Thursday, December 16, 2004
Eating fish is good for you, or is it?
Bill Cochran
Recent field reports
I seldom eat any of the freshwater fish that I catch, preferring to practice catch-and-release. When health officials this week recommended a cutback in eating fish from sections of the James, New and Roanoke rivers, because of a contamination linked to cancer, it was troublesome, but it would not impact my personal eating habits.
Then I read deeper into the report and noticed that stricter guidelines also were recommended for consumption of Chesapeake Bay striped bass. That hit home. My family does catch and keep stripers, putting packages into our freezer for future use.
The latest state recommendation is that people eat no more than two servings of Chesapeake Bay stripers each month. We can live with that. What hurts is the advisory statement that pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children should avoid the fish entirely. How do you tell your grandchild that she can’t have any fish?
The problem is an insidious industrial concoction called PCBs that gets into the flesh of fish and could cause health risk for the people who eat those fish frequently over a long period of time.
The good news is that the levels of PCBs have not increased in Virginia’s fish. The new and sober warnings reflect that Virginia has adopted tougher standards.
Health officials say there is no need to panic. You’d have to eat a bunch of fish to invite disaster. But I’m wondering if I will be able to enjoy my next meal of striped bass as much as I might have before this week’s warnings became front-page news. And what am I going to say to my granddaughter?
BILL
EAST IS HOME OF BIG BEARS
How quickly can you reload a muzzleloading gun?
Tony Cornett of Bumpass may have set a record recently. He was deer hunting in Buckingham County with has .50-caliber Encore muzzleloading when he heard a movement behind him. It was a bear, a big one. Cornett aimed for the shoulder and the bear let out a growl and started walking toward him. Cornett scramble to reload his gun as the bear approached, but just as he was completing the process the animal turned and began walking down a ridge where it dropped dead.
According to a story by Lee Graves in the Richmond Times Dispatch, the weight of the bear was not officially established, but estimates ranged from 550 to 820 pounds.
The skull measurement is what counts in competition, so Cornett says he plans to enter the trophy in the 2005 Virginia Big Game Contest.
The 2002-03 season was the first in modern time that bear hunting has been legal in much of the eastern section of Virginia. The 2004 Big Game Contest was won by an eastern bear, taken in Buckingham County the first day of bow season by Michael Nixon. It weighed 440 pounds and scored 30 3/16.
BILL
HUNG UP ON THIRD PLACE
How many ways can you earn third place? Kenny Short and his Polar Team from Smith Mountain Lake found several during the recent National Striped Bass Association Championship in Tennessee. The team, which included Short and his wife, Linda, Rex Smith and D.J. Runge placed third in the national championship, which attracted 397 competitors in 121 boats.
They also were third in the big fish competition and third in the team standings for the 2004 season.
“We got hung up on third,” said Smith, long-time president of the Smith Mountain Striper Club. “I felt good for third place,” he added. “We had a ball and did the best that we could.”
One day of the championship the outboard motor went out on the Polar Team boat. “We could only turn 2,000 rpms, around 8-miles-per-hour, and they would not let us change boats,” Smith said.
The championship winner was Greg Willingham and Team Blazer Boats from Hot Springs, Ark. Second was Mike Green and Team Fisher’s-of-Men, Huntersville, N.C.
The National Striped Bass Association Web site is fishnsba.com.
BILL
GLOBAL WARMING HARMFUL TO WILDLIFE
Global warming isn’t just potential bad news for humans. It will have a harsh impact on wildlife as well, according to a study released Wednesday by The Wildlife Society.
The ranges of habitats and wildlife are predicted to generally move northward as temperatures increase, the report said. Many plant and animal populations may not be able to make the shift because migratory corridors may be closed by urban sprawl, cities, and agriculture.
Where warming is greatest, changes in forest dynamics due to disease and insects are very likely, the report said.
A projected sea-level rise may cause some wildlife species to be displaced inland or disappear entirely if their lowland wetlands are rapidly inundated, the report said.
Amphibian populations and distributions are likely to change significantly as air and water temperatures change, the report said. Declines in wetlands would impact North America’s "duck factory," the Prairie Pothole Region from northern Iowa to central Alberta. The result could be a decline in the abundance of breeding ducks by the 2080s.
The study is the first comprehensive assessment of the likely consequences of global warming for North American wildlife and it “verifies that some species already are responding to climate change,” said Tom Franklin, acting Executive Director of The Wildlife Society.
While small or isolated wildlife populations may have difficulty adapting, some species with broad habitat ranges may even benefit from climate change, the report concluded.
FISHING
>Fishing for large striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay is about as good as it gets. Thirty-pound fish are becoming increasingly more abundant. A CCA-Greentop Rockfish Tournament out of Deltaville accounted for eight stripers over 30 pounds apiece. Jumbo stripers also are being caught along the Virginia Beach oceanfront. Some of these fish are close enough to the surf that they have been chasing baitfish onto the sand.
>Huge blue catfish, several weighing more than 60 pounds, continue to provide impressive December catches in the tidal James River. David Davenport of Powhatan reported the largest, a 64-pounder.
>Big striped bass are so abundant in the Chesapeake Bay that Charles Southall and Ken Neill wanted to try something different. They took two-dozen clam baits to Winthrop and reported catching two tautogs at a time until they ran out of bait. “We caught around 40, tagging and releasing all of them except for the four that were already tagged,” said Neill.
>Crappie fishing is reported to be excellent at Briery Creek Lake.
>Jeter and Paul Brock of Richmond landed five bass that weighed 17.4 pounds to win a weekend tournament on Chickahominy Lake.
>Striped bass action is scattered along the surf of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. During one mini-blitz, about 20 were landed on artificial lures at Hatteras Inlet.
JACK RANDOLPH/BILL
OUTDOOR BRIEFS
>It appears that Virginia will come in under its flounder quota this year, which means the state could see an increase in the allowable catch in 2005 and a possible easing of the size or bag limits.
>The recently merged Humane Society of the United States and the Fund for Animals has created a new legal department to challenge sportsmen in the courts. It is expected to have four litigating attorneys by the end of the year.
>The newly organized National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses has as an ambitious agenda to address hunting, angling and conservation issues in state capitals across the country. Twenty-three state legislators and executives from a number of outdoor organizations took part in its organization. One-quarter million dollars were committed to the task.
>BoatU.S. has set up a boater-to-boater directory where you can e-mail boat owners who are willing to share their knowledge about certain models you may be considering for purchase. This and other buyer services can be found on BoatUS.com.
BILL
VIRGINIA SALTWATER FISHING TOURNAMENT
Here are the standings in the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament:
BLACK DRUM: 95 pounds, Joseph Roub, Baltimore, Md., Hog Island Bay.
COBIA: 103 pounds, 8 ounces, Vince Ainsley, Aylett, lower-western Chesapeake Bay.
CROAKER: 5 pounds, Jarvis Taylor, Richmond, lower York River.
DOLPHIN: 50 pounds, Jereme Wilson, Chesapeake, off Virginia Beach.
FLOUNDER: 14 pounds, 4 ounces, Betty Smith, Chesapeake, lower-eastern Chesapeake Bay.
GRAY TRIGGERFISH: 5 pounds, Mike Barboza, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach.
GRAY TROUT: 12 pounds, 12 ounces, Greg Thayer, Gloucester, upper-eastern Chesapeake Bay.
KING MACKEREL: 52 pounds, Cecil Smith, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach.
KINGFISH: 1 pound, 14 ounce, Bobby Smith, Portsmouth, lower-western Chesapeake Bay.
POMPANO: 3 pounds, 6 ounces, Arlon Stith, Petersburg, lower James River.
SEA BASS: 6 pounds, 14 ounces, Mark Fueller, Rio Grande, N.J., off Virginia Beach.
SHEEPHEAD: 19 pounds, 3 ounces state record, Jeff Hutton, Virginia Beach, lower eastern Chesapeake Bay.
SPADEFISH: 13 pounds, 10 ounces, Jake Mapp, Franktown, upper-eastern Chesapeake Bay.
SPANISH MACKEREL: 6 pounds, 6 ounces, Patrick Quisenberry, Mechanicsville, upper-western Chesapeake Bay.
SPECKLED TROUT: 13 pounds, 12 ounces, Walter Kellum, Hayes, Mobajack Bay.
SPOT: 1 pound, 10 ounces, Wilson Haynes, Wake, lower Rappahannock River.
STRIPED BASS: 63 pound state record, Carolyn Brown, Virginia Beach, off the Virginia Coast.
TAUTOG: 22 pounds, 9 ounces, Julie Ball, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach.
TUNA (BLUEFIN): 180 pounds, 4 ounces, Okey Bolling, Pasadena, Md. off Eastern Shore.
TUNA (OTHER): 241 pounds, Mike Wolf, Sterling, off Virginia Beach.
WAHOO: 107 pounds, Chris Miles, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach.
BILL
MEETINGS/EVENTS/SEASONS
Late muzzleloading deer season west of the Blue Ridge, Dec. 18-Jan. 1.
SaltWater Sportsman Magazine National Seminar Series, Virginia Beach, Jan 15, 6 hours of instruction at Virginia Beach Convention Center, www.nationalseminarseries.com.
Bassmaster University, where pros instruction anglers on bass fishing, Jan. 22-23, Wyndhan Hotel Richmond Airport, Richmond, instructors include Kevin VanDam, Denny Brauer, Shaw Grigsby, Woo Daves, Zell Roland, Mike Auten. Information from 866-732-BASS.
Richmond Ducks Unlimited Wild Game Feast, Feb. 3, Tredegar Iron Works, $75, information from durichmond.com.
Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, 50th anniversary, Feb. 5-13, State Farm Show Complex, Harrisburg, Pa. Reported to be the largest consumer show of its kind, easternsportshow.com.
Wilderness First Aid Class, March 12-13, Blacksburg, 18 hours of hands-on instruction and study that results in a two-year certificate, coast $160, visit wfa.net.
Got an event? Let us know: xtrails@earthlink.net
