Thursday, November 27, 2008
Single shots, more chances
Bill Cochran
Recent mail
BILL: Why can't the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries just institute a single shot season? You could use what ever you have that is a single shot. This has been done in other states and is very successful. It seems like a very simple solution.
As for the deer problem, either we have a deer problem or we don't. If we have a deer problem, then let us hunt and kill more than one deer a day. Why does the DGIF care if we fill our tag in one day or over several days? They are making the problem a lot harder that what it needs to be.
VICTOR BAGLEY
BILL: Interesting report (See last week’s Cochran Field Reports) on the deer kill. Our club is off to its best ever start since 1978. We had a record muzzleloader and record opening day of the general gun season in Sussex and Southampton counties. Four of our hunters already have killed their best-ever bucks, including a 195-pound, perfect eight-point with a 23-inch spread taken by a muzzleloader. Like was reported, we saw more rut activity in the second week of the muzzleloading season.
PENN RIGGS
Norfolk
BILL: You mentioned in your column (See last week’s Cochran Column) that the Game Department is thinking about making hunters use the telephone or Internet exclusively to report spring gobbler kills. At first glance, that sounds like a neat idea, but wouldn’t that hurt the rural businesses that have checked big game through the years?
P.H.
P.H.: Rural businesses certainly have benefited from the check system that has required hunters to stop off at a designated store or hunting shop to report their big game kills. The system, especially, has stimulated business during the deer season.
But when it comes to the spring gobbler season, there are a lot fewer animals to be check. Gary Norman, a Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries wildlife biologist, said that the average number of spring gobblers checked is just eight per check station.
Chances are that a good number of hunters are going to stop anyway, buy a snack and inquire about hunting success. Many hunters who kill a tom want to have it weighed, and that especially is important for anyone desiring to enter their bird in the state big game contest.
On the positive side, the phone/Internet check will save the DGIF time and money, and will provide a quick season tally, Norman said. Under the current season, it can be two months or more before season data is reported.
“We ask check stations to mail the cards back to us and it takes forever to get all of the nearly 1,000 check stations to respond,” he said. “Conservation Police have to get involved to collect the cards and it runs into late summer before we have a total.”
The revised check system is being considered as part of the DGIF’s current review of hunting regulations.
BILL
