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I'm doing some research for a story on the Cave Spring Optimist Club's 40th annual fishing tournament at Smith Mountain Lake and have been digging through some old newspaper clippings.

Yesterday I looked at a bunch of clips from 1969 and 1970 and one type of story stood out: fish kills.

As frustrating as the recent kills we've seen have been, it was a lot worse back then.

Unlike many of the kills we've been dealing with lately, the kills back then were most from point source pollution. Somebody put something bad in the water and it killed a bunch of fish.

Just a basic search turned up stories on kills on just about every stream in the region, including the New, James and Smith Rivers. A kill on the Clinch River in June of 1970 wiped out most life in the river in a 10-mile stretch. The kill was caused when an equipment failure at a hydroelectric plant allowed acid into the water.

I also found stories about anglers complaining that fisheries managers were unfair about the attention they gave to certain species and fisheries. It's safe to say that's one thing that hasn't changed.

Barry Arrington, who coordinates an annual spring turkey excursion for disabled hunters each spring in Bedford County, sent in this shot of 79-year-old Harold Ford and his first-ever gobbler.

The hunt is an offering from Virginia's chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation's Wheelin' Sportsmen program.

Here's Barry's story about the hunt:

"The predawn hours of Saturday, April 26 were wet and foggy as we gathered for our 3rd annual Wheelin’ Sportsmen hunt. Five hunters and their guides spread out across Bedford County in search of Mr. Longbeard.

Daylight greeted most of the groups with very little gobbling on the roost. Three groups were able to eventually work birds later in the morning. Those three groups had birds close and two hunters even pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, one had failed to put a round in the chamber of his gun. The other gun did have a shell chambered and the load of Winchester # 5s found its mark.

The gun was mine, BUT… it was in the hands of Mr. Harold Ford.

Read more »

I ran out yesterday to the Gander Mountain store that opened today in Roanoke just off Interstate 81.

This is a so-called "soft launch," with the grand opening set for early May.

The place wasn't very crowded, which didn't seem too surprising considering it was in the middle of the afternoon.

Of course it was hard not to compare it with our area's other big outdoors store, Sportsman's Warehouse, which opened late last year.

My initial impression is that Gander Mountain is physically quite a bit larger. But it also seemed more open so I don't think it has that much more stuff. Most product lines seemed comparable. I was told that some merchandise hasn't yet arrived.

Among stuff that I specifically looked for:

-Gander didn't have nearly as many traditional (recurve, longbow) archery supplies.
-Gander didn't seem to have as many tents, but that could have been misleading because Sportsman's has many tents set up in its loft.
-Gander does have live minnows, which Sportsman's doesn't.
-Gander seemed to have more boating accessories
-Gander doesn't have as much high-end airgun stuff.
-Gander had their rifle scopes mounted on blank stocks so you could actually look through them. I really like that.
-The associates at Gander were all super nice and seemed to know the whole store and not just their departments. That's nothing against folks at SW. They're great, too.

One funny story. Outside the main entrance are a couple of small teardrop-style camping trailers. They were pretty cool. One guy was checking them out and seemed very interested. He mentioned that he wasn't crazy about the style, "But for $800 I can deal with it. Now I just have to clear it with the boss."

I said, "I think you missed a nine there."

The price was $7,999 -- not $799.

He said, "Oh hell, that ain't worth $8,000."

For those of you who have had a chance to get out to Gander Mountain, I'd be interested to know your impressions.

The other day the family and I went for a little hike in First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach, and enjoyed watching nesting osprey.

On the drive out I saw a mountain biker on the side of the road holding his head, which was covered in blood. I stopped to check on him.

He had smacked a tree and cut his scalp pretty good. The heavy bleeding, which is normal for even a minor head wound, made it look worse than it was. My wife couldn't even look at him. My girls did and the guy said, "This is why you should always wear a bike helmet."

Lynn Blankenship of Troutville said he chased the same crafty gobbler for two spring with no luck. He got it right Saturday morning.

Blankenship and friend Kevin Taylor got into position well before daylight. Blankenship made one call and the bird flew out of the roost and into range.

Blankenship is calling it his 23/3 bird because it weighed 23 pounds and had three beards. The beards were 10, 9 and 7 inches long, respectively.

The men weren't done as Taylor took a nice gobbler later in the morning.

I've been getting reports that gobblers are pretty henned up so it helps when you can get in on them while they're roosted.

Keep the reports and photos coming.

We just got the database from last year's Virginia Angler Recognition Program, which tracks trophy freshwater catches.

You can learn some interesting stuff just checking out the basic info on the most productive waters and where the biggest fish came from. But the real value is when you can really dig in and look for details, down to the peak fishing days or weeks for certain seasons.

We've got the last two year's of data in a searchable database at Roanoke.com. If you take a good look at the data and put what you learn to work this coming season, I can almost guarantee you'll have more fishing success.

Strutting gobbler decoys are getting a lot of attention these days. And for good reason. In certain situations, they work great.

Gobbler decoys aren't exactly cheap. Plastic ones, to which you can attach a real fan, can run upwards of $75. If you want a real one, like the one my buddies Freddy McGuire and Jeff D'Agostino are using in this video from last season, you either have to sacrifice one of your own mounts, hope you can acquire one that's no longer wanted, or buy a real mounted pen-raised jake decoy from someplace like Hazel Creek for $445.

Or you can make your own. Which is what I did.

Now, as you look at this gobbler, you may be surprised to know that I am not an experienced taxidermist. This is the first turkey I've ever "mounted." Really.

OK, seriously, I know this thing looks a little rough. OK. Maybe more than a little rough. But my friend Barry Arrington killed a huge gobbler last year over a decoy that wasn't this pretty. I really think the keys are the fan and the head. And they both are fine. (I'm actually hoping to get another skin this spring so I can redo the body.)

To make this I used a skin from a jake shot by a friend last fall. I bought a foam gobbler body from a taxidermy supply company for about $15, and spent another $45 on the painted head, which was by far the biggest expense. The tail I had lying around. It needs a beard. Our cats got ahold of most of mine (except the 11.5-incher from the first gobbler I killed, and I'm not going to sacrifce that one) and killed them, but a buddy said he's going to hook me up.

Anyway, my total investment has been about $65. Plus, it was kind of fun.

Will it work? I don't know. But we'll see. (Don't worry -- I don't plan to use this anywhere there's a chance a hunter, who would have to be half-blind -- could mistake it for a real thing and shoot at it.)

Oh, the name. One of my girls suggested Gobble and the other Bobby (because that was the name of my friend who gave me the skin and wings).Another buddy suggested Tuff because this boy clearly isn't afraid to mix it up with the big boys. So, there you go.

Does anyone else have experience with gobbler decoys? Tips? Suggestions?

Good luck to everyone this season. Be safe and keep me posted.

Randy Whittaker of Newport spent the night next to Tinker Creek on Friday so he could get his preferred spot for Trout Heritage Day. His reward? This 11.5-pound brown trout, which Whittaker hooked on his third cast.

The much anticipated case that threatened to close Outer Banks beaches to driving was in court in Raleigh this afternoon. Instead of ruling on the case, the judge gave both sides a week to reach a settlement. Here's the short story the Associated Press just filed:

Judge allows additional week to settle beach driving lawsuit

The Associated Press
A federal judge has given environmentalists and national park officials a week to complete a settlement of a lawsuit over off-road vehicles in Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The lawsuit filed in October argued that existing National Park Service rules didn't protect nesting birds and sea turtles on the Outer Banks.

U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle said Friday, however, that he was ready to order a temporary ban on driving in parts of the seashore. But lawyers for both sides said they were sure they would have the settlement completed in a week.

Boyle also told attorneys that representatives from two counties that intervened in the lawsuit should participate in the negotiations.

Scott Smith, the fisheries biologist who oversees the upper James River, said we could expect to see another fish kill this year on the James. In short, he said nothing had changed in the watershed since last year so there was no reason to expect a different outcome.

Still, it was impossible not to hope that last year was just a one-time deal. As I wrote about in my Sunday column, that hope quickly faded.

The DGIF and DEQ have announced that reports of sick and dying fish -- smallmouth bass, mostly -- have already started coming in. I guess the best we can hope for is that this year's kill, like last year's, won't be too terrible.

I got the following detailed report late yesterday from river rat Louis Tudor of Roanoke. He sent it as a comment on an entry I did last year on the fish kill, but I wanted to give it better play some I'm posting it below in full:

"I would like to report a sick fish sighting. I was fishing Buchanan to Arcadia. I put in at daybreak at the Buchanan boat ramp. Resting there was a very large smallie, well over 20”. When I reached down to to touch him he was slow to move but that he did. He was covered with fuzzy white “caterpillar” like lesions on at least four parts of his body.

I could have easily caught this fish with my hands but I let him be. After about 30 minutes he swam back into the main body of water. I caught no citation smallies last year, four the year before that, and seven two years ago. I fish a lot and am seeing fewer big fish every year. I am catching the same aount of redeyes and small fish over this same period.

I personally think that there is a correlation of a low flow rate (drought) which magnifies bad things that are obviously happenning in the river. Places where I used to catch large fish are less hospitable because the river is lower in those areas changing the dynamics of what made the area good to start with (stagnation). I hope that this is not nature's way of reducing fish population because the river itself is shrinking.

Let's face it, how many other rivers could you go to and catch over fifty fish in a day?"

If you have a report or pictures of sick or dead fish on the James (or any other river), let me know. Be sure to also send the report to the DEQ at fishreports@deq.virginia.gov.