Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505080092
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: E9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It is a common problem for many hunters when they reach their mid-40s or older. Changes in the lenses of their eyes make it difficult to line up the rear sight, the front sight and the deer down range when using a rifle with open sights.
``I can't see well enough to be sure where I am placing my shot,'' said Reese, a farmer in the Scottsburg area. ``So it raises the question in my mind whether I should even be in the woods carrying a weapon with open sights.''
This fall, those kind of ethical struggles won't be a consideration. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries on Friday approved the use of telescopic sights for the special muzzleloading seasons. As a member of the department's 11-member board, Reese helped vote in the sights.
It was a split vote, and it came over concerns from the board's staff of biologists, which wonders if the muzzleloading season is getting so big that it is a threat to the deer resource and to the hunters who prefer the regular firearms season.
``We have had six years of muzzleloading hunting,'' said Bob Duncan, chief of the department's staff of game biologists. ``The participation rate is now 80,000.''
There is no telling how much that figure will grow with the usage of scopes. Duncan expects it to hit 100,000 and it likely will not stop there.
``We are hastening the day when the muzzleloading season will be a problem for the regular deer hunters,'' said Charles McDaniel of Stafford, who was elected chairman of the game board Friday. McDaniel voted against the use of scopes, saying: ``The muzzleloading season as originally conceived was a primitive weapons season. I am opposed to continuing improving the primitive weapons.''
Several other board members saw it differently. They felt scopes would help hunters identify their target, making their sport safer. Scopes also would result in cleaner kills, they said.
That was the position of Denny Quaiff, the executive director of the Virginia Deer Hunters Association. Quaiff polled his nearly 4,000 members and found that 56 percent favored scopes. He took that as a mandate to lobby for scopes, doing so with such vigor that he almost single-handedly won their approval.
It wasn't as if Quaiff needed a scope for personal success. He is a superb marksman with open sights who has killed three national black-powder record book bucks. But Quaiff puts more practice rounds through his guns in a weekend than many hunters do in a lifetime. A scope, he said, would help the casual hunters make cleaner kills.
``As hunters, the most important and basic premise we should all strive for is a safe, quick, humane harvest of what ever we pursue,'' he said. Anything short of that, he said, ``is disrespectable to the animal.''
Without question, hunters are going to be lining up at guns shops to have scopes mounted on their black-powder rifles. No restrictions were placed on the magnification that can be used. Scopes will makes the muzzleloading season even more enticing as the prime time to kill a trophy buck
But with all the promise comes a warning: If the deer kill gets too big, the season dates or bag limits will have to be modified, Duncan said.
``I would like to go on record that it is highly probable we would have to modify the season,'' he said. ``The point is, two years from now if it becomes biologically necessary to reduce the limit, what I hope will not happen, people will come in here and say, `Look, I spent $200 on a scope and bought a $600 rifle and now you are taking something away from me.'''
by CNB