the largest percentage of private land — 64 percent — among the county’s four units (Sumpter is 55 percent private, Keating 42 percent and Pine Creek 25 percent).

Countywide, the buck tag total has increased each of the past three years since it dipped to 2,510 in 2004 — the fewest since 1995 (1,900 tags).

Still, this year’s proposed total of 2,970 buck tags seems puny compared with statistics from as recently as the late 1990s.

First, though, a bit of history.

Until 1990 the buck season was a general hunt — if you wanted to hunt you bought a tag.

Since then, though, buck-hunting in Baker County (and most of the rest of Eastern Oregon) has gone the way of Megabucks and Powerball. Now, hunters toss their name in a hat (figuratively speaking — the hat in this case is ODFW’s computer hard drive) and hope their numbers come up.

If the computer picks your name, you get a tag. If not, you either hunt bucks with a bow or you don’t hunt bucks. The term is “controlled” hunt as opposed to the former “general” hunt.

Since the 1990 switch to controlled hunts, the event that most dramatically affected deer hunters (not to mention deer) in Baker County was the winter of 1992-93.

Deep snow and prolonged periods of arctic temperatures conspired to kill thousands of deer here that winter.

Fawn ratios from the spring 1993 census illustrate that winter’s severity.

In the Sumpter unit, for example, ODFW biologists saw just six fawns for every 100 adult deer. For comparison, this spring’s ratio in the Sumpter unit was 46 fawns per 100 adults.

The hard winter’s heavy toll on deer prompted the fish and wildlife commission to slash the number of buck tags for both the 1993 and 1994 hunting seasons. In the latter year the state allocated just 1,350 tags for Baker County’s four units — the fewest since controlled hunts replaced general hunts.

After that catastrophe, though, the county basked through a series of several consecutive mild winters — mild compared with the 1992-93 version, anyway.

Deer herds recovered rapidly — a function of the tendency for does to bear twins each spring — and buck tag totals followed.

By 1997, just three years after the county’s share of buck tags bottomed out, the state distributed 4,050 tags among the four units.

Tag numbers have declined since then, a trend for which biologists blame two main factors: persistent drought that cut the food supply for deer and left them vulnerable to even moderate winter, and a proliferation of deer-munching predators, in particular cougars and coyotes.

Elk

ODFW biologists want to increase the number of coveted any-bull tags for the Oct. 25-29 first season, from 650 to 750 in the North Sumpter unit, and from 200 to 225 in Keating.

Calf ratios have improved in both units, Torland said.

Biologists suggest 300 first-season any-bull tags for Pine Creek, the same number as last year.

The bag limit is any elk, rather than bulls only, in the Lookout Mountain and South Sumpter units. Proposed tag numbers for both units are the same as in 2005.

ODFW suggests slight increases in cow tags for Keating (60, up from 40) and Pine Creek (150, up from 125).

Bighorn sheep Competition is always keen for the handful of ram sheep tags available for Baker County hunts.

A handful minus a couple fingers, actually.

ODFW proposes three tags for 2006 — two in the Lookout Mountain unit, where a herd of Rocky Mountain bighorns roams, and one tag for the Burnt River Canyon hunt, where the sheep are the somewhat smaller California variety.

In 2005 the state sold four tags — two for Lookout Mountain, two for Burnt River Canyon.

Torland said the Burnt River Canyon herd is not growing, so biologists have recommending just a single tag for that hunt this year.

In 2004, when the state also sold only one sheep tag for Burnt River Canyon, 362 people applied for the tag.

ODFW is proposing one other change for Baker County bighorn hunts this year, Torland said.

If the Fish and Wildlife Commission agrees, then the two hunters who draw the tags for Lookout Mountain will each have a separate season, the first in late August, the second in September, Torland said.

Last year, both hunters shared the same season.

That poses a potential problem, Torland said, because the bighorns in the Lookout Mountain unit tend to congregate in a few large groups. ODFW officials want to avoid a situation in which two hunters are stalking the same herd of sheep, Torland said.

No such conflict complicated the 2005 hunt on Lookout Mountain, though.

In an odds-stretching anomaly, Baker County hunters claimed both bighorn tags last year. The pair — Ed Elms of Baker City and Mark Christman of Halfway — discussed tactics before the hunt. Both men bagged a ram.

Rocky Mountain goats

ODFW proposes two tags for the Elkhorn Mountain hunt, the same number as in the past several years.

The Elkhorns and nearby Wallowa Mountains are the only two areas in Oregon where hunters can pursue mountain goats.