May 29, 2008Wildlife crime notebook makes for interesting readingIt's a proven fact that everybody loves the Police Blotter. You know, that feature in the local paper that lists that week's arrests. (The big crimes usually get more ink, of course.) Police blotters might not be so appealing if they contained only boring things like vehicle break-ins, basic larcenies and speeding tickets. But they don't. Along with those basic crimes, the blotters detail all kinds of crazy and, frankly, funny stuff. Regular cops aren't the only ones dealing with wacky stuff. Conservation Police Officers (formerly game wardens) run into some kooky situations, and now the regular public can read some of the highlights (or lowlights, in some cases). The report runs in the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' Outdoor Report. Not all of these are funny. One of the reports in the latest version details an officer's involvement with a case in which a woman died when her car went into the water at a boat ramp on the Shenandoah River. But then there's the story about the felon who, when caught with a dead deer and a muzzleloader, claimed both belonged to a mysterious friend. The friend, of course, never showed up to claim the deer and gun. The report a couple of weeks ago included a write-up on a couple of bass fishermen nailed for cheating at a tournament at Claytor Lake. I'm planning to use that story as a basis for a newspaper column. The only problem with the notebook? Unlike the regular police blotters, this one doesn't include the names of the arrested. May 26, 2008Delayed Harvest streams offer trout 'opener'On June 1, the special regulations that have been in affect on Virginia's Delayed Harvest trout waters shift over to regular regulations. Like Trout Heritage Day, this is something of an opening day because everyone knows which streams are in the program and can feel confident those waters have some fish due the catch-and-release-only regs that have been in place since Oct. 1. Crowds can be a bit heavy the first few days but quickly thin out. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has a detailed list of the state's Delayed Harvest waters on its Web site, and the list also includes pinpoint directions for the waters. Anglers at Delayed Harvest waters need a trout license in addition to a regular fishing license through June 15. May 21, 2008Another day, another bike crash witnessedWhy do bicyclists wait until I'm around before they try to kill themselves? OK, the guy I found crumpled on the Roanoke River Greenway last year wasn't trying. He just had the bad luck of hitting a huge pothole. But the bloody mountain biker pictured a month ago on this blog was lucky all he got was bloody when he hit a tree without a helmet. And the kid I just saw crash in Roanoke got lucky, too. I was coming back from an assignment in Vinton when this pack of teenaged kids on BMX bikes converged on the intersection of 8th and Wise. That spot is on one of my road bike loops and it's a confusing intersection with a bunch of yield signs. I get nervous riding through there and I pay attention. These kids weren't paying attention. They were just riding willy nilly in the road, crossing back and forth and not looking. I sometimes see that kind of behavior from pedestrians who seem to be daring drivers to hit them. The drivers all defered to the kids. But one of the kids didn't see that a pickup truck was stopped and turning into a convenience store. The kid smacked the back of the pickup and crumpled on the side of the road, about 30 feet in front of me. I stopped, put on my flashers and got out. The kid was crying and rolling around in pain saying, "Oh, my knee. My knee." I said, while dialing 911, "Don't worry, I'm calling help." And, miraculously, he quickly got better. He staggered back onto his bike and took off after his "friends," who hadn't exactly stuck around to make sure he was OK. I tried to convince him to sit tight -- really all you can do -- but he would have none of it. I could just see a kid like that going home and telling his mom some guy hit him and Pretty interesting. May 19, 2008A wet day fishing and shooting in the Lehigh Valley
Chris is the president of Wildlands Conservancy. I spent a morning fishing with him on a trip arranged through the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association, at whose spring conference I was an invited speaker. We floated with guide Dean Druckenmiller of Fly Fish Pennsylvania on the Lehigh River. This is big water and beautiful country. It was chilly and poured all day -- this was one of the top five wettest fishing trips of my life -- and that didn't help the fishing, which was unfortunate because I didn't get the true feel of the river, which is an amazing success story. The river used to be so polluted with coal silt that it was sometimes called a "lava river." "It never caught on fire, but it could have," Kocher told me. Now it's clean and has a good population of smallmouth bass, stocked trout and a few holdover and wild trout. Chris and I managed to catch about 10 smallmouth bass between us, and he caught two trout. On the other boat on the trip the two anglers managed just two bass between them so I think we did about as well as could be hoped for. Most of the river's trout are stocked but there's some holdover. Flow is controlled by a dam and Drruckenmiller and other fishing advocates are pushing for more coldwater releases during the summer to help with carryover of trout. But because the dam was constructed for flood control, cold water releases aren't a priority. It's a complicated issue, further complicated because the river also supports a booming whitewater business and those guys prefer a relatively small number of big releases as opposed to more smaller releases. Based on the size of the water, I think Druckenmiller and other coldwater advocates are right when they say that a year-round coldwater fishery would draw anglers from throughout the East. I will be interested to see how this fishery continues to evolve. We spent the afternoon shooting sporting clays. We shot the easy B course. I started slow but then got hot. At one point I had 23 in a row, which is by far the best I've ever shot. Then my gun started jamming so bad I had to finish with a borrowed gun and that was that. The trip also gave me my first chance to stop by the big Cabela's store in Hamburg. Wow. Usually I have the family along when I've gone to Bass Pro Shops stores but this time I was solo and could take my time. That gave me a chance to check out the sales so I didn't spend as much money as I could have. My one "big" buy was a new Gore-Tex rain jacket, the need for which became clear during Friday's rain. It was 40 percent off an already reasonable price so that helped.
May 12, 2008Mya Gallo, smiling big after the hunt of a lifetime
This was my favorite shot. You can't really see the turkey that well, but that's not important. What you can see is that incredible smile on Mya's face. You can't fake that kind of joy. Chuck wrote up the story of the hunt and I didn't see any reason to boil it down. So here it is: "Of all the hunts and all the success, nothing tops this one. May 5, 2008Taylor kills a big gobbler on camera. Sort of.Here's the video from my turkey hunt with Freddy McGuire on May 1 in Bedford County. Based on this video I am not expecting Will Primos to call and ask me to join his video team any time soon. I also fully expect my brother to tell me the video (particularly my ultracheesy voice over), is "more than I can bear." But I hadn't killed a turkey in two years so that was my priority on this day. Given that and the general challenges of this hunt, I think this turned out as well as we could have hoped for under the circumstances. Two details about the video. At one point in the voice over I say "I decided to belly crawl..." That's not true. As we were trying to figure out how to get this bird, Freddy -- who is an expert at this stuff -- suggested that I belly crawl over to try to peak into the hollow. I was going to give him a signal if it was clear for him to get over there with the camera. But it was clear the turkey was only 50 yards away and there was no way we could risk it. Also, this video is quick, but at least 15 minutes elapsed between when I started crawling and when I finally shot. I think the average viewer of outdoors videos would be surprised to know how many hunts those pro video teams go on to get the great footage that makes the cuts for their shows and DVDs. The more I lug cameras along on hunts, the more appreciation I have for the teams that get great footage out there under fair chase conditions. May 2, 2008A big end to my spring gobbler drought
It had a thick 10-inch beard and weighed 23 pounds even on Freddy's digital scale. The spurs were between 3/4 and 7/8 of an inch, although the tip of one was broken off. So, I'm not sure if it was a 2-year-old or 3-year-old. Not that it really matters. It is a heck of a trophy and was a great, exciting hunt. Freddy actually already wrote a story about the hunt and posted it on his Vaturkey.com Web site. He told the story so well I don't feel any great need to try to duplicate the work. Freddy was shooting video. We didn't get the kill on tape but I'm working on a little video I hope to post here a little bit later today. The short version is this guy started gobbling on his own about 8:45 a.m. We heard another one gobbling a ways off after the hunt. If you can hunt late, now is a good time to find lonely gobblers after hens head off to nests. Keep the reports and pictures coming, and thanks for reading. mt |
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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