www.roanoke.com

Bill Cochran

Recent mail

• You need a linguist and a lawyer to go hunting these days
• Clear-headed view of Bath County's Bigfoot
• Bigfoot? Here?
• From the mountains to the sea

• Mail archive
• Bill's Column
• Bill's Field Reports
• Trout stocking schedule

BILL: I enjoyed your article in support of hunting (last weeks Cochran Field Reports). It seems a shame that we sports hunters have to continuously defend ourselves against well-meaning -- I presume -- but uninformed “protectors” of wildlife. The very foundations of our modern concepts of conservation and environmental protection were laid by hunters. No group does more to protect our wild places and the things that live there.

I spend more time than the average person in the outdoors. I backpack, fish and just poke around in the woods near my suburban home. But the most intimate contact I have with wildlife comes while sitting on a deer stand. If I don’t get my deer in a given year, which happens about every other year, that is a little disappointing. But my measure of a really bad hunting season is one in which I don’t see any golden crowned kinglets or river otters or eagles. I have watched woodcock probe for worms -- they never miss -- a barred owl pluck a squirrel off a tree and a deer mouse nibble on my boot.

Because I am a hunter, and because Eastern Virginia has a wonderfully long deer season, I get to see the full progression of fall into winter and the first hoarfrost of the season. My brother taught me several years ago that you can stay dry in the rain under a big cedar tree, so I keep track of them in my hunting grounds and try to make a point to sit out at least one good rainstorm in the woods, although I’ve never see any deer in a heavy rain.

I know I could do all of these things by just sitting in the woods without hunting, but I don’t. And I’ll bet Mr. Miele doesn’t either.

BILL: I was reading your article on Briery Creek Lake and was interested in doing some crappie fishing at the lake. Do you know of any fishing guides for the lake or who I might contact to locate a guide? I want to take my son who, at 7 years old, has become quite the fisherman.

RODNEY: I don’t have knowledge of any crappie fishing guides on Briery Creek Lake, and an Internet search failed to reveal any. Vic Dicenzo, fisheries biologist of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, said he didn’t know of any.

Dicenzo thinks you can have success going it alone. Your best bet is to fish late March to mid-April, when the crappie are shallow and easier to find.

“There are lost of quality fish there and every year some 17-inches are caught,” Dicenzo told me. “The average size harvested is about 11 inches.”

On the downside, there is so much cover in the 845-acre lake near Farmville that crappie can be tough to find at times. You should be able to pick up some tips by watching and talking with other anglers. Often anglers are happy to provide information if a youngster is involved. If any readers can recommend guides I will pass that information along to you.