AdventuresInNature

ON CREATING A MONSTER

The generation before us used to warn us about dope fiends.

Don’t know that I ever ran into one of those, but I’m sorry to say that I may have – with the best of intentions – created a fishing fiend.

For years I have advocated taking kids fishing. Introduce them to the natural world by way of a river or lake, I preached. Let them learn the singular pleasure of learning to make a cast go exactly where you wanted it to go. Of watching wild ducks and Canada geese fly by you in early morning and late evening at shoulder height. Of learning to identify salamanders and baby turtles and an occasional muskrat as they swim by at your feet. Of watching a great blue heron stalk its prey in shallow water, or a kingfisher cracking the surface of the water for minnows.

Youngsters are increasingly difficult to convert to tomorrow’s anglers. They have too many other distractions ranging from video games to text-messaging each other on cell phones.

But new wives. Ah, there’s a different story.

Brenda had never caught a fish until just a few weeks ago. We spent a week and a half in one of the cottages at Hungry Mother State Park where while casting something (I’ve forgotten what) in the park lake, she caught a sunfish.

She couldn’t have been more excited if it had been Moby Dick and she was Gregory Peck with the movie cameras on her.

Since I’d already bought her fishing license for the Hungry Mother trip, I decided when we got back home to spring for a $40 push-bottom Rhino rod and reel, packaged and ready to go.

Well, almost ready.

I removed the monofilament line that comes on all pre-packaged fishing outfits – which invariably has the diameter and stiffness of surgical stitches – and replaced it with good 6-pound-test Berkley line.

Understand now, we live on the banks of the North Fork of the Holston River in Scott County. We’re so close you could throw a 3/8-ounce spinnerbait in the river from the porch on a good morning if you wanted to. But no one wants to. Best to walk a few steps down the bank and fish from the edge.

I probably forgot to mention that the North Fork just happens to be one of the best smallmouth bass rivers in Virginia. It ranks up there pretty close to the New and James rivers.

Brenda’s first half dozen casts were – well, less than expert. Most landed about a yardstick from her feet. But soon she got the hang of releasing the button on the reel at just the right whip
forward. Her lure – a non-promising-looking solid white plastic minnow – started arching impressively out across the green river. Now she was fishing.

Once she’d mastered the cast and started making retrieves that covered half the river – including coming through a couple of deep channels – I heard a combination of screams, whoops and what might have been curses.

"Help me! I can’t get it in," she shouted. "It’s trying to take it away from me."

The rod was bent and throbbing in a most satisfactory manner, and then I saw the big bass jump several yards from shore. Ye gads! I might have needed a little aid myself to get such a fish on light line. I rushed to her side as she brought the bass into shallow water, stepped out into the river myself, and used the lower lip of the fish to lift a three and one-half to four-pound smallmouth from the water.

Brenda was still running in place.

I gently released the bass back into the river. After all, the North Fork is Virginia’s only trophy catch-and-release bass stream. You can’t keep any bass under 20 inches, and then you can keep only one a day over 20 inches. It’s a protective measure instituted by the Virginia Game Department to allow bass to reproduce and grow, and it seems to be working very well.

In subsequent days, she proceeded to lose several more good bass, probably by not setting the hook quickly enough. Another monster broke her line right at the bank.

She has graduated to spinner baits now (they’re great lures this time of year) and she continues to get rod-bending strikes with an occasional bass that she gets to the bank.

And she’s gone fishing crazy on me. On days when the temperature is below 90 degrees and things look calm and inviting on the North Fork, she’s on the riverbank – casting, casting, casting every spare moment.

She has caught more pretty bass in the past three weeks than I’ve caught in three years.

And therein lies the problem. I’m out of clean underwear and she can’t find time to do the wash. Dustballs are piling up and clinging to my flip-flops. Even on this beautiful mid-week morning, she’s down there fishing while the dog and I go hungry. The dog has as good an idea of how to fix breakfast as I do.

Creating a fishing monster if not something I’ll do if I ever get married again. But then I won’t. I’ve got a companion who has found a new lease on life, even if the dog and I are having a hard time of it. She invariably comes off the riverbank with a big smile on her face.

A couple of days ago, I even heard her allude to the a cliché that every veteran angler uses.

"You know," she said, "it’s so quiet and peaceful and so much fun down on the river that sometimes it doesn’t make any difference whether you catch any fish or not."

Spoken like a veteran. A fanatic veteran.

END

Everybody move back a step. I want to explode a myth.

Despite what you may have heard, fishermen do not gobble down stuff that would gag a Toggenburg goat and call it a meal. Not all the time anyway.

Quite naturally, fishermen hear a different dinner bell when it comes time to eat.

By necessity, their choice of food on rivers and lakes leans in the direction of what you might call "the basics." Remember, it isn’t always convenient to fry fritters on a boat paddle.

But that doesn’t mean fishermen aren’t cultured people, or that you should be afraid to invite one to dinner when friends are visiting from centers of culture such as Bulls Gap or Norton.

It’s just that fishermen unerringly show a preference for the simple instead of the complex, the familiar instead of the esoteric.

In other words, rat cheese over Rambouillet. Baloney over Brie.

The problem with fishermen’s food is that no one gives it much thought. Today you can buy cutesy prepackaged meals for almost any endeavor except fishing.

Want to hike a mountain? First, check out the latest issue of "Charge! The Mongolian Mountain Climber’s Journal." It lists a dozen outlets for lightweight, nutritious foods. Plan to rob a bank and run from the law for two weeks? Here. Take several of these packages along.

To compensate, fishermen must think ahead. They must do what the food industry refuses to do.

Take Elmer, my old friend and Southwest Virginia boyhood idol. In an arid world where grownups bragged they were too busy to fish, Elmer was a refreshing oasis of a man. He took the time to go fishing. And to take a boy.

Elmer made something he called "carp bait." Perhaps I’ll forget an ingredient or two, but the end result was a humongous biscuit about the size of a ’48 Buick hubcap. I seem to recall he used flour, buttermilk, molasses maybe, and vanilla extract for sure. He may have used cotton batting to hold it all together, but too much time has passed and I’m not certain.

What I can be sure of is that Elmer was a man ahead of his time, a visionary if you will. You think we ever went hungry on the banks of the North Fork of the Holston River?

Not hardly. When the carp weren’t biting, we’d eat the bait.

Today there’s plenty of packaged and tinned junk on the market. Fishermen often have to buy it to keep body and soul together while on the water.

Even worse, much of what’s available comes straight from store to river with built-in problems.

Let’s consider the greatest lifesaver of them all, the ubiquitous Vienna sausage.

How do you get the first one out? Do you dig in with your fingernails? Even if you’re fishing with nightcrawlers?

The first Vienna sausage you go for is invariably in the center of the can. Without fail, it breaks off in the middle. How do you get the other one out, now that your mind is on fishing worms?

I’m not through with Vienna sausage yet.

What do you do with that unidentifiable juice at the bottom of the can? Is it an outdoor elixir? Do you turn it up, drink it and howl at the moon?

From a practical standpoint, do you pour it overboard and create a chum line beside the boat?
And what in heaven’s name do you do with the stuff in winter when it congeals like Jell-O in the can and on the sausages?

And finally, once the meal is finished, do you dare read the contents of the can to your fishing partner, who as a matter of course, carries Maalox in his tackle box where his pork rind jar is supposed to be, and who is scheduled for stomach surgery on Monday?

If you’re looking for something to eat while fishing, forget much of the pretentious health food with an outdoor orientation and pictures of mountains on the package.

I love trail mix as much as anyone, but I love it because it contains enough sugar to satisfy the most desperate need for a dextrose high.

Truth is, you have to be flexible.

One day many years ago Elmer and I were going carp fishing. First, though, he had to stop by a store and pick up a couple of ingredients for his carp dough.

Elmer needed buttermilk. Trouble is, we went to a new store where the owner didn’t know Elmer, and therefore didn’t know what he was looking for. Elmer couldn’t pronounce buttermilk, and neither of us could spell it.

We settled that delightful day for RCs in glass bottles and big thick Moon Pies.

If you can find them, they still make a memorable combination.

END

I returned in September, before the snow started flying, from a cross-country driving trip from the Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay to the California coast.
It was a trip that covered 10,000 miles and took a month. I deliberately took what writer William Least Heat-Moon called "the blue highways." Those are the old blue lines on the map, the secondary roads where they still sell Blue Plate lunches.
And I returned with a puzzling conclusion.
Somebody lied to us. With the exception of little pockets, there is a paucity – which is to say, a major shortage – of game out West, compared to the East.
My conclusion was based on two things: (a) the wild things I saw (or more correctly, did not see), and (b) road kill.
If you want to get real scientific about it, road kill is probably the better indicator of the two. In reality, you really can’t expect to see 100 ark-loads of game from the highway – unless, of course, you’re dodging deer in Tennessee or Virginia in which case you’d better be alert all the time.
You see, critters large and small tend to wander across roadways after the sun goes down, and five pounds of possum or 30 pounds of raccoon comes up in your headlights so quickly that neither critter nor car can take evasive action.
As a result, road kill is so common in the East and South that flattened-out, sun-dried possums, skunks, rabbits, coyotes, deer, snakes, squirrels, turtles and chipmunks are a lot more common than the old Burma Shave signs used to be.
No such effusive evidence of wild things exists west of the Mississippi.
Which makes me wonder. Why do so many of my friends use up all their vacation and half their children’s legacy to go out West to hunt?
Oh, you can see wild game occasionally. In fenced game preserves. In national parks such as Yellowstone where a herd of 50 buffalo tied up traffic for half an hour.
There are pararie dog towns in places like The Devil’s Tower, and I must admit we probably spotted hundreds of antelope along a short stretch in Wyoming.
But we’re talking about driving thousands of miles surrounded by millions of acres of sparsely settled land that ought to make excellent wildlife habitat. Yet with all the traffic, there weren’t enough animal-car connections to write home about.
With one exception.
Along a single stretch of I-90 somewhere between Spearfish, SD, and Sheridan, Wyo., rabbits were squashed on the highway by the hundreds, only a few yards apart, joined by an occasional mule deer. When it came to the number of rabbits, I never saw anything like it. I don’t have an explanation for the phenomenon even today, except maybe every rabbit within a thousand miles was attending a convention there recently, got cross-eyed drunk, and didn’t make it across the highway to home.
That was my third trip out West, and my first odyssey all the way to California’s coast at Big Sur. I’ll go again if my money and my good driving partner hold out.
But I will never again keep my nose pressed against the window watching for wolves, elk, grizzly bears, mule deer and coyotes. I just don’t think they’re there in the numbers they’re reputed to be.
I’ll go back to see The Badlands. And the Grand Canyon. And the Painted Desert. And the crossing of the Rockies at Denver.
But if I want to see wildlife – both living and deceased – I think Virginia and Tennessee are my best bets.
END

SUNDAY HUNTING IS CANCELLED
Forget hunting on Sunday in Virginia for another year. The Virginia General Assembly has caved in to (mostly) state landowners, and the issue is dead in the water yet again.
Virginia is one of the few states that does not allow Sunday hunting. Each year, a push is made to open the entire weekend to those who love to go afield with gun and dog, and each year the issue simply drops from sight about halfway through the current session of the Virginia General Assembly.
This time it looked for a bit as if a law permitting Sunday hunting might at least make it out of committee, even be voted on by General Assembly members. It was not to be.
My mail, however, brought several cogent arguments for Sunday hunting. I’ll pass some of them along. They might come in handy next year, since the issue raises its contentious head every session.
From Sherm Cash in Richmond: "Sunday hunting really doesn’t affect me. I’m retired. I can hunt all I want. But for others who have limited time and can only hunt on days off – that usually means Saturday only – then why not Sunday hunting? And because the numbers of hunters are decreasing year after year, again – why not?"
Sherm adds: "Some of the arguments used by opponents are pretty weak. One twerp said Sundays should be ‘peaceful and quiet.’ But one can use a chain saw on Sunday, shoot skeet, roar around in jet skis and speed boats, and of course there’s NASCAR racing. The list goes on.
"Another dweeb said he wouldn’t feel safe hiking and bird watching. The places I hunt are posted. The dweeb couldn’t hunt or hike there anyway without trespassing. Plus he can hike and bird watch all year, while hunters have only a limited time to hunt (about 90 days in fall and winter).
Interference with church services was another objection. "Last time I checked," writes Sherm, "churches were losing members faster than the hunting fraternity. Compromise and start hunting at 1 p.m."
Many correspondents think Sunday hunting in Virginia might give new life to a decreasing hunter base, and by so doing, help keep an out-of-control deer population in check.
The state of Virginia gained a million residents in the past 10 years. Yet hunter numbers dropped by 100,000. (Fishing, incidentally, is doing just fine.)
Carson Quarles of Roanoke brings a unique and informed approach to the debate. Quarles is a retired banker, a dedicated turkey hunter, and a former chairman of the board of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, which writes the state’s hunting and fishing laws.
"Sunday hunting on private land only, or by county option as has been suggested, would be a nightmare," he says.
"Sunday hunting only on private property would be totally unfair to those who don’t have land to hunt. And none of the state’s counties have clear boundary markers, so how in the world could a hunter tell whether he or she is in a county that permits Sunday hunting?
"If we ever have Sunday hunting, make it all-inclusive or forget it," he says.
By "all-inclusive," he means opening up the public lands in Virginia – a state that is reasonably rich (as far as Eastern states go) in public lands that are open to everyone.
For example, there are about 200,000 acres of hunting and fishing land owned by the state of Virginia. State parks, natural areas, Division of Forestry property.
Additionally, Virginia has some 2 million acres of remote and beautiful National Forest land in its two vast federal properties – the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. The National Forests are wide open to all for a nominal fee ($4 a year).
These arguments that might be helpful when the issue of Sunday hunting in Virginia comes up again next year in the General Assembly.
And it will.
END

SUNDAY HUNTING IS CANCELLED
Forget hunting on Sunday in Virginia for another year. The Virginia General Assembly has caved in to (mostly) state landowners, and the issue is dead in the water yet again.

Virginia is one of the few states that does not allow Sunday hunting. Each year, a push is made to open the entire weekend to those who love to go afield with gun and dog, and each year the issue simply drops from sight about halfway through the current session of the Virginia General Assembly.

This time it looked for a bit as if a law permitting Sunday hunting might at least make it out of committee, even be voted on by General Assembly members. It was not to be.

My mail, however, brought several cogent arguments for Sunday hunting. I’ll pass some of them along. They might come in handy next year, since the issue raises its contentious head every session.

From Sherm Cash in Richmond: "Sunday hunting really doesn’t affect me. I’m retired. I can hunt all I want. But for others who have limited time and can only hunt on days off – that usually means Saturday only – then why not Sunday hunting? And because the numbers of hunters are decreasing year after year, again – why not?"

Sherm adds: "Some of the arguments used by opponents are pretty weak. One twerp said Sundays should be ‘peaceful and quiet.’ But one can use a chain saw on Sunday, shoot skeet, roar around in jet skis and speed boats, and of course there’s NASCAR racing. The list goes on.

"Another dweeb said he wouldn’t feel safe hiking and bird watching. The places I hunt are posted. The dweeb couldn’t hunt or hike there anyway without trespassing. Plus he can hike and bird watch all year, while hunters have only a limited time to hunt (about 90 days in fall and winter)."

Interference with church services was another objection. "Last time I checked," writes Sherm, "churches were losing members faster than the hunting fraternity. Compromise and start hunting at 1 p.m."

Many correspondents think Sunday hunting in Virginia might give new life to a decreasing hunter base, and by so doing, help keep an out-of-control deer population in check.
The state of Virginia gained a million residents in the past 10 years. Yet hunter numbers dropped by 100,000. (Fishing, incidentally, is doing just fine.)

Carson Quarles of Roanoke brings a unique and informed approach to the debate. Quarles is a retired banker, a dedicated turkey hunter, and a former chairman of the board of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, which writes the state’s hunting and fishing laws.

"Sunday hunting on private land only, or by county option as has been suggested, would be a nightmare," he says.

"Sunday hunting only on private property would be totally unfair to those who don’t have land to hunt. And none of the state’s counties have clear boundary markers, so how in the world could a hunter tell whether he or she is in a county that permits Sunday hunting?

"If we ever have Sunday hunting, make it all-inclusive or forget it," he says.

By "all-inclusive," he means opening up the public lands in Virginia – a state that is reasonably rich (as far as Eastern states go) in public lands that are open to everyone.

For example, there are about 200,000 acres of hunting and fishing land owned by the state of Virginia. State parks, natural areas, Division of Forestry property.

Additionally, Virginia has some 2 million acres of remote and beautiful National Forest land in its two vast federal properties – the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. The National Forests are wide open to all for a nominal fee ($4 a year).

These arguments that might be helpful when the issue of Sunday hunting in Virginia comes up again next year in the General Assembly.

And it will.

END

SUNDAY HUNTING IS CANCELLED
Forget hunting on Sunday in Virginia for another year. The Virginia General Assembly has caved in to (mostly) state landowners, and the issue is dead in the water yet again.
Virginia is one of the few states that does not allow Sunday hunting. Each year, a push is made to open the entire weekend to those who love to go afield with gun and dog, and each year the issue simply drops from sight about halfway through the current session of the Virginia General Assembly.
This time it looked for a bit as if a law permitting Sunday hunting might at least make it out of committee, even be voted on by General Assembly members. It was not to be.
My mail, however, brought several cogent arguments for Sunday hunting. I’ll pass some of them along. They might come in handy next year, since the issue raises its contentious head every session.
From Sherm Cash in Richmond: "Sunday hunting really doesn’t affect me. I’m retired. I can hunt all I want. But for others who have limited time and can only hunt on days off – that usually means Saturday only – then why not Sunday hunting? And because the numbers of hunters are decreasing year after year, again – why not?"
Sherm adds: "Some of the arguments used by opponents are pretty weak. One twerp said Sundays should be ‘peaceful and quiet.’ But one can use a chain saw on Sunday, shoot skeet, roar around in jet skis and speed boats, and of course there’s NASCAR racing. The list goes on.
"Another dweeb said he wouldn’t feel safe hiking and bird watching. The places I hunt are posted. The dweeb couldn’t hunt or hike there anyway without trespassing. Plus he can hike and bird watch all year, while hunters have only a limited time to hunt (about 90 days in fall and winter).
Interference with church services was another objection. "Last time I checked," writes Sherm, "churches were losing members faster than the hunting fraternity. Compromise and start hunting at 1 p.m."
Many correspondents think Sunday hunting in Virginia might give new life to a decreasing hunter base, and by so doing, help keep an out-of-control deer population in check.
The state of Virginia gained a million residents in the past 10 years. Yet hunter numbers dropped by 100,000. (Fishing, incidentally, is doing just fine.)
Carson Quarles of Roanoke brings a unique and informed approach to the debate. Quarles is a retired banker, a dedicated turkey hunter, and a former chairman of the board of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, which writes the state’s hunting and fishing laws.
"Sunday hunting on private land only, or by county option as has been suggested, would be a nightmare," he says.
"Sunday hunting only on private property would be totally unfair to those who don’t have land to hunt. And none of the state’s counties have clear boundary markers, so how in the world could a hunter tell whether he or she is in a county that permits Sunday hunting?
"If we ever have Sunday hunting, make it all-inclusive or forget it," he says.
By "all-inclusive," he means opening up the public lands in Virginia – a state that is reasonably rich (as far as Eastern states go) in public lands that are open to everyone.
For example, there are about 200,000 acres of hunting and fishing land owned by the state of Virginia. State parks, natural areas, Division of Forestry property.
Additionally, Virginia has some 2 million acres of remote and beautiful National Forest land in its two vast federal properties – the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. The National Forests are wide open to all for a nominal fee ($4 a year).
These arguments that might be helpful when the issue of Sunday hunting in Virginia comes up again next year in the General Assembly.
And it will.
END

WESTERN VIRGINIA SPORTS SHOW RETURNS FOR 20TH YEAR.

Now in its second decade, a sprawling and popular outdoor show will open its doors at Augusta Expoland near Staunton, Va., the weekend of Feb. 16-18. It goes without saying that an outdoor sports/travel show is a fine way to dispel the winter blahs.

"With more than a 50 percent increase in arena space for vendors and visitors, as well as everything from free hot-air balloon rides to Virginia’s largest game display, we expect the 2007 sport show to be our greatest ever," said Mark Hanger of Churchville, founder and manager.

"We’ll have more than 200 vendors of outdoor gear and apparel, as well as displays and guides from throughout North America and Africa," he added.

As usual, the show will feature several outdoor contests, rainbow trout fishing pool, exhibitors showing the latest hunting and fishing equipment, as well as free seminars on outdoor skills throughout the weekend. A new addition in 2007 will be the Big Buck Contest, North American class (deer harvested outside Virginia) as well as a newly created Ladies Class of competition.
How-to seminars by leading experts invariably attract standing-room-only audiences at the Western Virginia Sports Show. Several nationally known TV hunting celebrities will also be at the show.

Among those with their own TV shows will be Michael Waddell of Realtree Roadtrips, the number one rated show on the Outdoor Channel; Bob Foulkrod with Bass Pro Hunting TV; Bub Jackson with Outdoor Moments TV; Byron Tabor, world champion archer from Texas Trophy Hunter’s TV; and Bob Walker, owner of Walker’s Game Ear and contributor to Sportsman’s Outdoor Strategies TV.

Other guests will be Chris McCotter, Lake Anna fishing guide and outdoor writer; Neil Selby, nationally known dog trainer; Bill Zearing, owner and inventor of Cody Turkey Calls; Paul Butski, Grand National Turkey Calling Champion; and national junior turkey-calling champion Lance Hanger, son of the show’s founder.

With coyotes being seen these days in every Virginia and Tennessee county, a popular seminar is sure to be Tom Bechdel’s "Calling All Coyotes," a wealth of pointers on how to attract the predators into shooting range. And with so many rivers in the area, pro bass angler Jeff Shank’s seminar on river fishing is certain to attract a large crowd.
Melissa Ball, National Wild Turkey Foundation 2005 artist of the year and local artist Lisa Geiman will be on hand. In the category of "you-can’t-shoot-but-you-sure-can-admire-them" will be Earl Shriver’s "Birds of Prey" display, which includes hawks, ravens and the oldest living eagle in captivity.

The 2007 "Bass Pro King of Bucks Tour" will join the show with their only Virginia appearance this year. So will South River Taxidermy’s "World Class Whitetail Tour" featuring the 10 largest deer ever taken including such legendary deer as the Hole N the Horn buck and the world record black powder Louvstuen buck.

Parker Compound Bows will introduce a new crossbow, and youngsters will get free archery instruction from world champion Byron Tabor at the X-Treme Outdoors USA trailer.
There’ll be an open turkey-calling contest, an annual big-buck contest with a chance to win an adventure hunt, plus a third annual St. Jude’s archery shoot with all proceeds going to the famous children’s hospital.

Hours of the Western Virginia Sport Show are noon to 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 16; from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 17; and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 18. Food and drink will be available inside the arena.

Augusta Expoland is located between Staunton and Fishersville on I-64 at exit 91.
For additional information, contact Mark Hanger at P.O. Box 606, Churchville, Va. 24421 or call him at (540) 337-7018. The Web site is www.westernvasportshow.com and Hanger’s email address is hangerent@yahoo.com
END