Women, youth do well in December 2005 elk hunt

COMPTON - With cold and snow added to increasingly wary Arkansas elk, the December portion of the 2005 hunt in Buffalo River country was not easy for sportsmen.

Eight of the 16 permits allotted were filled in the five-day hunt. In a separate hunt over the same days, no elk on private land were taken.

But the women and the youth with permits batted a thousand. Celeste McCollum of Alma and Paula Scott of Waldron both scored with cow elk. Cole Ellison, just 13, had the permit reserved for a hunter under age 16, and he connected on the last morning of the hunt with a good 5X5 bull elk.

Of the 13 adult male hunters, five were successful.

Scott killed her elk on the fourth day of the hunt despite the snow. That may have been the easier part for her. She was two miles from her vehicle, so the elk had to be quartered and carried out by her two helpers, one her husband, and herself. All-terrain vehicles aren't allowed on the Buffalo National River where she was hunting.

Ellison, who lives southeast of Winslow in northern Crawford County, passed up several chances at smaller elk earlier in the hunt. His youth permit allowed him to take either a male or female elk.

On the last morning of the hunt, he found what he wanted. His was hunting with his father, Lance Ellison. They were on the Gene Rush Wildlife Management Area of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in Newton County. The WMA adjoins Buffalo National River.

"We set up in some cedars," Cole Ellison said, "and in about five minutes this bull elk came out. I shot it once, and it went right down." He was using a 7mm Magnum rifle. His father said the distance was 100 steps from Cole to the elk.

Arkansas elk hunting is limited to 20 permits each year, with the usual format four hunters with bull permits in late September and the other 16 in December. Twelve December permits are for antlerless elk, usually meaning cow elk, three are for bulls and one is for the youth who can go after either a cow or a bull.

The application period is May each year for the permits. Both applications and permits are free, and the hunt is limited to Arkansans except for one permit issued through fund-raising activities of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Most of the money generated from this RMEF permit is returned to Arkansas for elk habitat work.

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