June 27, 2007Dr. Julie Ball with a big Amberjack caught off Virginia
If you've ever caught one of these suckers you know they pull like freight trains. Julie said they were fishing at the South Tower with spinning gear and 16-pound test line. A 53-inch amberjack on 16-pound-est line? Now that's a battle. A lot of fishermen release their amberjacks because the fish tend to have parasites. The grubs are harmless, but not exactly appetizing. I'm tempted to keep one next time I get a chance after recently sampling an amazing dish that featured smoked amberjack. It was actually a spread. My friend Terry Tomalin, the outdoors editor at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, donated it for a cookout I had for some friends on the eve of the recent Outdoor Writers Association of America conference here in Roanoke. Tomalin didn't get here in time to make the cookout so he sent the stuff by overnight mail -- along with baggies of lemon wedges, jalepenos and crackers. Turn-key party food. You gotta love it. It's a good thing I stopped by my office that afternoon because otherwise it would have been sitting on my desk for five days. That could have been ugly. At the cookout there was no shortage of good chow, including some smoked salmon brought by my buddies Bill Monroe and Mark Freeman from Oregon. But I'm kind of spoiled on the smoked salmon front because my dad keeps me fairly well supplied, so I did most of my damage on the amberjack spread. I actually had no idea what kind of fish it was until Terry told me a couple days later. The key, Terry said, is to use a fairly small amberjack. Say, a 20-incher. I've caught them that size in Florida, but I don't even know if fish that small migrate up here with the big boys. I've never seen or caught one. Then again, I haven't exactly been looking for them. June 17, 2007Why is the Roanoke NWTF chapter struggling?It's not uncommon for volunteers in any organization to become frustrated and burned out, because what usually happens is that a small core of people end up doing all of the work. So it wasn't surprising when the core of folks helping put on the annual fundraising banquet for the Roanoke Valley chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation finally called it quits after the 2006 banquet. What was unusual was that no one stepped in to fill the void. And it was also interesting that many of the people kept volunteering for a wildlife-related group -- Hunters for the Hungry. I heard some grumbling about the low return the chapters got on banquet profits. So I started looking into it. Nonprofits have to file open returns with the IRS, and a number of groups help compile that information so people can check up on the groups they're giving their time and money to. In my first look at the financial information one of the things that jumped out at me was NWTF CEO Rob Keck's compensation, which was $351,000 a year. That seemed high. (It actually was comparable to what leaders of similar groups earn.) I got the OK to do a story on how these groups raise and spend money. The editor at the time, Mike Riley, asked if I would mind having reporter Laurence Hammack on the project with me. I knew I could handle the story on my own, but I knew it would be better if Laurence, who has a lot more experience with these types of projects, was a part of the effort. We've been working on the story for six months -- not solid, of course. From what we found, nobody is doing anything illegal. But it really was intresting (at least to me and the others involved with the project) how these groups work, with a small core of generally well compensated leaders and small paid staff having to keep a huge contingent of volunteers fired up to do the mission. When that mission evolves, as has the NWTF's as turkeys have been pretty much restored, that only adds to the challenge. One challenge we faced was that many people we talked to had plenty to say, but weren't willing to go on the record. The hunting fraternity is a tight, and people tend to be cautious about saying anything that might be considered negative. But we still found plenty of people on all sides of the issue who were willing to be candid. The story ran today. HERE'S the link. With all the reporting we did, it could have been much longer than the piece we ended up with. A lot of color and details got left on the editing room floor. With the Roanoke chapter still in limbo, I expect we're not done reporting on this story. If you have worked or volunteer with wildlife-related conservation groups, I'd love to hear about your experiences. June 16, 2007Fun, but few fish on the New RiverFriday I went on a short float trip on the New River with some friends who are in town for the Outdoor Writers Association of America's 80th convention. The group included Bill Monroe of the Oregonian and Mark Freeman of the Medford (Ore.) Mail-Tribune, Trout Unilimited PR guy Chris Hunt of Idaho Falls Idaho, and Brett Prettyman of the Salt Lake Tribune. I had originally planned to take them on my favorite stretch of the James River but had moved the float in the wake of the fish kill on the James. (Still no answers on that, but the kill seems to be abating.) Logistics were more difficult for the New float, but I figured that was OK because the river is Virginia's best smallmouth water. I was especially eager to show off the New to Monroe and Freeman because they fish some of my old waters in Oregon and I wanted to know how they thought this river compares. So, naturally, the fishing was brutal. Seriously, the only time I've done worse was on a day when the river was totally blown out. On the float from Pembroke to Ripplemead I caught one small bass. And I mean small. It looked like an X-Rap, maybe 5 inches long and barely bigger than the fly it hit. That was it. I had only fly gear (as did the other guys) and maybe I could have wrestled up a few more fish with conventional tackle. The other guys struggled, too, and they know what they are doing. Even Freeman. Chris was high hook, with four. Mark had two. Brett had a couple. Bill? Let's just say he saved me from being low hook. He claimed to have been "working" most of the time. I can't wait to see that column. But the scenery in that section is great, I saw a bunch of wildlife, including a young whitetail buck on the bank, and even got a good laugh when Chris and Brett swam after hitting a rapid sideways. It's hard to complain about a day like that even when the fishing is awful. June 10, 2007Blazing across Smith Mountain Lake at the Blue Ridge BrawlI’m sitting here in what has been my home away from home the past four days – the ESPN/BASS media trailer. It ain’t bad. Basically it’s a 21-foot cargo trailer with rows of desks along the side. It’s got high-speed Internet (although I haven’t gotten it to work for me), a fridge, TV and, most importantly, AC. It’s not bad out there today – I’m thinking 85 – but Friday and Saturday it was oppressive, so getting in here was a nice break. I got here this morning at 5:30 a.m. for the launch. I’d hoped to get up in a helo but that didn’t happen. So I got in a camera boat, which wasn’t much slower than a helo. It was a 21-foot Blazer with a 300hp Yamaha. The driver said it will top 80 and I believe it. The lake was smooth so the ride was nice. Unlike yesterday. I spent a couple hours out there and it was rough. My driver was careful but on the way back he didn’t see a rogue wave (neither did I) and when we hit it I launched about 3 feet off the seat. Had I not been holding on I would have been in the water. This morning we got started after all 12 anglers had taken off. Somehow in the next two hours we found five boats, which I thought was pretty fortunate. It helped that a lot of guys have been hammering main lake points. Apparently this is going to be a really close finish. It looks like leader Casey Ashley is struggling while a couple of other contenders, including Skeet Reese and Dean Rojas, are doing well. Weigh-in is about an hour away. You can watch it live at HERE. June 8, 2007Two days down in the Blue Ridge Brawl
Non-boaters, sometimes called co-anglers, are randomly paired with boaters, who run the show. Non-boaters just have to do the best they can. Plenty of them enter because they want a chance to spend a couple days with pro anglers. Embry, who lives in Williamsburg, is enjoying the heck out of his experience. He fished with Davy Hite yesterday and today he was paired with Mike Iaconelli (to Embry's right, for the two of you who somehow don't know who Ike is). Embry didn't even pay to enter the tournament. He won a raffle at the Bass Pro Shops in Hampton. He made thecut and is fishing with Ish Monroe tomorrow. How cool is that? (Ironically, Embry had some problems with the heat today. But Ike iced him down and he was able to get back to fishing after about an hour's rest.) A couple of years ago I rode as an observer with a couple of anglers during the Bassmaster Classic. It was interesting. But, I'm telling you, spending eight hours in the boat and not fishing is pretty brutal. I don't care who you're with. But fishing? That's a different story. Non-boater entry fee for the Elite Series is $750. So, if you make that cut, that's $250 a day, about what you'd pay for a day with a guide. Even if you draw a rookie, those guys are incredibly good and would be worth spending a day with. If you draw a guy like Ike (or any number of those pros) -- and the odds are 1 in 108 -- you could have one of your most interesting fishing days ever. I'm going to be out on the lake tomorrow some (in a media boat). It is going to be interesting to see how boat traffic affects the fishing. June 5, 2007Another look at the pending state record muskie
June 4, 2007Video: Chasing carp
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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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