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A while ago an editor from USA Today who was teaching me about some software offered a truism about journalists with data: we always go straight for the biggest and baddest thing in a database.

So, you can guess what I did when Roanoke Times Metro Editor Brian Kelley told me about a the database at the Virginia Big Trees Program. I looked up Roanoke to find the biggest sucker in there.

The program, as the website itself puts it, "relies on volunteers to search for, nominate, and verify the measurements of big trees in Virginia. When a big tree is reported to the program, it is put into the Virginia Big Tree Database maintained jointly by the Virginia Forestry Association, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources."

The big winner turned out to be a 90-foot crack willow (Salix fragilis, for you Latin lovers out there) at 6311 Blacksburg Rd, "on right side of house in a field. Visible from road." That's in the picture.

You can search by locality, by the common or Latin name of a species, or other ways in the advanced search option.

This is terrific data partly because it's fascinating for what it documents, and partly for the way it documents it: by hand, by people out in the field with tape measures and cameras and pencils and paper. Many entries include hand-drawn maps to the locations.

In some ways, this is like the DataSphere's own black bear sightings map. It invites you to add to the database yourself by reporting what you've seen.

That's one of the best ways the Web works these days: the best content is created by the users themselves. Think YouTube for the most obvious example. YouTube for trees? For bears?

This is data doing what it can do best: becoming a conversation.

Ok, that's nerdy, but then this all started with my own glee over a database of big trees. I'm more of a data dork every day.

Lucky I'm married, because at this rate, I'd never get to kiss a girl again.

Someone you know been boasting about the bulk of their latest bass? Does their story about landing a crappie sound like a load of, um, garbage?

Our database of nearly 12,000 Virginia freshwater citation fish won't tell you about the ones that got away, but you can track trophy catches right down to the pound, ounce and inch.

We just updated the database with about 5,500 fish from 2007, so there's two years worth of trophies in there in 23 species, plus the names of the anglers who caught them and where each was landed.

And don't think this is inside stuff just for serious fisherman. You won't find me hanging around the baitshop, but I gotta say, when I first saw this database, the first thing I did was try to figure out, what's the biggest darn fish in there? I mean, who isn't interested in the biggest anything?

The answer, by the way, is a 95 pound, 11 ounce, 54-inch blue catfish landed by Archie Gold in 2006 in the James River. That's a state record.

But there are other curiosities. Like where they are caught. Check out the related graphic of where the most trophy fish were caught in 2007. Here's a tease: The top producers aren't all big rivers and lakes. Think of that cliche about fish in a barrel. Fish in a farm?

And if you want an expert's view of the data, read Roanoke Times Outdoors Writer Mark Taylor's take on it.

Just a pause to say thanks to those of you who have submitted black bear sightings for our map of bears in unusual places around the region.

I think I had five or six on there when I first posted the map in the DataSphere. There are now three times that.

Some cool ones came in, too. Jason Ball, who lives in Amherst County not too far from Buena Vista, sent in three sightings, including a regular visitor who fishes in the pond on his property. Bruce Cody told of one invader who left claw marks 9-feet up a tree from trying to reach a bird feeder.

Those are just a couple. Many more there of roadside sightings, mama's and babies in transit, and others. So, again, thanks, and keep 'em coming.

You've seen the video, the photographs: bear runs through downtown street, bear wanders into hospital, bear eats out of backyard birdfeeder.

It's can't miss stuff for newspapers and TV news. We're suckers for these things.

And here we go again. Now in the DataSphere, a map of sightings of black bears in interesting places around the Roanoke and New River valleys, with pictures and video in some instances.

There aren't a lot there yet, and that's where you come in, gentle reader. Email me with your sightings, friends. Send the date, time, location and a description of the bear and what it did, and don't forget the pics and vids if you got 'em. I'll stick 'em on the map and we'll all have more fun than a bear dosed up on ketamine.

As an aside, here's how this map "happened." A while back, the DataSphere was featured in a story on a prominent online journalism trade magazine site, called Poynter Online. Interviewing our editor, Carole Tarrant, the author asked what was next in the DataSphere. Carole replied, as a joke, that we'd be mapping sightings of black bears. The author took her seriously, and told the world that yours truly would be mapping black bear sightings.

Right away, we started seeing hits on the site from people doing Google searches for black bear sightings in Roanoke.

Well, we can't let the people down, now can we?