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BILL: This whole discussion (on the bear hunting license, see last week’s Cochran Column,) is really disheartening to me because it is another case of infighting in the hunting community. We are all hunters when it all boils down.

I can respect the bear hunters viewpoint that the way they hunt bears is the right way to them. I am an avid fall and spring turkey hunter and I think that the only way you should kill a turkey is to buy some calls, practice with them, pattern your shotgun, spend time scouting and call one inside 40 yards. On the flipside, I realize that hunting turkeys with a rifle/muzzleloader is legal in Virginia and that may be someone’s choice.

We are under the microscope with groups like PETA and HSUS and they thrive on dividing us. My suggestion to the bear hunters is to step back for a moment and look at where this could potentially go and also ask why scientifically this is not a sound idea for bear hunting in Virginia. Tag distribution should be based on science, not opinion.

We need to support each other as hunters/fishermen more than ever right now. We should not be looking for ways to divide us.

BILL: Once again you have chosen to cast a negative light on bear hunters. You mention their “swagger.” That is not the first time you have used that very phrase in reference to bear hunters, and not the first time I have written you on a poor choice of words. Would it be fair to say that you were being "pompous" with your choice of words when you wrote: “It isn’t about revenue; it is about control.”

How can you feel it is your right to describe what others say and mean. I was in Richmond, and saw you there also, and I did not see a bit of “swagger” presented. Control was only mentioned by you.

You did hear [DGIF executive director] Bob Duncan say before there was even any public comment that there were going to be some changes coming to generate revenue and some of those changes were not going to be welcome. Anyone knows the DGIF budget was slashed and they are in desperate need of funding. What I heard was a specific group stand up and say they were willing to pay for their sport; nowhere did they even mention trying to exclude any other group. Your reference to “Organized bear hunters believe that a bear is such a magnificent creature that it is best left to dedicated houndsmen” is slanderous and this was never mentioned that I heard till your article.

Anyone should see that DGIF can't operate on funding from an $18 big game license that contains tags for deer, bear and turkey, including numerous deer and several turkeys. Would a separate license at a lesser cost for each game animal than the $25 proposed bear tag appease people? Then they would only have to buy a tag for the animal they chose to pursue?

But you want to condemn one group that proposed a tag that would affect them more than any other group and yet they are willing to pay for it. Why is this unfair when nobody is forced to buy if they don't want to? Hound hunters are criticized at every turn and yet they are willing to pay for this tag that also would be required for the September chase season when there is no harvest.

In closing I just want to make one thing perfectly clear. I know without a doubt economic times are tough, but this proposed tag is not cost prohibitive when most people drive to the hunt in a 4x4 filled with expensive gas, carrying a nice gun or bow, scope that cost as much as the gun, expensive ammo or arrows, matching camo shirt and pants, and their sweat wicking Under Armor underneath, and a $150 (minimum probably) pair of boots. Need I go on? The cost issue is pretty lame in the big picture and the bear hunters that propose this tag have wives and kids, just like anyone else, to care for.

By the way, did anyone ever say kids with a youth license would be required to have this tag, or was everyone so bent on figuring out how they were being made a victim by those terrible hunters with those vicious dogs to think about this? I know I will be chastised, but the fact that I belong to a group of hunters that went to the forefront and offered to ante up and pay to play can't be changed or denied. You can put any spin or paint any picture on this, but you were in Richmond same as I was, and you know what really went on. I make no apologies for the stand of the Virginia Bear Hunters.

BILL: Aren’t these the same hound hunters who were crying the blues and asking for all hunters to ban together in the recent “Hound Hunting — A Way Forward” study sponsored by DGIF? Seems like they got most of what they wanted from that study and now they are sticking their thumb in the eye of all the rest of us who let them have their way rather than have a nasty fight which would play right into the hands of the anti-hunting, anti-gun crowd.

BILL: You are right. It is not about revenue, it is about the bear association trying to pull a fast one on people and bully their way through the game and fish department by hanging all that money in their face. If they want control they should give two bear tags on a license, not one. The bear association acts like people are doing something wrong for taking a bear. How long before deer hunters want a new license for dedicated houndsmen or turkey hunters who hunt in the spring because their bird is so magnificent that it should not be taken by a deer hunter in the fall who would blow it away.

BILL: I have been a hunter in Virginia all my life, and have pursued wild game since I was legally allowed. I have always had a bear tag on my big game tags and if it is taken off and made a high dollar separate item I will boycott buying another license.

I am a lifetime license holder for hunting as well as fishing, but this extra expense is ridiculous. I have always hunted for all species, and just because the guys that run hounds think it is a “bonus” should a bear happen by my stand and I take it they are wrong. I have always legally hunted for what was in season, and many time hunted a particular area just due to the fact it had bear sign in it.

I am not interested in buying more and more separate licenses. I would rather -- much rather -- see DGIF make a complete sportsman’s license including all the hunting licenses, and sell them as one for a better price.

Anyway, I am opposed to a new bear license by itself. Leave the licenses the way they are.

BILL: Your article was well thought out, perfectly logical and completely accurate. That is why the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries will pay absolutely no attention to it.

BILL: I don’t know how many total hunters there are in Virginia, but 1,100 (reported membership of the Virginia Bear Hunters Association) is a small percentage of the number to have such an influence on the rest of us. You are right in thinking the bear hunters association will get less support from the rest of us hunters when attacked from outside organizations. There was a time we were all just hunters, not rifle, bow, deer, bear hunters.

BILL:

I oppose the division the Virginia Bear Hunters Association is trying to impose on all hunters. If this proposal passes the VBHA will have another fight waiting, and this fight will be from all us regular “Joe Hunters.”

BILL: What are the chances of my proposed Snipe Hunting License getting a sniff from VDGIF?

BILL: I saw where the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries had posted proposed regulation changes on their Web site a few weeks ago. Now they’ve posted dates and places for public input meeting, but have taken down the post of the proposed regulation changes.

Why did they remove the proposed regulation changes? I thought they wanted public input. I give up.

No, I don’t give up. Special interest groups of bear hunters in the mountains calling for separate licenses, hunt clubs in Southampton pulling political strings with the county board of supervisors to ban muzzleloading in the county -- maybe all we have to do is start a special interest group called “The Majority of the Rest of the 200,000 Hunters in Virginia Who Just Want to Hunt and Enjoy the Outdoors” and come to a DGIF board meeting and get a few things straightened out. It’s perplexing.

PENN: The proposed hunting/trapping regulations were revised during a public hearing Feb. 27 and went back onto the DGIF Web site on March 11. This was the beginning of a public comment period which continues through May 11. Comments will be received for the record on the Web site, during public input hearings and via mail.

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