ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050128
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OUTDOORS
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Your gobbler hunt is going well. A majestic tom turkey is responding to the seductive calls of your guide. A few more steps and the big bird will be yours.
The guide is well worth the money you are paying him. Earlier in the season he limited out on two 20-pound toms, now he's about to get you one.
But wait! He is breaking the law.
The Virginia Code says once any hunter takes his daily or seasonal game bag limit, he no longer may assist another hunter - by calling a turkey, driving a deer, handling a hunting dog or adjusting duck decoys.
``Such `assisting,' of course, is precisely the service rendered by guides,'' said James McInteer, who is advocating a license or certificate that would allow guides to lawfully help their clients.
The prohibition against assisting another hunter is explicit in state regulations, McInteer said, but there also are comparable laws, although more vague, that govern fishing. For example, if a guide on Smith Mountain Lake takes his limit of two striped bass, the law implies he must quit fishing for stripers.
When the game and fish laws were written many years ago, there was little demand for guides, said McInteer, a past executive director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Guiding no longer should be discouraged, he said. Guides provide a valuable service, and their importance will grow as increasing numbers of people interested in hunting and fishing come from an urban background.
McInteer appeared at the July board meeting of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries with a recommendation that the General Assembly enact legislation to establish a guide license or certificate. That license would exempt guides from the regulation that prohibits them from assisting others who are hunting and fishing once they have taken their own daily or seasonal bag limit.
``This is a briefing,'' McInteer told board members. ``I'm not telling the board what to do right now. I'm not trying to sell a program. The guides must want this themselves or it is a dead issue.''
McInteer says, ``Virginia could become more attractive to hunting and fishing vacationers.''
Guides could attract clients by advertising the fact that they were licensed by the state. Land overpopulated with deer could be opened to hunting through negotiations between landowners and responsible guides. Crippling losses would be lessened, since guides would have experience tracking game. Relationships between game wardens and guides also would improve.
What would all this cost guides?
Not much, under McInteer's recommendations.
``This should not be a revenue-raising thing,'' he said. ``Guide licenses might be issued free of charge, or at most a fee not exceeding the cost of issuing them might be imposed.''
The board, he said, could establish some simple qualifications for guides: a general knowledge of game and fish laws; a record free of violations; a knowledge of boating and gun safety; and a pledge to observe laws, be safe and act responsibly.
McInteer said guides could continue to operate under the current system, but he believes most would see the benefits of a license.
The board assigned the proposal to a study committee.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB