ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702110004
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OUTDOORS
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Tom Maynard has given up trout fishing on the Jackson River below Gathright Dam.
It's not because of a lack of caddis fly hatches or midges or even may flies with upright wings that glitter in the sun.
Nor does it have anything to do with a scarcity of bronze-sided brown trout or pink-hewed rainbows that swirl on the surface when hooked.
It has more to do with human nature than Mother Nature.
``Before the controversy, I was taking eight to 10 trips a year with friends to that area to float the river and enjoy the growing fishery,'' said Maynard, who lives in Stafford. ``We used to eat and stay overnight in Covington, buy lures and tackle at The Bait Place and pay local folks to help us shuttle our vehicles between access points.''
Now Maynard and his buddies say they won't be going to the Jackson, and that's not just a loss of fishing joy for them, but a loss to the economy of an area that could use the money. Other fishermen also are avoiding the stream.
``While in New Mexico this past fall, I met a man who regularly traveled extensively to fish first-class fisheries,'' Maynard said in a letter written in response to a Sunday Outdoor column. ``He was aware, not only of the Jackson's potential fishery, but of its access controversy as well. He told me that he had decided that he would bypass the trip to Virginia because of the controversy.''
There are landowners who doubtless will welcome the news that Maynard and others like him no longer will be coming around.
That feeling was expressed in a letter written by Anne Dean of Covington.
``I post my land to keep strangers off of it, yet when I look outside, there are people I've never seen before walking down the river fishing behind my house,'' she said. ``Others are fishing along the bank, with their cooler sitting in my back yard. The battle begins.''
Dean said she felt the thrill of victory when the Virginia Supreme Court recently upheld the rights of certain riparian landowners to prohibit public fishing.
But the victory turned sour a few weeks later when the artificial-lures-only regulation was put in place at the request of Trout Unlimited.
``I am now told that I can no longer walk out into my back yard and fish with a worm or a minnow,'' Dean said.
R.E. Kirby of Roanoke also wrote to say he didn't like the artificials-only regulation, adding that he is unaware of any research on the Jackson that shows bait fishing to be harmful to trout.
``I would like to see this regulation reversed and all of us fishermen work together to open up this fine stream,'' he said. ``If we continue to separate fly fishermen against bait fishermen there will only be losses.''
Maynard supports the artificials-only regulation.
``I know firsthand that bait fishing results in higher mortality in released fish than fly fishing and use of most artificial lures,'' he said. ``I would argue that the elitism some folks are so upset about is more obvious in the actions of a few landowners seeking to deny fishing to the public on a public stream.
Landowners aren't the only targets of Maynard's wrath.
``Lack of leadership from the Game and Fisheries Commission and from the Virginia attorney general has allowed a boondoggle to develop instead of the world-class trout fishery originally envisioned,'' he said.
Public funds have been spent to provide access points and to stock thousands of trout on the Jackson.
``A few landowners, however, have effectively ruined the experience for everyone,'' he said.
Dean doesn't see it that way.
``The Department [of Game and Inland Fisheries] has told us that our rights as landowners will be honored,'' she said, ``yet every time we turn around they are taking away our rights piece by piece.''
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB