January 29, 2007Is Barta the man?
Yes, he did. Is it just me, or are theme songs for hunting and fishing shows among the worst jingles ever recorded? (OK. I have to admit that the theme to Jimmy Houston's fishing show was kind of catchy. But ever since I saw the disgusting video of Houston trying to shoot a big penned buck at the notorious Bellar's Place in Indiana, I don't respect anything associated with him.) I've been wanting to start a discussion about the best and worst fishing and hunting shows. I'll get to that one of these days. In the meantime, let's talk music. What's the best outdoor show theme song out there? And what's the worst? January 24, 2007South Umpqua Buck
He catches quite a few steelhead every winter, but this one was kind of special. Dad was wade-fishing a run within sight of at least four driftboats that were unsuccessfully working the water. Everybody who fishes knows it's super sweet to catch one from "the bank" in front of boats, especially when those boats aren't catching them. Oh, some of you may be wondering why he killed this fish. Simple. It's a hatchery fish. The way it works is the steelhead are released as fingerlings in the rivers, swim to the sea, then return just like natives. Natives must be released so they can spawn, but the fisheries experts out there actually encourage anglers to keep the hatchery fish. January 21, 2007Hole-in-one
Sunday afternoon I decided to spend a few minutes shooting my air rifle in my basement range. OK, calling it a range is a bit generous. It's 10 meters from my position to the target, which translates to just a bit over nine meters from the end of the barrel. But 10 meters is normal air gun target range so I don't feel too guilty. So, this was my first target. Decent shot, huh? Actually, this is FIVE shots. I was sitting, and had a rest. I had my scope cranked to 12X. Still, it's hard not be happy with a group like this, especially considering the gun I was shooting. Under the conditions listed above, the gun is a more important part of a group like this than a shooter's skill or lack thereof. The rifle in this case was a .22 caliber Beeman Kodiak, which is Beeman's renamed version of the English-made Webley Patriot. It's a high-powered spring-piston rifle that has earned lots of praise for its hunting capabilities (I bought it for hunting squirrels) but has been criticized by some for being harsh and inaccurate. It is hard to cock and it kicks so hard it has a reputation for destroying scopes (although the inexpensive BSA scope I have on mine is holding up OK). But there is no way to call a gun that can shoot this kind of group innaccurate. It is so much more accurate than my other squirrel gun, a stock Ruger 10-22, that it's not even funny. That rimfire gun can't put five shots in a 3-inch circle at 20 yards. (I've sent it back to the factory once already. Maybe Ruger just assumes everyone who buys a 10-22 is going to upgrade the stock, barrel and trigger.) This group was shot with a JSB Exact pellet. The next five shots I took were with the heavier Beeman Kodiaks, and the group was almost as good. The next shots were with Predator pellets, which have a polymer tip and are designed for hunting. That was the worst group by far. (Still all in the black.) That short session not only reaffirmed my satisfaction with this gun, which I got for a great price just over a year ago, but also got me thinking that I really need to get out for at least one more squirrel hunt before the season ends.
January 19, 2007Guest entry on Sunday HuntingA couple of days ago I got an e-mail from a reader of this blog who wondered why his comment on my entry "More Thoughts on Sunday Hunting" hadn't been posted. I had no good answer. For some reason his original post had disappeared into oblivion. Fortunately, he still had the original and was able to resend it. "B Patrick" clearly put a lot of time into this post, which may be the best-written comment I've ever seen in support of Sunday hunting. (If he had written that eloquently in support of the ban I would have given him the same compliment.) Rather than post it as a comment now on a topic that's already week old, where it won't get the reads it deserves, I'm going to run this as an entry. Again, the words below aren't mine. They're from "B Patrick."
Sunday hunting has no detrimental effect on wildlife populations. The 43 states that allow some form of Sunday hunting have healthy wildlife populations in those areas that can sustain them. In fact the states with the most abundant game populations allow Sunday hunting. Those states that have recently removed prohibitions on Sunday hunting have not seen a negative impact on game populations. Allowing Sunday hunting will give state wildlife agencies more flexibility in managing populations. The extra day a week for hunting will give the agencies the ability to increase hunting in areas of overpopulation by encouraging hunters to go afield." January 18, 2007Insult to injuryI would hate to work in an industry that's reliant on the weather. Say, skiing. Every business faces challenges, but it has to be extra frustrating when you can't do anything about it. This has been a brutal year for skiing in the mid-Atlantic. That's a bummer for skiers, but a real bummer for the people who make their living in the business. I hate to think of the gnashing of teeth that went on before all the resorts built golf courses, which have been packed this winter. I've got to give Steve Showalter at Massanutten Resort a lot of credit. The manager of the resort's ski area, he's always pretty calm when I ask him about tough weather conditions. You know, he'll say, "I realized long ago that worrying about it is not going to make it any better." Good attitude. That's got to help. I called Showalter today to talk about the cold weather that's finally here, and to ask what things look like for Massanutten. He was in a meeting but Kenny Hess, the assistant manager, called me right back. I asked him about a note on the resort's Web site stating that a broken pipe had delayed the resort's snowmaking operation. Turns out, a municipal pipe was leaking into the pond from which the resort pulls water for snowmaking. So why does that delay snowmaking? It's just more water into the pond, right? Think about it. It was a sewer pipe. Desperate as they are, the resort isn't about to cover it's slopes with yellow snow. Or worse. Instead of making snow and getting ready for the weekend, the resort is doing the smart (and, probably, legal) thing and dealing with water tests to make sure the pond is clean before they start pumping. "It's like getting kicked when you're down," Hess told me. No kidding. January 12, 2007Stripers in the bayI had hoped to get to Virginia Beach this weekend for a day or two of fishing for striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay. The bay season is closed but catch and release fishing is allowed. Most fishermen are concentrating on the ocean fishery – there’s a tournament under way that drew 280 boats -- which means pressure is relatively light in the bay. Unfortunately, for a few reasons, the trip isn’t going to happen. That’s disappointing, but maybe I’ll get down there before the fish have all left the bay. If not, the ocean fishing should be decent for a couple of months. The challenge there is timing a trip when the weather is mild enough to let us get out in the ocean in my buddy’s 24-foot Albemarle cuddy cabin. I formulated my plan for this weekend with the help of Claude Bain of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament. Bain said the fish have been concentrated near Cape Charles, along the ledge that runs from around Plantation Light toward the Concrete Ships. The fishing technique is, in Bain’s words, “So simple it should be criminal.” First you find the fish, using sonar or looking for diving birds or hooked-up fishermen. Then you set out four or five rods baited with live eels, hooked through the lips with a 5/0 circle hook. The hook is attached to a 6-foot-long 80- to 100-pound leader attached to the main line with a barrel swivel, above which is 1- or 2-ounce sinker. Set the eels below bobbers at various depths ranging from 10 to 25 feet deep. Drift with the current and hold on. January 11, 2007Cochran on Sunday HuntingFor another objective look at the Sunday hunting survey, check out the great column by my good friend Bill Cochran. More thoughts on Sunday huntingThe debate regarding Sunday hunting has intensified since results of the DGIF study were released, and one issue has been brought up a lot: landowner rights. A number of people have pointed out that landowners weren't surveyed. How can the law be changed, they wonder, if landowners didn't get to voice their opinion? Whoa! Yes, two Sunday hunting related bills already have been introduced to the General Assembly. Will the mood of the majority of the General Assembly, which has been very timid regarding this issue, shift based on this one survey? I doubt it. I don't think the Sunday hunting ban will be lifted without giving landowners -- and other outdoors enthusiasts, and the general public -- a chance to weigh in on this. Can that happen in the next 45 days? I'm not betting on it. On the specific issue of surveying landowners, I plan to follow up on this with the DGIF. In the meantime I have some thoughts on why it didn't happen this time. In short, properly surveying landowners would have made the survey job more complicated and pricey, and would have taken longer. Clearly, the agency wanted to get this done before the General Assembly got rolling. The survey results might not change what happens with those bills, but at least the DGIF has the information. For this survey, mining the DGIF's list of licensed hunters – easily available thanks to the DGIF’s new point-of-sale system – was a quick way to come up with a sample. It was so quick and affordable the department was able to sample a much larger group than necessary to produce valid survey results. (To answer concerns of one caller, who wondered who authorized the DGIF to spend his "license dollars" on the study: The department's board authorized it by a unanimous vote. It was money well spent. Obviously, this is a hugely important, controversial issue and the board members know that they need current data to support whatever direction they might ulitmately take with this. The same caller wanted to know why he wasn't surveyed. He wasn't surveyed for the same reason I've never won the lottery. Bad luck.) As it was, even though landowners are license-exempt when hunting on their own land, plenty have licenses so they can hunt other properties. So a good number of those approximately 2,950 respondents were probably landowners. What was the breakdown? I'd like to know as much as you would. I'll try to find out. Still, I suspect a survey of only landowners, especially those who own good-sized parcels, would produce a higher percentage of those who don't support Sunday hunting. Some of the reasons – in addition to religious convictions, that is -- have been noted in comments to my Monday entry on this topic. For example, it's a day for landowners to get things done on their land, whether it’s work or play. If they are willing to put up with hunting the rest of the week, don’t they deserve a break? Sure, they can make the rules. But, as one friend who opposes Sunday hunting said, it’s one more thing for them to worry about, and they already go above and beyond the call to let us hunt. It also allows non-hunters who may use the property for recreation a chance to get out there without worrying about gunshots. Speaking of gunshot-free Sundays, where are they? I know I hear plenty of gunshots on Sundays when I'm out mountain biking, hiking or moving treestands. And it's not like I'm next to licensed shooting preserves -- where, interestingly enough, Sunday hunting is LEGAL. Of course, because hunters account for roughly 10 percent of the population in Virginia, many of those landowners aren't hunters. Non-hunters seem far less likely than hunters to care whether or not hunting is allowed on Sundays. There's another reason that some landowners, even those who hunt, probably aren't particularly eager to see the law change: access. In fact, I think if you could make a blanket statement about Sunday hunting it would be this: Access is the most important determining factor in a hunter's opinion. The numbers indicate as much. Hunters who are most likely to favor Sunday hunting are those who face the biggest hurdles getting out to the woods -- city dwellers and younger hunters. Consider that 76 percent of those surveyed hunters under 30 support Sunday hunting. Is that because they're not religious? I don't think so. Many of those hunters work full time, so unless they take vacation (which plenty do, of course), they get one day a week to hunt. If they have kids, it gets even tougher thanks to other family commitments. On the other hand, hunters over 60 overwhelmingly oppose Sunday hunting. Certainly, part of it may be their attachment with tradition. The older we get, the less we like change. But it's also a simple matter of practicality. Many older hunters are retired. Under the current system they already have access to hunting six days a week. They don’t crave that seventh day because they don’t need it. Landowners, be they working age or retired, have an access advantage if they reside on their huntable parcels. It's relatively easy for them to slip out for a quick early morning or late afternoon hunt. It takes much more time for a hunter who lives in a town or even the suburbs. Interestingly, one of proposed bills would legalize Sunday hunting only on private land. I don't predict a long life for that bill.
January 10, 2007The Ironman
This 7-point buck was Lazenby's second buck of the year, which started with a crossbow-killed double drop tine monster featured in this blog a couple months ago. Hunting the rugged North Mountain area near Catawba, he also killed a couple of does, and also took a bear with his crossbow. That number of tags he punched isn't what I really noticed. In Lazenby's recent e-mail the Salem resident said he hunted all but six days since the archery opener on the first Saturday in October.. By my rough calculations that's about 70 hunting days. Seventy days! It wasn't like he was out all day every day. He blamed having to work late for keeping him out of the woods on a couple of those days he missed. Even if some of those 70 days were just quick after-work hunts, that's some serious dedication. In fact, maybe dedication is too mild a word for it.
January 8, 2007Sunday hunting surveyThe Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries just released preliminary findings for its recent survey to gauge hunters' opinions about the state's ban on Sunday hunting. The findings were pretty remarkable. Of the respondents, 62 percent favor Sunday hunting, while only 34 percent oppose it. Making the numbers even more significant is the huge shift that's occurred in opinions since 1996, the last time hunters were surveyed on the subject. That survey found that 48 percent of Virginia hunters opposed Sunday hunting while 45 percent supported the idea. You don't have to be a statistics whiz to realize that's a big shift over a short period of time. As DGIF officials have told us about 3,567 times, they don't control the Sunday hunting ban. It's a state law, so changing it requires legislative action. What the game department can do is provide legislators with information that can help them make educated decisions on outdoors-related bills. The department's governor-appointed board members can, however, actively lobby politicians. Several board members are clearly in favor of lifting the ban, at least to some degree. I always enjoy covering the General Assembly and its approach to outdoors bills. It looks like this year could be even more interesting than usual. Because I'm going to be covering this as a news story I can't go public with my opinion on Sunday hunting, but I love to hear other hunters' thoughts on the Sunday hunting ban. January 5, 2007Late season turkeys
January 4, 2007Time offWhen I first asked the folks in our Roanoke.com department about starting a blog, they liked the idea. One of the producers wrote in an e-mail that I'd need to file two or three entries a day. I thought it was a typo. It wasn't. I figured I could do four or five entries a week, and I never promised more. I pretty much kept that pace throughout the fall, but the past few weeks I haven't. It was pretty easy in the fall when I was doing a lot of hunting, and receiving a lot of reports and pictures from other hunters. But toward the end of November everything slowed down. I wasn't getting out much, and apparently no one else was, either. I was out of town on vacation for close to a week. Then came the Christmas and New Year holidays and a few more vacation days. I plan to do better keeping this rolling, with those four or five entries a week. I may not be doing much stuff worth chronicling, but I'll find things to write about. I actually have been hunting a few times the past couple of weeks. Saturday morning I went to my favorite farm in Bedford County and sat in a stand in an area I hadn't hunted all year. It's a big travel route for deer, but Saturday morning it was an even bigger travel route for cattle. With the cows in there crashing around no deer wanted anything to do with the area. I saw only one, skittishly passing by in the distance. I went back with the muzzleloader on New Year's day and decided to still hunt. I thought I might get a shot but mainly I was planning to look for sign in some areas I hadn't hunted in order to get a jump start on scouting for next season. Plus, it was just a good day to put in a few miles of walking. The ground was soggy so I was able to stay pretty quiet. I ended up jumping seven deer -- all antlerless. I could have shot a small doe at about 40 yards but passed up the shot. More importantly, I identified a couple of areas that could be productive for bowhunting next October and November. Deer and turkey seasons end after Saturday. I may try to get out once more before then. If don't, it won't hurt too much.This season has already turned out better than I could have hoped for. |
About this blog
While growing up in rural Southern Oregon, Mark Taylor developed a passion for the outdoors while he and his younger brother tagged along with their father on fishing, hunting and camping adventures. Graduating from Northwestern University in 1988, Taylor spent four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy based in Norfolk before moving into journalism. After five years writing about the military for a Norfolk-based publishing company, he became the outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times in 1998. He lives in Roanoke with his wife and twin daughters. .....Advertisement.....
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