Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Game department should name new boss today
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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When retired state police superintendent Gerald Massengill agreed to act as the interim director for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, he said he expected to be in the job for several months.
Nearly 18 months later, Massengill is still there.
That longer-than-expected temporary gig should end soon.
The department's board of directors is expected to name a new director today at its meeting in Richmond.
The search for a permanent replacement for former director Bill Woodfin, ousted in the wake of a spending scandal, was not only long, it was also secretive.
For example, I heard that employees were asked to avoid the agency's offices at least one weekend, apparently so a candidate or candidates could be brought in for interviews.
That strategy of secrecy apparently worked.
From what I can gather, even senior staffers don't expect to know who their next boss will be until today's meeting.
The responsibility of hiring a director rests with the board. Assistance is provided through the state's human resources department.
The search has been spearheaded by a board subcommittee, which was formed at the meeting May 24, 2004, at which the board accepted Woodfin's resignation.
The board had hoped to hire a new director within six months, but the search became protracted when the first round of applications apparently didn't create much excitement for the board.
As the search continued, the board apparently didn't feel much urgency to make a hire, a position no doubt made easier by Massengill's willingness to stay as long as necessary, as well as his solid leadership as the department worked to overcome the turmoil caused by the scandal that had been Woodfin's undoing.
Big bear weekend
The cold snap that hit the region late last week certainly didn't hurt deer movement heading into the second weekend of the early archery season.
It probably also helped archery bear hunters, whose season opened Saturday.
I've heard reports of several bowhunters taking good bears, but it's unlikely any topped the huge bear shot Saturday morning by Lynn Blankenship of Troutville.
Blankenship's buddy, Kevin Taylor of Roanoke, actually saw the bear first, while heading to his stand on the property the two were hunting in the Catawba Valley.
"I just saw a pair of green eyes looking at me," said Taylor, who was wearing a head lamp while he walked to his stand in the dark. "We had a little stare down."
Taylor didn't want to retreat for fear of provoking the bear. So he made noise and, by throwing a stick, finally got the bear to take off.
About 7:30 a.m. he saw Blankenship walking his way.
The bear had walked by Blankenship's stand just after 7 a.m. It was only the second bear Blankenship has seen in 28 years of bowhunting.
"I could have shot one on opening day two years ago," he said. "But I thought the season didn't come in until Monday."
This time he knew when the season had come in, and his 30-yard shot found its mark.
With the help of another buddy the men tracked and quickly found the bear. They tied its paws together and strung a pole underneath it to carry it from the woods.
And they couldn't budge it.
Retreating off the mountain to recruit more help, they ran into three game wardens who agreed to help. It took five men to haul the bear the 100 yards to where the wardens could reach it with their Chevy Tahoe, which was used to drag the bear farther down the mountain.
At Watkins Grocery in Bradshaw, the field-dressed bear weighed 425 pounds.
Interestingly, the bear was found to have a number tattooed inside its lip. The hunters provided the number to game department officials in hopes of learning more about the bear's history.
Contests allow phone checks
Bowhunters fortunate enough to connect on a big buck during the first week of Virginia's early archery season may have gotten a surprise if they tried to check the deer using the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' telecheck system.
Even though recent state-sanctioned big buck contests recently relaxed their rules to allow phone-checked deer, a message on the telephone system tells hunters they must take their animal to an authorized check station if they plan to enter it in the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show or the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show contest.
Department officials are aware that the message hasn't been updated to reflect the new rules but say it should be updated soon.
