
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, August 16, 1993                   TAG: 9310150329
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BASS BEING SERVED ON A NEW PLATE

There are bass boats, bass clubs, bass tournaments, bass magazines, bass lures, bass rods, the BASS Masters Classic and, some will say, bass on the brain.

Add to all this, fishermen now can order a Virginia license plate for their vehicle with a leaping largemouth bass on it.

The new tag is part of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Wildlife Conservationists license plate series. The first tag, issued in 1991, contained a picture of a drake mallard in flight.

If the bass tag sells well, there will be others in the series, said Charles Sledd, chief of the department's public relations and resource education division. In fact, art work has been completed on a trout, bear, deer, turkey, bluebird and bald eagle. A quail also is expected to be part of the series.

``We've had a lot of people tell us, `You know, if you had a this on a plate, if you had a that on a plate, I'd buy it.'''

The series is more than a vanity trip, said Sledd. The plates serve wildlife by providing funds for conservation, management and research programs. For every set sold, $15 goes to the department's Game Protection Fund.

The mallard plates netted the agency $41,850 the first year and $48,495 the second. Sledd believes the bass plates will give the program a welcomed boost.

``Considering how big bass fishing is in the commonwealth and how many people hold that sport near and dear, I believe we are going to see several thousand of these plates sold.''

The new plates will be introduced officially Saturday during a Virginia State B.A.S.S. Federation tournament at Chickahominy Lake. The Department of Motor Vehicles, a co-agency in the venture, is expected to have a mobile unit there to issue tags on the spot, Sledd said.

Order forms are available at DMV offices. The wildlife license plates cost $25 more than regular tags. Ten dollars goes to DMV. For sportsmen who don't want to wait until their present tags expire before buying a bass license, DMV will pro-rate the value of their current tag.

No decision has been made on which species will be on the next tags issued, said Sledd. The idea is to provide tags that appeal to the larger special interest groups: a deer for deer hunters, a turkey for turkey hunters, a trout for trout anglers, a bear for bear hunters, a bluebird for bird watchers, an eagle for outdoorsmen interested in endangered species.

Total sales could climb as high as 100,000 plates in the future, Sledd predicted.

As for which tag will become the most popular, Sledd believes that will be a toss up between the bass and deer series. Sportsmen who have a variety of interests could face a tough decision on tag selection.

The department plans to keep buyers of wildlife plates abreast of how the tag money is being spent, Sledd said. As the program prospers, there could be an effort to tailor the spending, say bass tag money going for bass programs, deer for deer research, but ``it may not be a dollar for dollar thing,'' Sledd said.

The program was established by the 1991 General Assembly, where it received key support from Paul Council of Franklin and Vic Thomas of Roanoke.

by CNB