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Thursday, July 19, 2007

An extra week of muzzleloading in sights of western hunters

By Bill Cochran

Gerald Duncan had a question for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries: Why is the early muzzleloading season west of the Blue Ridge Mountain six days while it is 12 days in eastern Virginia?

Good question! It has been asked often in recent years.

Before any DGIF staff person or board member could reply during a public hearing Tuesday in Richmond, Duncan gave the answer.

There is “no biological reason to not have two weeks west of the Blue Ridge.” What’s more, hunters support a two-week season. To deny it is to take away recreation opportunities for a large chunk of Virginians, he said. After all, hunters on both sides of the Blue Ridge pay the same license fees.

“What I am looking for is more equity,” said Duncan, who lives in Giles County and is no stranger as a wildlife and hunting advocate.

Duncan’s request for an extra week of early muzzleloading in the West got support from two other well-known sportsmen, Al Milton of Roanoke and Eddie Sayers of Pulaski County.

As a result of their efforts, the DGIF board proposed that the 2008 muzzleloading season give western Virginias hunters an extra week to match the dates of their counterparts in the east. Two board members from the west, Sherry Crumley of Buchanan and Charles Yates of Cleveland, jumped at the chance to make the motion. The issue is subject to a final vote in October.

What Duncan and the other advocates didn’t get was a more liberal bag limit to go with the extra week. The western limit would remain a restrictive one buck and one doe. The doe would have to be killed on a specified day. The eastern season allows doe hunting every day of the season and hunters can kill as many as three bucks.

“I would have liked for it to allow hunters to decide when to kill a doe, not just on a special day,” Milton said after the vote.

Hunters end up with extra days of muzzleloading in the west with no extra bag limit, even though many western counties have a problem with excess does. Roanoke County is an example. The doe population is so high that a new regulation has been proposed that will require hunters to earn the right to kill extra bucks by killing extra does, something called “Earn-a-Buck.” Yet an early muzzleloader hunter will be restricted to one doe on a specified day.

With this in mind, the extra week is likely to have little biological impact, said Nelson Lafon, a DGIF deer biologist. But it certainly will be a boost to the serious trophy hunter. By spreading the hunt over the first two weeks of November, hunters will be able to better take advantage of the rut. They will just have to be careful not to kill an inferior buck and thus lock themselves out of the woods.

The extra time would mean that hunters better can weave work and weather around their hunting, said Sayers.

While the prospects for an extra week in the west look promising, it isn’t a done deal. Between now and the final vote the idea could get criticism from bowhunters and turkey hunters since the new dates would overlap their seasons. Modern rifle hunters could contest that the regulation gives black-power hunters an undue advantage.

The development was a welcome indication that sportsmen successfully can initiate changes in what game officials have recommended. That was evident in another issue Tuesday when a group of turkey hunters from Bedford County, successfully spoke against a DGIF staff recommended change in the western turkey season. The change would have shifted the late segment of the fall season one week earlier.

The hunters, led by nationally known turkey dog hunters John and J.T. Byrne, said the shift would mean high school and college students would not have a full opportunity to hunt turkeys during the Christmas break.

Game officials said the shift was recommended because a high percentage of turkeys -- 35 percent in the east -- are killed the final week of the season, mostly by holiday deer hunters.

That isn’t a major problem in the west, the hunters said.

“Address the problem where you have a problem,” said Sam Williams. “Give our youth a chance to go out and hunt when they are out of school.”

Board members voted to leave the current western season alone, but to make the switch in the east.

Wildlife officials covered a number of other subjects and the resulting proposals should be on the DGIF Web site later this week.

The board also voted to establish a taskforce to address the controversy swirling around hunting deer with dogs. An estimated 300 dog hunters turned out for the hearing on misinformation and rumors that the DGIF was about to restrict pursuing deer with dogs.

I will have upcoming reports on these issues.

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