THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501010183
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOB HUTCHINSON
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines
Frankly, I never liked the idea of making New Year's resolutions for myself. If you want to do something, do it. If you want to stop doing something, stop.
However, I don't mind if someone else makes them. And I don't mind making resolutions for other folks. Besides, one of the nice things about making them for someone else is that you don't have to worry about keeping them.
Here are some I'd either like to suggest:
A 10-pound Hungars Creek speckled trout resolves to be caught on one of my Purple Demon MirrOlures.
John Johnson of Moyock resolves to show me his secret tarpon hole.
Bill Hall of Bloxom, Va., resolves to catch an Eastern Shore tarpon.
Wallace Walton of Suffolk resolves to go spot fishing one more time.
Bable James of Onancock resolves to get well enough to go marlin fishing with B.W., his son, once more.
Fred Jones of Cheriton, Va., resolves to become a good listener.
Dick Bryant of Courtland resolves to kill the biggest deer ever recorded in Southampton County.
Peggy Hall of Bloxom resolves to call a certain outdoor writer by his proper name.
George Killmon of Wachapreague, Va., resolves to share some flounder with that same writer.
Boze Kellam of Kiptopeke, Va., resolves to find more time to take Margaret speckled trout fishing.
Bob Pride of Virginia Beach, Parks Rountree of Richmond, Grayson Rogers of Nassawadox, Va., and Bruce Graham of Norfolk resolve to continue working hard for the Atlantic Coast Conservation Association.
Virginia tackle shop operators, charter boat skippers, boat dealers and marina operators resolve to become more involved with fishery-management decisions.
My 1984 Yamaha outboard resolves to last at least one more fishing season.
Harry Martin of Mount Nebo, Va., resolves to provide a certain outdoors writer with three dozen soft crabs at least once a year for the next 20 years, as he has for the past 20.
Mary Trexler of Virginia Beach resolves to learn to love the taste of baked striped bass.
Pete Nixon of Norfolk resolves to burn his gill nets and become a full-time boat builder.
Fred Feller of Virginia Beach resolves to learn to pronounce ``buoy'' correctly, not the way it's pronounced in New Jersey.
Tom Savage of Cape Charles resolves to maintain his supply of big, live minnows.
Paul Watson of Cheriton resolves to break par over 18 holes one more time.
Johnny Crumb of Oyster, Va., resolves to learn to use a bait-casting reel.
Gene Crumb of Oyster resolves to cook a nice meal for Norma.
Bill McCaskill of Nags Head resolves to help Dean Smith get elected president.
Bob Pohlmeyer of Chincoteague resolves to sell his business for $2 million and enjoy the good life.
The staff of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission resolves to fight for a better flounder deal for the state's recreational fishermen.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission resolves to listen to the Virginia commission and allow a flatfish season from March 15 through Nov. 30, with an eight-fish bag limit.
Everyone resolves to treat all others as they would their best friends.
STILL GOING: Denny Dobbins apparently wasn't satisfied to make a runaway of the angler-of-the-year competition in the 1994 Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament.
Instead, the Chesapeake attorney had to make a mockery of it, finishing with a record-tying 14 citation-winning catches. No one else had more than nine.
Dobbins closed out a tremendous angling year by releasing a 46-inch striped bass the day after Christmas. It was caught on the Smith Island Flats, east of Cape Charles. That gave him 14 citation-winning catches for the year in the state-sponsored contest.
He had two citation cobia - one released and one weighed - for a grand total of 15 awards. For contest purposes he'll finish with 14 because you can be considered for only one catch in a category.
The 14 citations were enough to tie him with Wayne Perry, also of Chesapeake, atop the all-time list. They also were enough to give him both the angler-of-the-year and release-angler-of-the-year titles.
Of course, none of this will be finalized until sometime in the next few days, since the contest didn't end until midnight New Year's Eve. But Mr. Dobbins and his boat, Predator 13, certainly had themselves quite a year.
GRANT TIME: Nine grants totaling $178,700 and benefiting Virginia's outdoors have been announced by the Environmental Endowment Fund.
The 17-year-old fund has contributed more than $14 million through 500 grants in areas including education, civic action and government.
One of last year's grants was for $34,000 to the Friends of the Shenandoah River for 65 monitoring stations to test the river's water quality. It is to be matched by more than $57,000 in private funds.
The fund also is continuing its sponsorship of the Virginia Conservation Network with a $60,000 grant to support myriad activities involving the network's 100 organizations.
DUCKY DOINGS: Ducks Unlimited, an international waterfowl conservation organization, is joining with a publisher to present what could become the nation's No. 1 outdoor show.
The event, co-sponsored by Ducks Unlimited and Peterson Publishing Co., will be held May 5-7 in Memphis, Tenn. It almost certainly will have a world-record name: ``The Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Sporting & Wildlife Festival: The Biggest Game Fair in America.''
The show will be patterned after the tremendously successful ``National Game Fair'' in England. Sponsors expect more than 75,000 visitors at the Memphis Agricenter International.
Activities will include shooting, archery, fishing and off-road driving, all under true-to-life conditions.
SHORT CASTS: I recently omitted the telephone number for Al Paschall of Virginia Beach, who is starting a class to obtain a Coast Guard skipper's license. The number is 481-6117. The class will begin Feb. 7 at the Ocean Park Fire and Rescue Squad building on Shore Drive in Virginia Beach. . . . Patrick Franklin Jr. of Virginia Beach, age 9, recently bagged his first tundra swan. . . . Rob Phillips of Virginia Beach killed a huge doe deer in Accomack County. It weighed 180 pounds, field-dressed. . . . Larry Schaffer of Southampton County recently caught three citation-winning rock bass, the largest 1-pound-2. He was on the Nottoway River. . . . Big tautog have been boated by Lawrence Steiner (10-8) and James Foreman (10-0) of Virginia Beach, and John Garst (9-8) of Chesapeake. Mark Carmack of Virginia Beach scored with a 9-4 speckled trout. by CNB