SouthernBackwoods
May 27, 2009
Southern Backwoods Adventures is now Backwoods Life and was created by three guys down south, Michael Lee, Kevin Knighton and Trey Wetherington. These guys are dedicated to producing high quality hunting and fishing video that will match any show on any channel period! Just check out their new show intro here! Season 5 begins in July 2009 on the Pursuit Channel airing on Mondays at 5:30 PM EST and Tuesdays at 10:00 PM EST. Want to get a taste of what these guys have to offer? Click here for previously aired shows. Hey! don’t forget about their radio show BackWoods Radio airing live every Wednesday from 7 to 9 PM EST. Not able to listen live then check out previously aired episodes below. For more information go to their member profile here or go to their website www.backwoodslife.com. Don’t have the Pursuit Channel to see these guys? Then tell your cable operator to get it or you will be putting Direct TV on speed dial.
Barbless Hooks
May 25, 2009
BY JOHN BERRY
I recently received an email from a reader. He was concerned about barbless hooks. In Arkansas, we are required by regulation to fish barbless hooks in Catch and Release areas. The point of contention was that he took great pains to mash down his barbs was concerned if it was enough to pass the scrutiny of the Arkansas Game and Fish enforcement officers? He had heard that they would put the hook point in a cotton ball and see if the barb would catch anything. My clients and I have been checked on several occasions in the past and this has never really happened to us. When I have been checked, the officers examined the hook but never passed it through a cotton ball. This is not always easy especially when you are fishing a size twenty two midge dry fly. The question remains, what is adequate to pass inspection? Since this can be a subjective determination, well meaning anglers can be in violation of the law, despite their best efforts. I feel that, if you make your best effort, you will be OK.
To avoid this problem, I have been switching my choice of hooks to ones that are factory barbless (hooks made without a barb by the manufacturer). I have encountered a few problems with this strategy. The number of hooks made without barbs is quite limited. To date, I have only found scud, nymph and dry fly hooks that are barbless. I have found no local source for other types of barbless hooks.
I have also found that barbless hooks to be more expensive. I do not understand why hooks that require fewer steps to manufacture cost more than hooks that require more steps. They certainly contain the same amount of metal.
I still own hundreds of barbed hooks and I am too cheap to discard them. Maybe I should donate them to some fly tying group that needs materials.
For those flies that I tie, for which I cannot find barbless hooks, I pinch down the barbs as I tie them. I have acquired a pair of Tiemco barb mashers. This is a great tool that I could not do without. They have smooth flat jaws that do quick work on any barbs. The handles are fairly long to provide plenty of leverage. The finger holes are coated with plastic to provide a certain amount of comfort. I have found it best for me to mash the barbs for all of the hooks before I tie the flies. You do not want to spend several minutes tying a fly only to break the hook as you pinch down the barb. I generally lay out the hooks a dozen at a time and debarb them all at once.
Over the years, I have tied thousands of flies and there are many that I still have that I did not debarb, when I tied them. To fish them, I have to pinch down the barb on stream, as I tie them on my line. I use my forceps and it is a hit or miss proposition. I always check the barb after I attempt to mash it down. Sometimes I have to go back and redo it. Occasionally, when I land a fish, I notice that the hook is a bit difficult to remove and I mash down the barb again.
All of this may possibly change. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is proposing the elimination of the barbless hook requirement for Catch and Release areas. Under the new regulations, you would be able to fish artificial lures with up to three treble hooks. According to the Commission, recent studies have shown a very low mortality rate with the treble hooks. The reason that we have a barbless hook rule in the catch and Release areas is to significantly lower the hook mortality rate. I personally cannot see how a lure with three barbed treble hooks can have a low hook mortality rate.
I personally started using barbless hooks a long time ago, well before the establishment of Catch and Release areas when I became a convert to Catch and Release fishing. But that is not the only reason that I fish barbless. I found that barbless hooks do much less damage to me and others around me than the barbed ones do. Whenever and wherever I fish, I fish barbless. I will continue debarbing hooks after the regulations change. I hope that you do the same. It will be safer for all of us.
(870) 435-2169
berrybrothers@infodash.com
www.berrybrothersguides.com
Dick Martin’s Great Outdoors: Ohio River offers alternative for Erie anglers | Mansfield News Journal
May 25, 2009
By DICK MARTIN • News Journal • May 24, 2009
Lake Erie is one of the finest fishing holes in the country. Yet even the finest can become a little routine if it’s visited too often. Outdoorsmen looking for something different should try the Ohio River. One can spend a couple of days but not a lot of money, and have some excellent action on multiple fish species.
I’ve fished the river around Marietta several times and had success that ranged from good to great.
On one trip, I fished out of a bass boat with a friend working mostly upriver from the town, and found the fishing far different from Lake Erie. We hit a back water laden with stumps and stickups first and hammered the crappie with small jigs and twistertails. That was fun.
Then we worked the shoreline and mouths of small tributaries with spinnerbaits, plastic worms and crankbaits to catch a fine mixed bag of largemouth bass, smallmouths, and spotted bass. This is one of the few places around where you can catch all three.
That same trip and the next one also yielded some good white bass and wipers. The wipers are a cross between white and striped bass stocked by the Division of Wildlife. Like many hybrids, they grow fast and are vicious fighters. They will reach 15 pounds and hooking one is like being attached to a freight train. Bass tournament anglers who fish the Ohio hate wipers because they’re tackle busters and take time away from bass, but lots of others don’t mind them a bit. Cli8ck link below for full story!
Tompkins: Turkeys in Texas, Kentucky tale of two states | Outdoors | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle
May 25, 2009
By SHANNON TOMPKINS Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Shannon Tompkins Houston Chronicle
An abundance of insect-rich openings carpeted with native grasses is crucial to survival of turkey poults. A lack of this “brood habitat” is one of many factors limiting East Texas’ eastern turkey population.
On a cool late-April morning, in a beautiful creek bottom carpeted with glistening trillium and wild violets and crackling alive with singing warblers and cawing crows, I scratched out a series of yelps on a slate call, and three wild turkey gobblers thundered back.
Minutes later, a huge black gobbler warily strode through the open understory beneath the oak and hickory forest and into an acre-sized opening nearly knee-high with native grasses.
The big bird spotted the hen decoys, gathered himself and threw everything he had into a ground-shaking gobble. His paintbrush-thick beard danced on his chest as his body convulsed.
Hidden in a thick clump of cane, I smiled behind my camouflage mask and drank it in. Finally, after all these years, I had accomplished a personal goal: calling a long-bearded eastern turkey gobbler within gun range in country where my ancestors once hunted these same birds.
While the sense of connecting with family history and tradition were real and gratifying, a twinge of melancholy colored the moment.
I’d always hoped this meeting with an eastern gobbler on “home” ground would occur in East Texas, where my family has lived for nearly 200 years.
But after years of failure and frustration trying to find an eastern gobbler in East Texas, it took a trip to Kentucky — the region my ancestors left when they came to Texas in the 1820s — to accomplish that goal.
Kentucky is awash in eastern subspecies wild turkeys. Estimates are the Bluegrass State holds almost a quarter-million wild turkeys, and the birds are found in each of the state’s 120 counties. Each spring turkey season, about 80,000 Kentucky turkey hunters take 25,000 or more birds.
Optimistic estimates place Texas’ eastern turkey population at 10,000 birds. Annual turkey harvest in the 43 East Texas counties that have a spring season has hovered between 250-400 birds this decade, most often closer to 250. And a third or more of those gobblers are taken from just two counties in the far northeast corner of the state. In some East Texas counties open to spring turkey hunting, not a single bird is reported taken during the spring season.
The disparity between eastern turkey populations in Kentucky and Texas is stunning when you consider that, 30 years ago, both held almost none of the birds.
Both saw native populations of eastern turkeys evaporate in the early 1900s, victims of unregulated hunting and, in Texas, extensive loss of habitat. Click Link Below for Full Story!
via Tompkins: Turkeys in Texas, Kentucky tale of two states | Outdoors | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
‘Pond doctor’ helps people create their own dream fishing holes – Kansas City Star
May 25, 2009
By BRENT FRAZEE
The Kansas City Star
A couple of years ago, Jack Rudnay realized that his dream of developing a trophy bass lake was starting to slip away.
Thick vegetation covered one portion of the lake, making it virtually inaccessible. The bass were skinny, obviously lacking in food. And while there were big fish in there, the fish were predominantly in the 12-inch range.
That’s when Rudnay called Shawn Banks, known as the “pond doctor.”
Banks, who runs Midwest Lake Management, a business that specializes in rehabilitating small fishing holes, took a series of steps to get Rudnay’s private lake in central Missouri back in balance. And on a recent fishing trip, it was obvious that the steps were working.
As Rudnay fought a 13-inch bass to the boat, he said, “That’s a healthy boy bass.” Banks nodded and added, “Two years ago, that fish would have been skinny. But he’s in good shape. He’s getting enough to eat.”
That was the goal when Banks set out to work with Rudnay, the former Chiefs center, to achieve his dreams.
Rudnay moved to the country years ago, built a home overlooking a valley and had a pond constructed to his specifications. He spent hours building brush piles, designing ledges and dropoffs, and developing spawning and feeding flats for the bass.
And for a while, things were good.
“Like a lot of people, I had always dreamed of having my own Walden Pond,” said Rudnay, who played for the Chiefs from 1970 to 1982. “I wanted to move out into the country, live out in nature and have a fishing spot of my own.
“I put a lot of sweat equity into it, but it was worth it. When my grandson caught his first bass there, I knew I had done something right.”
But eventually, the pond got out of balance, partly because of the lack of harvest.
“Those bass are like my babies,” Rudnay said. “I just couldn’t bring myself to kill them.”
Troubled by a lack of big fish, Rudnay turned to Banks. The fisheries biologist started by electroshocking the lake to find what was there. Then he set a plan into motion
Because Rudnay didn’t want to remove any of the bass, Banks advised providing the fish with a heavy dose of food. He stocked 12,000 golden shiners into the lake, providing a high-protein food source.
Banks also removed the water shield vegetation that had overrun part of the lake. That made it easier for the bass to find their forage and opened a whole segment of the lake to fishing.
Today, Banks continues to stock golden shiners in the lake. And the results are evident.
Rudnay caught the biggest bass his lake has yielded — a fish that weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces — a year ago. And he is convinced that there are even bigger ones out there. Click link below for full story!
via ‘Pond doctor’ helps people create their own dream fishing holes – Kansas City Star.
Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources – Hunters Take Record Number of Spring Turkeys
May 25, 2009
Frankfort, KY – Kentucky’s spring turkey hunters set a new state record this year. Hunters telechecked 29,006 birds during the 23-day season, which ended May 10. This surpassed the previous record of 28,797 birds in 2006.
“Despite the bad weather, turkey hunters are dedicated sportsmen and sportswomen,” said Karen Alexy, wildlife division director for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “They still got out there and made this the best season ever.”
Last summer, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife biologists recorded the highest number of poults, or turkey chicks, ever reported in the 25-year history of the department’s annual brood survey. This record turkey reproduction provided plenty of birds for hunters.
“We had more birds on the ground than probably at any time in modern history,” said Steven Dobey, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife’s turkey program coordinator. “Interest in turkey hunting continues to grow. That, combined with the record number of turkeys on the ground, resulted in a phenomenal season.”
Turkeys should produce another strong crop this year. Since only bearded turkeys are legal for harvest during the spring season, female birds were essentially protected and can now build on last year’s reproductive success.
“By early fall, we’ll have a post-harvest estimate of what the population looks like,” said Dobey. “I expect it to be great – those hens made it through the spring season and are nested now.”
Additionally, birds hatched in 2008 will be adult two-year-olds by next year’s spring turkey season. With a little help from nature, hunters should be in for another great harvest in 2010
via Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources – Hunters Take Record Number of Spring Turkeys.
Recession hasn’t killed Western Colorado hunting season | PostIndependent.com
May 18, 2009
By John Gardner
jgardner@postindependent.com
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — If there is a recession in Western Colorado, the hunters haven’t noticed.
According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife applications are down less than 2 percent from 2008. The license applications include pronghorn, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, moose, turkey, fall bear, desert bighorn sheep, spring turkey and the most popular species of elk and deer.
However, the application numbers indicate that the hunting industry remains strong, according to DOW spokesman Randy Hampton. The actual number of licenses were down 9,318 from 2008 to 2009. However they still received nearly 470,000 applications this year.
“Overall, this is nothing that jumps out as a big surprise or concern for us,” Hampton said.
Hunting, according to Hampton, is one activity that people will find a way to do, even during a recession. Over the past few years even with record-high gas prices, Hampton said that the DOW didn’t see any drastic drops in hunting licenses or applications.
“Hunters are going to hunt,” Hampton said. “It’s something they do with their family, and they’re going to continue to do it.”
Hampton said that a decrease in available tags for elk and deer this year could also be a reason for the slight decline in applications. Hampton said the DOW will issue about 10,000 fewer elk licenses and around 7,000 fewer deer licenses statewide.
However, an interesting trend has developed between the number of resident and nonresident applications. This year nonresident applications were down 9 percent (15,920 applications) while the resident applications rose 2 percent (5,740 applications).
“This would indicate that people are staying closer to home to hunt,” Hampton said. “Our residents may stay in Colorado to hunt, and other residents may stay closer to their home rather than coming to Colorado.”
However, the DOW usually receives more resident applications — on average — than nonresident applications.
The biggest decline was in the nonresident deer applications, which were down 11 percent from 2008. However there were still 58,500 applications this year.
But these numbers are not final. Hampton said that over-the-counter tags, which are only available in second and third rifle season for elk, could determine how successful this hunting season is. Click link below for full story
via Recession hasn’t killed Western Colorado hunting season | PostIndependent.com.
Hunting royalty: O’Fallon hunter bags all 5 North American varieties of turkey – Outdoors – Belleville News-Democrat
May 18, 2009
BY ROD KLOECKNER – News-Democrat
Steve Boente, left, of O'Fallon and William 'Slim' Boente, of Shiloh, pose after harvesting turkeys in the Sahara mountains of Mexico. They were hunting above 7,000 feet. - Provided to BND
William “Slim” Boente and several of his buddies are considered royalty in the turkey hunting world.
Boente, a 42-year-old construction worker from O’Fallon, recently completed the Royal Slam of turkey hunting: shooting all five species of wild turkey — the Eastern, Rio Grande, Merriam’s, Osceola and Gould’s — common to North America.
Boente and four of his turkey hunting buddies traveled to Chihuahua, Mexico, during the last week of April to hunt the Gould’s bird, the fifth leg of the Royal Slam. Boente; his brother, Steve Boente, of O’Fallon; and Joseph Wrigley, of Collinsville, all completed the Royal Slam.
“It’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing, and to get the opportunity and run with a group of guys like that and do it all together, especially with my brother, is special to me,” Slim Boente said. “I probably only know of six or eight guys that have gotten a Royal Slam.”
According to the National Wild Turkey Federation’s records database, the trio are the 11th, 12th and 13th Illinois hunters to complete the Royal Slam. Three other area hunters — John Brown (Chester), Mark Allen Carr (Greenville) and Mark Mueller (Mascoutah) — also have Royal Slams to their credit. Click below for full story!
Bass videographer Glen Lau returns to his favorite fishing hole, Lake Erie – Cleveland.com
May 18, 2009
D’Arcy Egan
Plain Dealer Columnist
Celebrated videographer Glen Lau has been hooked on bass for more than a half- century.
Lau’s most famous videos, “Bigmouth” (1973) and “Bigmouth Forever” (1996), featured Florida’s largemouth bass. He also helped with “Hooked on Bass,” which can be seen on the National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. next Saturday.
Lau’s favorite bass fishing hole, though, is still Lake Erie. He grew up as a barefoot boy on the muddy banks of the Maumee River, casting with a hand line wrapped around a beer bottle, eager to catch anything that would bite. Lau became a fishing guide in 1958, a rare occupation back when few owned boats, taking out a couple of anglers or waterfowl hunters each day in a little 16-foot fiberglass boat he docked at Channel Grove Marina on Marblehead.
Lau guaranteed his customers they would catch fish or didn’t have to pay his $25 guide fee. It was a bet he never lost in a decade of guiding.
And Lau, 73, never lost his passion for bass fishing.
“First and foremost, I guided for bass,” said Lau, “I’d take people after walleye and yellow perch, but bass were No. 1.”
Bass were on Lau’s mind this week as he introduced his Ocala, Fla., neighbor, Hoyt Gibson, and Gibson’s bass-loving sons, Greg and Jeff, to Lake Erie’s premier smallmouth bass fishing. I joined them on the final day of the week-long catch-and-release adventure, and we talked about his activist days.
Lau was among the first to demand that Ohio officials protect Lake Erie.
“To promote my guide service, I wanted to win the King of Ohio Fishing contest held by the Columbus Citizen [-Journal] newspaper,” said Lau. “I fished every day, catching 2,900 pounds of Lake Erie fish over six weeks to win it.”
The newspaper title gave the 25-year-old guide the platform to speak for his favorite fishing hole, as well as challenge Ohio’s lake managers, commercial fishermen and even the forces building the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant on the western Lake Erie shoreline.
He wrote articles in local newspapers, attended Columbus meetings and hearings, carried a video show he filmed to area sportsmen’s groups and weathered threats and criticism from the commercial fishing industry. Click Link Below for full story!
via Bass videographer Glen Lau returns to his favorite fishing hole, Lake Erie – Cleveland.com.
Shoreline fishing now has a price
May 18, 2009
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
The end of most license-free shoreline fishing in Florida seems to be as inevitable as the Mallory Square sunset.
Beginning in August, state officials will require most recreational bridge and shore anglers to hold a state $7.50 annual license, newly approved by the Florida Legislature.
Only a veto by Gov. Charlie Crist — fishing in a GOP fundraiser this weekend in Key West — would prevent the shoreline-license law from taking effect.
“We hope the governor understands the situation and will be supportive” of the license, said Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association-Florida.
“We think people who use fishing resources should help pay to maintain the resource,” Forsgren said of his group’s longtime support of a shoreline license.
This year, a mandate from federal fishery managers for a more accurate accounting of Florida’s recreational angler population made the shoreline license a necessity, Forsgren said.
“Removing this glitch [in the state saltwater fishing law] will save Florida’s recreational anglers about $20 million they would have spent on a federal license,” Forsgren said.
Martin Alsobrook from Linda’s Bait Shack on Big Pine Key said he has mixed feelings about a shoreline license.
“We do need a little more [marine] enforcement,” Alsobrook said. “If the money stays within the fishing area, I guess I have no problem with that. But if they just put in the general-revenue fund to spend how they want, I’d be really not happy.”
Proceeds from the shoreline license, as with all fishing license revenue, will go into the Marine Resources Conservation Trust Fund, which helps pay for things like enforcement, habitat protection and hatcheries, Forsgren said.
As part of the same law, the cost for special stamps required on regular saltwater licenses for snook and lobster will increase.
Lobster stamps will cost $5; snook stamps will cost $10. The stamps have cost $2 since 1989.
Legislative background reports say the shoreline angler license will apply to an estimated 115,000 to 185,000 anglers, and generate about $900,000 annually.
Under the state saltwater fishing law enacted in 1989, Florida residents were not required to have a license to fish from a dock, bridge, pier or shoreline.
Out-of-state residents already must buy a license to fish in Florida whether they fish from a boat, bridge or shore, unless they fish on a for-hire vessel with a boat fishing license. The least expensive license for out-of-state residents costs $17 for a three-day permit. Click Link Below for Full Story!
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