Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.

xtrails
@earthlink.net

Bill Cochran's Outdoors

Recent columns

• Drum fishing on Virginia’s Coast comes in two colors
• Elk advocate finally gets his day
• Turkeys are plentiful, so why are hunting regulations so tight fisted?
• Anglers say closure of the point of Cape Hatteras is for the birds
• Column archive

Bill's Mailbag

• Putting down a bear cub brings complaint
• Recommendations for Virginia’s Wild Turkey Management Plan
• Mail archive

Bill's Field Reports

• A. Willis Robertson great name for new DGIF headquarters
• Big striper smashes Optimist tournament record
• Field reports archive

Resources

• Trout stocking schedule

The 80th conference of the Outdoor Writers Association of America attracted about 500 attendees to Hotel Roanoke this week. Several fished, others hiked and a couple even tried the new June squirrel hunting season. But mostly the conference was composed of four days of intensive workshops that ranged from brook trout to black bears; from writing skills to photography; from what to do with roadless areas to how hunters and environmentalists can get along.

The keynote speaker was Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.”

The 2007 Farm Bill, a source of huge amounts of money for wildlife, received a lot of attention, including a bus trip to the Craig County farm of Charlie and Marilyn Barnes.

Mark Taylor, outdoor editor of The Roanoke Times, won top prize for the best outdoor page in the nation. Taylor and I were co-chairs.

Exhibits were set up in Green Hill Park in Roanoke County and shooting skills were tested on a police shooting range.

Writers gave high marks to the area, the hotel and the program. It was the first time OWAA has held its annual conference in Virginia since 1978. That year it was headquartered at Virginia Beach and writer Bob Gooch was chairman.

NEW TITLE, NEW DANGERS FOR WARDENS

Come July 1, Department of Game and Inland Fisheries game wardens will be called Conservation Police Officers, something they wanted and something the 2007 General Assembly afforded them.

The new title will better reflect the fact that wardens, like other police, are sworn law enforcement officers authorized to make arrests. The days of wardens just checking hunting and fishing licenses and limits are gone.

With the new title come a new badge and new insignia, and, also, new dangers as wardens increasingly join other law enforcement officers in fighting crime.

Just as the title change approached, so did word that a grand jury had indicted Game Warden Robert Ham III on a felony charge of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a Greene County teenager. If convicted, Ham could face up to 10 years in prison.

Ham was doing what the new badges reflect. He was assisting a deputy sheriff in what was believed to have been a case of a 16-year-old boy abducting his 15-year-old girlfriend.

According to police reports, when Ham attempted to remove the girl from a car the boy reportedly accelerated the car and struck Ham, who fired into the vehicle.

State police investigated the case and the Greene County chief prosecutor turned the findings over to the grand jury.

An administrative review by the DGIF indicates that Ham reacted appropriately to a real threat, said Col. Michael Bise, chief of the agency’s law enforcement division.

EXPERT ANGLER’S MOM AIN’T BAD, EITHER

Dr. Julie Ball is one of the top saltwater anglers in the country, having set several world records. When her mom, Sharon Sheely, recently came from the Gulf Coast to visit Ball in Virginia Beach, fishing was, naturally, in the works.

Ball took her mom to the Chesapeake Light Tower, a structure off Virginia Beach that is stacked with hard-fighting spadefish this time of the year.

Sheely caught the biggest spadefish, a whopping 11-pound, 11-ounce giant. She is going to have it mounted.

Not to be outdone, Ball caught two spadefish that are pending IGFA woman’s line class world records: an 8-pound, 4-ounce fish on 12-pound line and a 7-pound, 9-ounce catch on 8-pound line.

The next day, Ball decided to take Sheely offshore to try for blueline tilefish. Again, mom caught the largest fish, a 13-pound citation.

Next spot to take Sheely, according to Ball, will be Atlanta City.

In February, Ball earned an IGFA women’s line class world record with a 15-pound, 10-ounce tautog on 8- pound line. In April she set a similar record on 12-pounds line with a 14-pound, 14-ounce tautog.

OUTDOOR BRIEFS

>The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is considering a regulation that would allow the use of trained tracking dogs to recover wounded or dead deer. The idea is getting good support from sportsmen, including Bob Kane, president of the Virginia Hunting Dog Owners’ Association.

>Chris Baumgardner of Gastonia, N.C., caught a final-round total of 10 bass weighing 33 pounds, 5 ounces to win $125,000 in the $1-million Wal-Mart FLW Tour on the Potomac River. Baumgardner topped his closest rival, David Dudley of Lynchburg, by more than 6 pounds to earn 200 points toward qualifying for the Aug. 5 $12-million Forrest Wood Cup in Hot Springs, Ark. The winner of that event will earn as much as $1 million -- the biggest award in bass fishing.

>A Smith River Trout Unlimited Chapter outing on the Smith River in Henry County attracted about 25 fishermen and another dozen people who came to picnic. “Everyone caught fish and the community received a lot of positive exposure,” said chapter officer Al Kittredge.

> Forty years of bird counts by the National Audubon Society reveal that several species of special interest to outdoorsmen have experienced increases and declines. The No. 1 bird on the list of declining species isn’t some exotic but is the Northern Bobwhite Quail. Next are the Evening Grosbeak, Northern Pintail Duck, Greater Scalp and Boreal Chickadee. The biggest increase are (1) Wild Turkey, (2) Greater White-Fronted Goose; (3) Glossy Ibis, (4) Double-Crested Cormorant and (5) Canada Goose.

>The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has found no evidence of avian influenza following its sampling of more than 900 birds, according to Dr. Jonathan Sleeman, the agency’s wildlife veterinarian.

>What college or university in Virginia gets a top rating from Field & Stream Magazine as the best place for students who live to hunt and fish? Virginia Tech? Nope. Hampton-Sydney. In the magazine’s top-10 national list, it is listed second. Some reasons that were noted: the school has 1,200 acres available for outdoor pursuits, has numerous streams, parks and forest nearby, has a gun room where students can store firearms, has studies in environmental biology.

>For the first time, Maryland officials are attempting to breed wild Chesapeake sturgeon in a laboratory setting as a research and restoration effort.

VIRGINIA SALTWATER TOURNAMENT

The leader board of the Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament has a new look this week with the first tuna entry of the year and new entries in the black drum, cobia, flounder, spadefish, speckled trout and spot categories. Here are the standings:

BLACK DRUM: 95 pounds caught by James Tran of Virginia Beach in Lynnhaven Bay.

BLUEFISH: 16 pounds, Peter Carey of Fredericksburg in the lower-eastern Chesapeake Bay.

BLUELINE TILEFISH: 20 pound, 7 ounce, Robert Holtz, Virginia Beach, ocean off Virginia Beach.

COBIA: 80 pounds, Blake Michael, Poquoson, lower-western Chesapeake Bay.

CROAKER: 3 pounds, 8 ounces, Calvin Taylor, Prince George, lower York River.

DOLPHIN: 25 pounds, 8 ounces, Scott Wade, Chesapeake, off Virginia Beach.

FLOUNDER: 11 pounds, 13 ounces, Barbara Sabol, Petersburg, upper eastern Chesapeake Bay.

GRAY TRIGGERFISH: 4 pounds, 10 ounces, Geoffrey Filer, Chesapeake, ocean off Virginia Beach.

SEA BASS: 7 pounds, 7 ounces, David Howard, Leesburg, ocean off Virginia Beach.

SHEEPSHEAD: 1`2 pounds, 8 ounces, Alan Bunnell, Virginia Beach, lower-eastern Chesapeake Bay.

SPADEFISH: 14 pounds, Mark Ottarson, North, lower-western Chesapeake Bay.

SPECKLED TROUT: 12 pounds, 10 ounces, Michael Tomesch, Chesapeake, Elizabeth River.

SPOT: 1 pound, 2 ounce, James Duff, Virginia Beach, off Virginia Beach.

STRIPED BASS: 62 pounds, 1 ounce, Wayne Rickman, Mechanicsville, off Virginia Beach.

TAUTOG: 22 pounds, 2 ounce, Lester Johnson, Newport News, off Virginia Beach.

TUNA: 144 pounds, 8 ounces, Shad Hamilton, Virginia Beach off Virginia Beach.

MEETINGS/EVENTS/SEASONS

17th annual Antique and Classic Boat Weekend, Smith Mountain Lake, Aug. 10-12, Mariners Landing, information from woodenboats.net.

The Western Regional Championship of the Virginia Big Game Show, Sept. 8-9, Rockingham County Fairgrounds near Harrisonburg, information from vpsa.org.

Hunters for the Hungry banquet, Sept. 8, Dave Sarmadi Mitsubishi dealership, Salem, inquire about tickets at Hunt4hungry@cs.com.

The Eastern Region and State Championship of the Virginia Big Game Show, Sept. 22 & 23, Southampton County Fairgrounds in Franklin, information from from vpsa.org.

DGIF meetings

Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board meeting, July 17, 9 a.m. at agency’s headquarters, 4000 W. Broad St.

Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board meeting, Aug. 21, 9 a.m. at agency’s headquarters, 4000 W. Broad St.

Department of Game and Inland Fisheries board meeting, Oct. 16, 9 a.m. at agency’s headquarters, 4000 W. Broad St.

Got an event? Let us know: xtrails@earthlink.net.