ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704220001
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
A woman in Virginia Beach held up a leg-hold trap and asked, ``What are we going to do about these?''
A man in Roanoke said he'd spent hundreds of dollars for a modern muzzleloading outfit, and now the state was trying to take away his right to use it.
Sportsmen in Big Stone Gap were more interested in talking about trout fishing than hunting issues.
Those were some of the mixed reactions during 15 Department of Game and Inland Fisheries public hearings across the state at which proposed hunting regulations were discussed.
There was no one hot-button issue, said Bob Duncan, chief of the department's wildlife division. Only 859 people showed up for the hearings, a turnout Duncan described as ``poor.''
``Basically, the public input was pretty mild,'' he said.
The subject matter ranged from starting the quail season two weeks earlier to adjusting the dates of the bear-chase season.
The proposals drawing the most attention involved changes in the muzzleloading season that are designed to trim the number of antlered bucks and antlered turkeys being killed by black-powder hunters.
``In one western county, more than 50 percent of all the bucks killed were killed before the regular firearms season started,'' Duncan said. ``I just don't think we can continue that.''
The department has proposed shortening the muzzleloading season west of the Blue Ridge Mountains to one week, half of what it was last year. It would open the second day in November and have a one-buck limit with no doe day.
The idea of eliminating doe hunting during the western muzzleloading season brought its share of comments during the hearings, but there was no clear-cut opinion on that topic, either. The tally of votes on the issue was 299 who favored a one-buck limit and 338 who didn't.
The doe-day issue isn't as much biology as, ``When can you put it on the calendar?'' Duncan said.
``When the season was two weeks, the doe day fit nicely the middle Saturday,'' he said. ``We were reluctant to recommend a doe day immediately prior to the opening of the general firearms season. If we were just looking at deer, we probably would have had the season the first week of November, with a doe day that Saturday. But we were killing 29 percent of the western turkeys that week. So turkeys were part of our consideration.
``What we ended up with is kind of a compromise. Some people just aren't happy with compromise.''
East of the Blue Ridge, the early muzzleloading season would remain two weeks and offer either-sex hunting under current proposals, but only one buck could be killed. Some eastern hunters see the one-buck limit as too restrictive, but the idea was well-received in a survey during the early stages of the proposal process, Duncan said.
``We surveyed 5,000 hunters and asked, `If there was a need to cut the harvest back, how would you do it?''' Duncan said. ``More people people favored limiting it to one buck than any other solution.''
When asked how many deer tags should be on the big-game license, ``Eighty percent of the hunters recommended a limit that contained three bucks,'' Duncan said.
That is what the game department proposals recommend, along with limiting the sale of bonus tags to one set of two tags. The result would be a limit of five deer for the season. The daily bag limit west of the Blue Ridge would be reduced from two to one.
The proposals are due for a final vote May 5 in Richmond, and adjustments could be made at that meeting.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON THE ROANOKE TIMES. State wildlife biologistsby CNBhope proposals to tighten deer-hunting regulations will result in an
increase in the number of antlered bucks. Biologists often point to
the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, where this herd was photographed,
as an example of the impressive results quality deer management can
have. color. Graphic: Chart by RT: A mixed bag of comments from our
readers. color. KEYWORDS: MGR