BEAVERS, LOONS, AND OTHER POOR GAME FISH

I caught a beaver once. Rather, I almost did.

Photo by Matt Reilly

    One summer evening I was bass fishing a small farm pond when I eyed hopefully a beaver hut in a few feet of water. I delivered a plastic worm to the doorstep, let it sink, and gave it a small lift off the lake bottom with my rod tip. Animated resistance brushed the hook and jumped through the line into my hand, and I set the hook with gusto. The hook didn’t drive home, but an ovular, chocolate mat of hair breached at the end of my line and slammed the door with its paddle tail—communicating its lack of enthusiasm for my housewarming gift and sending water a story into the air.

    A similar thing occurred another summer while dry fly fishing a promising run on the Moosehead Region’s Roach River. My gaze hadn’t yet found the hut on the far bank when a coffee-colored submarine (that would have quadrupled the state’s brook trout record) rose out of the center of the run towards my stimulator as I stood by dumfounded and struggling to react. It of course bypassed my fly and headed for cover, but not before I had time to reflect upon its bizarre choice of behavior. Had I been nymphing, I surely would have had him.

    Both occurrences are memorable and, I often think, might have been more so had I succeeded in placing a hook in beaver flesh. But I’ve seen—and heard at midnight in a swamp—what kind of power those oversized rodents can command with their tail, in a pinch—not to mention their infamous caramel incisors—and I count my lucky stars it didn’t end up that way.

    Surf casters know a kindred issue, especially if they’re doing it right. Birds and predator fish both chase bait, rolling in a dizzying tornado of adrenaline that the surf caster is charged with threading a weighted object dressed with treble hooks through from a distance. Thus the star-crossed gull occasionally finds itself smacked into a downward spiral by the spoon-shaped hand of God and subsequently skittered over the surface and sharks onto the beach to be toyed with by a herd of bumbling humans.

    I’ve known a handful of individuals to have completed the feat and released the seagull to return to its position as bowling pin of the surf—an honorable accomplishment given the general temperament of a hooked gull. And though it’s a conversation starter in some briny circles, it’s hardly a pleasant undertaking in the moment.

    Likewise, loons patrolling the more heavily fished brook trout ponds of Maine have decided their role in catch and release. As accomplished swimmers, they’ll dive from a safe spectator’s distance to nab the struggling brook trout produced by a canoe and a fisherman’s bent rod.

    This understandably incites some frenzy in the fisherman, and though I’ve never personally been faced with the task of removing a fly from the gullet of a loon, I can’t imagine them to be ideal canoe company.

    The snapping turtle would argue its superior displeasantry. It’s my theory that the Old Man was in the beginning stages of snapping turtle sculpting when serpentina opened its beak with an aggressive hiss and was flipped down into the farm ponds of the world pissed off.

    I have a grandfather who caught one measuring over two feet long with rod and reel, once, from a john boat on the lake in Tidewater Virginia where he built his home. It was “landed,” so to speak, and the shell promptly spray painted orange so as to be seen from a distance, and avoided at all costs.

    I remember it vividly, as I do the evening I spent casting dry flies to rising rainbows and browns on a very low Pine Creek in north-central Pennsylvania. The sun was dropping below the horizon and I was praying for a trout to have a moment of poor judgement. As I reached out further, to another rising fish, my backcast tipped a shoot of broomsedge on the bank behind me. Only when I turned to take stock of the situation, the perked ear of a black bear was frighteningly close to that waving grass shoot.

    I counted my lucky stars as the bear cursed my foul casting ability, and pondered the consequences of landing a #14 brown caddis a job as an earring. Today I tell that story with pride, though it could have ended in tragedy. And I go on my normal way, casting to trout and smallmouth, avoiding the oddities at all costs.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

VDGIF RELEASES DEER, BEAR, & TURKEY HARVEST DATA

Winter is coming to an end and the memories of the past year’s hunting seasons are beginning to fall victim to the looming anticipation of spring.  Soon, this seasonal, expired fad we call snow will disappear into moist earth, sprouting daffodil shoots and lighting dogwood and redbud blooms.  Rivers will run deep and blue, turkey will throw their bold voices about the countryside, and the woods will radiate with the warmth of renewed life.  But before we commit to a new season, as per tradition, DGIF has released the summarizing data of last year’s deer, bear, and turkey harvests to reflect upon.

Deer

    The 2014-15 deer seasons saw 190,745 deer harvested, a 22% reduction from 2013-14’s 244,440, and an 18% shortfall of the last 10-year’s average of 233,350.  88,148 of deer harvested were antlered bucks, while 14,592 were antlerless.

    The youth-apprentice deer hunting day in September resulted in the harvest of 1,890 total animals.

    The steep overall reduction in harvest numbers did not go unnoticed by area hunters, particularly in the counties of central Virginia.  Though levels were down statewide, hunters east of the Blue Ridge harvested 24% fewer deer than in 2013-14.

    The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries offers as an explanation that, over the past five to 10 years, the primary focus of the Virginia Deer Management Plan has been to increase the female deer harvest in an effort to stabilize the deer population, particularly on private lands.  Still, the decline in harvest rates in 2014-15 is larger than expected, largely due to a liberal allowance of doe days since 2008.

    Such regulations aimed to thin the herd and, thus, the harvest numbers, even without the added effects of hemorrhagic disease (HD)--a general depiction of several viral strains transmitted by small biting midges that typically results in a 20-35% reduction in kill numbers.  Outbreaks of HD are fairly common, and herds usually recover in 2-3 years.  HD was found in at least 28 Virginia counties in 2014-15.

    A more common and natural reason for the past season’s decrease in harvest numbers is the bumper mast crop enjoyed by wildlife statewide.  Widespread plentitude of mast reduces game’s need to move to feed, and thus reduces hunter success rates.

Bear

    An all-time Virginia record of 2,405 black bears were killed during the 2014-15 season, a 4% increase over last year’s 2,312.

    Youth-apprentice hunters killed 109 bears, one less than in 2013-14.

    Strong mast crop typically increases the firearms bear harvest in Virginia, and this year was a prime example, seeing a 40% increase over last year’s kill number.  Hunters who ran bear hounds west of the Blue Ridge were unsurprisingly the most successful, bagging 970 bears, 40% of the total harvest.  Collectively, bear hunters west of the Blue Ridge took 68% of the total harvest, though bears were harvested in 76 counties and cities across the state.

    The first year of Sunday bear hunting resulted in 119 bear harvests, roughly 5% of the total.  

    Though this number represents a minimal impact on bear populations, biologists will continue to monitor the effects of Sunday hunting on black bear numbers in years to come to quantify the long-term impacts of this new piece of legislation.

Turkey

    Hunters reported a total harvest of 2,988 turkeys killed during the fall and winter seasons in 2014-15, a 44% deficit of 2013-14’s number.

    Numbers were reduced statewide, though those east of the Blue Ridge noticed the most substantial reduction, with 49% fewer birds bagged.  Those hunting west of the Blue Ridge still suffered a 36% drop in harvests.  Nevertheless, the turkey harvest numbers relative to area remained almost perfectly uniform across the state.

    Youth-apprentice hunters took a total of 29 birds, as opposed to last year’s 50.

    The two-week turkey hunting season in January instituted four years ago accounted for 179 birds, down from last year’s 265.  Hunters taking to the woods in January enjoy a period of light-pressure hunting with the added bonus possibility of being able to track birds in snow.

Sunday hunting only accounted for 5% of the total turkey harvest, as opposed to Saturday’s dominant 27%.  Again, this suggests that the new legislation has little effect on overall populations.

    Again, lowered hunter success rate is credited to a high mast production juxtaposed with a very poor mast crop in 2013, which resulted in higher-than-average harvests.  DGIF Wild Turkey Project Leader, Gary Norman believes the Commonwealth’s turkey population to be in excellent condition, as participants in the annual August Brood Survey reported record numbers of broods and birds.

    Even with harvest numbers significantly down in 2014-15, a large portion of the deficit can be attributed to natural phenomena.  Game populations appear to be in good and bettering conditions. 

    Come on, spring!□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

5TH YOUTH DEER HUNTING DAY RECORD SUCCESS

    Reports from the 2013 youth deer hunting day indicate an exceptionally large harvest, the largest in the tradition’s five-year history.  

1,911 deer were checked via phone and the internet system, an increase of approximately 45% from 2012; and VDGIF Deer Project Coordinator, W. Matt Knox estimates at least 700 additional animals checked at game check stations across the state will raise the harvest number to about 2,600, pending the end of the season in January when these stations turn in their records.

    There are suspected reasons for this somewhat drastic increase in harvest.  September 28 was a day of tradition for many young hunters, but with a new twist.  New this year, Virginians hunting under an apprentice license, the VDGIF’s two-year license for beginning “apprentice” hunters, were also allowed to hunt on what is now called the “youth/apprentice hunting day.”  This increased the number of hunters afield by about 50%.

    In terms of deer killed per licensed and eligible hunter, the numbers still reveal an increase in success from 2012, but only as slight as a half of a percent.

    Moreover, in past years, and this year, deer kill numbers from the urban archery season and Northern Virginia season are also counted in the overall tally.  Also new this year, the Northern Virginia deer season, currently underway, now allows the use of firearms, as opposed to strictly archery equipment.  Because of this change, the resulting numbers were likely skewed minimally.

    Still, Central Virginians scored rather averagely in terms of harvest numbers.  Buckingham’s youth/apprentice hunters took 10 deer, Albemarle’s (including Charlottesville’s) took 16, Fluvanna’s took 14, and Nelson’s took 13, all excluding estimates on animal numbers checked at check stations.

    In all, Virginia’s youth, and now apprentice, hunting day is continuing to grow in success, with the numbers to prove it.  We can be hopeful that the new change in legislation will only add to this success, recruiting more novice hunters to the woods where their lives may be changed forever.

What About Bear?

    Not only were apprentice licensed hunters permitted to hunt on this year’s youth/apprentice day, a new species was added to the “in season” list as well—bear.

    Unlike deer, bear must be checked at a game check station, so that biologists can retrieve the premolar for aging and population reconstruction and management.  This means that harvest numbers cannot be accurately reported until the close of the season in January when check cards are collected.  However, Virginia’s reputation for having the best, longest-running, and most comprehensive population reconstruction information system in the East surely outshines this slight inconvenience.

    We do know, however, that one at least one bear was taken in Central Virginia on youth/apprentice day.  Steve Morgan Jr.’s beautiful 260-plus-pound black bear, taken in central Albemarle County, is a prime example of what youth and apprentice hunting days aim to provide.  Congratulations, Steve, on a great harvest!

     Other photos, stories, or both can be submitted via the website or Facebook page.

Trout on the Rise

    In the Old Dominion, October means hunting—deer, bear, and squirrel.  But as the temperatures fall and water temperatures follow, passing back through the optimal 55- or 60-degree mark that excites fish in the spring, fish again begin to feed, consuming large meals, preparing to spawn, or settle down for the winter.

    Notably, the VDGIF begins their routine trout stocking schedule in October; and though fisherman in Virginia no longer adhere to a designated trout season, this new beginning reignites trout fishing from a summer of low water and sluggish fish.

    Stocking efforts make trout available to many anglers within a slight proximity to the Blue Ridge.  A Department-made map, such as can be found on their website, will reveal numerous access points and detailed information to help improve your experience.  But remember, other anglers can become pretty attuned to regularly-scheduled stocking events, and you may find most consistent success in stretches of river lying downstream from popular fishing spots and road crossings and that require a little grunt work to reach.

Originally published in the Rural Virginian