Tick Season Will Be On Us Soon

Rick over at Whitetail Woods gave us a great reminder to get ready for tick season with some great tips. As the weather warms the ticks will be out and a little bug like that can cause major illness and suffering if you’re not careful. Rick shows the product he uses I use a similar product from Repel.

Permanone® Clothing and Gear Insect Repellent
An item for every campers packing list.
This odorless insecticide is designed to protected clothing, shoes, tents and other gear from ticks and mosquitoes. Spray any item, let dry and Permanone will provide up to two weeks of protection. Permanone will bind to the fabric being treated, and actually kills insects that come in contact with it. Enjoy a bug free camping trip.

Repel

I’ll spray all my turkey hunting gear down with this a day or so before I plan to go out. It lasts for two weeks even if you wash it. I use to pull a lot of ticks off me every year until I started using this stuff. I think last turkey season I only found two ticks on me.

WISe Project to Benefit Wildlife Across the State

Photo Courtesy of NCWRC

A partnership between the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the Community College System and the Department of Corrections to teach horticulture to the prisoners and provide stock for landscaping.

The WISe (Wildlife Inmate Service) program teaches courses in horticulture to the inmates. The college provides the instructor and NCWRC purchases bare root stock from various sources, including the Forest Service. All of the species are genetically native to North Carolina. The inmates pot and care for the plants as part of the course.
The plants are available for purchase by municipalities, universities, k-12 schools, non-profits, or any state/federal agency. Individuals and private entities may not purchase plants at this time.

NCWRC WISe

There are a lot of benefits to using Native Plants

Native plants are indigenous plants that have adapted over many years to a specific region. They have evolved to flourish in the geography, hydrology, and microclimates of that region. Native plants grow in communities and provide habitat for the native wildlife.

The movement to live more sustainably has demonstrated many benefits to landscaping with natives. Native plants:

* Do not require fertilizers
* Require less water than lawns
* Reduce air pollution
* Provide shelter and food for wildlife
* Promote biodiversity while retaining the aesthetic qualities of ornamental non-natives.

This sounds like a great project and hopefully teaches some of the inmates a trade they can use when they get out. While the stock may not be available to the general public the WISe Plant Profiles web page is a great resource for anyone wanting to gather information on native plants to grow for wildlife & landscaping.

Bills Filed To Remove The Last of The Sunday Blue Laws

As time goes on fewer and fewer states keep or enforce laws that were put in place to maintain “the Sabbath”. Many of us remember the days when stores were closed on Sundays and hardly anyone had to work those are by gone days for sure. North Carolina seems to be moving towards eliminating the last of the Blue Laws

Alcoholic Beverage Control stores have been closed on Sundays since the 1930s. The Sunday firearm hunting ban on state-regulated land has been in place since 1869.

N&O
Two separate bills have been introduced one to end the ban on hunting with a firearm in North Carolina and another to allow the sales of alcohol on Sundays. It would appear the bill that will generate money for the state because they are after all in the business of selling booze has some legs. The Sunday Hunting Bill does not have the same level of support so it is unclear whether it will pass this time. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before the Sunday Hunting ban is lifted. Maybe some churches with a lot of parishioners who hunt could move the morning service a bit closer to noon and include a meal to encourage them to come out of the woods. Who knows that may even help add more folks to the church.

Push for Sportsman Channel to Be Added To Programming

I understand Direct TV has added the Sportsman Channel to its line up Don’t you think Dish Network & Time Warner should get on board? The Sportsman Channel called me tonight to ask me to email Dish Network which I’m glad to do. I’d love another option for getting some great outdoor theme shows. The Sportsman Channel has a link on their home page to see if their programming is available in your area so check it out.

How Much For Bonus Antler less Deer Tags?

Like many places across the country the deer population in many parts of the state has just exploded. In an effort to control the deer population NCWRS has over the past few years made a number of changes to increases the doe harvest. The big change was the lifting of the annual tag limit of 6 deer (which two or four could be a buck depending on where you were hunting) to increasing it to allow you to take as many does as you could while staying within the daily bag limit of two. When the harvest restriction on antler less deer was lifted the NCWRC started issuing bonus doe tags for free basically because there was no mechanism at the time set up to allow them to charge. The bonus tags were issued on the exact same paper form that our licenses are issued on just separately.

Well the legislators are now looking at passing a law to charge $10 for the bonus tags which seems to be a bit excessive when they want to encourage the increased harvest of does. While I certainly don’t see anything wrong with there being a charge it seems odd to charge a third of the cost of a Comprehensive Hunting License for two additional tags. There is not a lot of hunters taking advantage of the current system so in my view charging will only reduce the level of participation. There are some additional changes this year that may encourage more doe harvest; removal of the two deer daily bag limit, allowing some hunting on Sunday with Archery equipment, and including the crossbow as an approved weapon under archery equipment. If some of these steps do not begin to address the expanding herd size other more costly methods will certainly have to be looked at.

I know a number of hunters support a “Earn A Buck” type program where a hunter must kill a doe prior to shooting a buck. That type of system to be effective will almost have to require a physical check in of the animal before the buck tag can be issued. That will be a huge expense to set up check stations across the state.

I’d have no problem if the bonus tags had a $10 charge but they utilized the whole card to put 6 or 8 tags on the card. Our current license carries all our big game tags; Deer (6), Turkeys (2), Wild Boar and a Bear the bonus doe tags were issued in a pair so you can see there is ample room on the form to include more. The agent printing the tags certainly deserved to be paid for their part in the issuing of the tags which they currently do not get.

We need to kill more does and the State should do all they can to encourage the increased harvest and not be looking to add extra tax or fee on us.

National Park Lead Ban Makes No Sense

Mike Zlotnicki’s column in the N&O about this ban points out how ridiculous the ban will be.

Sounds noble, but is it necessary? Should places such as Cape Hatteras National Seashore be managed in the same fashion as, say, Yellowstone National Park, which has a ban on lead fishing tackle and doesn’t allow hunting?

I wonder how many birds die from eating a lead weight used for surf fishing?

Bob Eakes, owner of Red Drum Tackle Shop in Buxton, who also sits on the board of the American Sportfishing Association.

“It took us by surprise,” he said. “This thing floored a lot of people. Ingested lead by birds and ducks is bad, but what bird can ingest an 8-ounce pyramid sinker? This park service is out of control. They’re not using good science.”

I’D agree it seems like the National Parks Service is out of control on this issue but should we be surprised with the bunch of lefties we got running this country? A lead ban on fishing tackle maybe the least of our problems.

On The Road For Snows

Our Crew I’m in the back then L to R NCState, Pickle, Billy, & Hawkeye

Travel half way across the country with 4 other guys and you know there has to be some stories. I’ve had a few ask me about my trip and I’ll admit I’ve been slack.
We left North Carolina headed for Mound City Missouri the center of the snow goose spring migration. We traveled together in a van towing a trailer of dogs for the hunt. The ride was really not bad given that we all don’t see each other much but we love to hunt.

I had never been to St. Louis so it was exciting to catch a glimpse of the arch as we rolled through.

Cabela’s in Kansas City was great, some had to get supplies for this trip while others don’t need much of an excuse to shop at Cabela’s . One of the guys who had been to this Cabela’s before insisted we had to eat lunch there because they made wild game sandwiches. Had many of us thought about the rest of the week and all the sandwiches we would consume we may have opted for something else.

The weather had to be the big story of this trip; days before we got there the temperatures were in the 70’s but a front arrived about the same time we did. The first day of the hunt the high for the day was 56’ with one important note that it happened at midnight. A few of our group missed that part so as the temperature continued to drop throughout the day the lack of cold weather gear really began to take a toll. The 40’s and rain in the morning was replaced by the mid 20’s spitting snow and a steady 30 gusting to 40 mph wind. The wind chill had to be the hardest thing to deal with especially after getting wet earlier in the day. I was one who had watched the weather closely and I was pretty prepared for what we faced that day.

The hunting the first day was not the best but we had a lot of opportunities that we didn’t capitalize on. Unlike Canada geese that seem to come in a bit lower the snows come in high and just drop. When the day ended we had a number of birds but we knew we should have had a lot more.
The second day was a lot colder the corn field went from being a muddy mess to frozen tundra. The weather in Missouri was cold but just to the north in the Dakota’s the rain we got was snow up there. They had blizzard conditions which was now forcing the migrating geese that had already traveled through Missouri and north into the Dakotas to reverse the migration and fly back south to find food. We saw a lot of birds many headed south and a pretty good day of hunting. The wind was not as bad but it blew steady all day. The day ended and we had a better pile of birds then the first day but we still knew our shooting had not been the best letting many of the decoying birds to escape.
The final day of our hunt was a spectacular one. The sky was filled with flock after flock of bird all morning and that was only a small taste of what the afternoon held for us. The final afternoon was one of those hunts I think all of us will remember forever. We killed some birds but even more spectacular was the migration flight we witnessed that day. The weather had really piled the birds up in the area many of the locals told us that they thought there was record number of birds resting in the area. That afternoon the birds began flying about 3:30 and from then on there was almost never a time that you couldn’t see birds in the air.

There were a number of times that afternoon when we had the white tornado over our heads as 5 or 6 hundred birds circled our decoys. That was a sight to see and one I’ll not soon forget. Late in the afternoon we just laid our guns down and soaked the whole scene in as we laid there in the blind and the flocks flew by.
While we didn’t kill as many birds we had thought we would we did all right and brought back a cooler of birds. There are a number of other stories and laughs we shared that week that maybe I’ll share in the future. We had a great trip and one we’ll not soon forget.

Scouting for Turkeys

Turkey season will be here soon so I knew I had to get out and scout some. At least that is what I told myself when the alarm went off a little before 4am. As I pulled out of my yard and headed towards Caswell County I was greeted with rain and knew that this rain would probably stifle the gobbling this morning. With a cup of coffee in my hand I parked on a logging road on our lease in Caswell with the rain still coming down. It was still dark just a little after 6 so I just rolled the windows down and sat enjoying my coffee and waited.
Around 715 well after daybreak I heard my first gobble of the season. He was way off on the Game Lands by the sound of it but good to know because I can access that area off our lease a bit easier then someone coming in on the Game Lands. My hope was his gobble would be the one to initiate others into gobbling. No such luck but he did sound off once more before the turkey silence kicked back in.
The rain stopped for a while so I took a walk into the woods to see if I could see any sign of turkeys. The woods are extremely wet after what has seemed as weeks of rain here. I did not see the usual signs of scratching in the leaves or any of the other tell tale signs that they had been in the area.
The rain resumed so I worked my way back to the truck spending the rest of the morning glassing fields looking for turkeys. Turkeys normally go to fields this time of year but especially when it is raining. I didn’t see a single turkey yesterday so I don’t know what to think. I’ve heard a few folks say that the turkey numbers in Caswell County have dropped while my experience seems to support that I could of just had an unlucky day of scouting.
I stopped briefly at the lease in Alamance County and had to hike into it because the road was so wet into it I’d of tore it all up going in and out. I discovered the calling card of the coyote in the middle of the road going in and can’t help but wonder what the impact they are having on turkeys and small game populations.

While I didn’t find much turkey sign today it was an enjoyable day in the woods. Spring is here, the redbuds are blooming and I even saw a dogwood in bloom a great time to be out in nature. We got a few more weeks till opening day so hopefully we’ll get the puzzle figured out so we are on the right spot on 11th of April.

Poor Economy Leads To DOT Striping of Road Kill in Louisiana

Louisiana DOT earlier this month painted right over the dead carcass of a recently killed raccoon while remarking the highway. While it is unknown when the coon met it’s demise Louisiana DOT is certain of when the body was painted and budget cuts at DOT are to blame for this incident.

DOTD officials have confirmed, after nearly two weeks, that it was one of their crews that striped over the dead raccoon on La. 1 in the St. Charles community near Thibodaux.
“Obviously, it’s embarrassing for us,” Mark Lambert, spokesman for the DOTD said. “It’s unfortunate.”
The raccoon, which met its demise at an unknown earlier date, received its postmortem striping about 3 p.m. March 5 when a DOTD road crew was painting yellow striping along La. 1.
The procedure used to involve three vehicles. The lead vehicle would help anticipate traffic, as well as help remove dead animals or other debris from the road. The second vehicle lays stripes down the middle of the road, while the trailing vehicle cautions oncoming traffic.
However, in an effort to maximize efficiency, the Transportation Department got rid of the lead vehicle, leaving the responsibility of removing road kill to the striping vehicle.
The striping vehicle has to drive at a certain speed without stopping unless there is a safety issue because it is calibrated to stripe the roads at certain points. That means, even if the crew sees an animal in the middle of the road, workers are supposed to stripe over it with the intention of going back and removing it later.
That didn’t happen in the case of the striped raccoon.

Houma Today

I guess in the overall scheme of things striping road kill is a cost cut we may all have to learn to live with. I guess if you can spread the road kill out evenly you can make a passing zone.

Where In the World Is Matt Lauer?

At home recovering from a weekend bicycle accident with a deer on Long Island New York.

the TODAY host was laid up with an injured shoulder after a mishap while bicycling on Long Island. “He was riding his bike over the weekend and he had a run-in with a deer,” co-host Meredith Vieira explained.

Vieira added that although Lauer’s shoulder was hurt, his sense of humor was intact: He joked in an email that he thought “the deer was hired by the competition.”

“I’d hire the deer — but just to graze him,” Vieira quipped to Weekend TODAY anchor Lester Holt, who filled in for Lauer.
There was no immediate word on when Lauer would return to TODAY’s anchor desk.
Vieira said that the deer apparently leapt in front of Lauer, who slammed on his brakes to avoid a collision. The sudden stop threw him off the bike and onto his shoulder.

MSNBC

With soaring deer populations across much of the US mishaps like this will become more common. While it may sound somewhat comical, because this involved a bicycle, animal collisions injury and kill a number of people each year across the nation. Statistics for motor vehicle collisions and animals show a significant rise over the past few years.

State Farm, the nation’s largest auto insurer, estimates that there were more than 1.2 million claims for damage in crashes with animals during the last half of 2007 and the first half of 2008. The company says animal strike claims have increased 14.9 percent over the past 5 years.
Most vehicle-animal collisions aren’t severe enough to injure people, but data from the federal government show that crash deaths are increasing. In 1993, 101 people died in crashes involving animals. By 2000, the number was 150, and in 2007 it was 223.
The states with the largest number of total deaths are Texas with 227 deaths during 1993-2007, Wisconsin with 123, and Pennsylvania with 112 (see attached table of state-by-state deaths in crashes with animals).

Insurance Institute For Highway Safety

State by State Data

Hunting remains the cheapest and the best alternative for controlling out of control animal populations. Many areas have had success in utilizing bow hunters in urban areas to help control deer populations and reduce the risk to people that live and travel in the area.

Hopefully Matt will fully recover and return to the Today Show soon as well as to his hobby of bike riding.

New North Carolina Channel Cat Record Book Fish Was Caught In 1970

E.J. Bowden & 5-year-old son, Louis 23-pound, 4-ounce channel catfish caught in 1970 NCWRC

In what can only be described as a bizarre story a previous recognized fish has return to the top spot. E.J. Bowden of Rocky Mount now has the top spot nearly 40 years after he caught the 23 lb 4 oz channel cat.
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission did not assume the responsibility for managing the record book until 1971 where at the time a misidentified flat head catfish was occupying the top spot for channel cat. A 2005 magazine cover featuring the “record cat” was what helped push the erroneous fish out but left the top spot empty.

As a result, the NCWRC put the vacated record for channel catfish up for grabs. In the four years that followed, the state record for channel catfish was broken three times with the most recent record holder, David Haynes, gaining notoriety for catching a 21-pound channel catfish with a Barbie Doll fishing outfit in August 2008.

The Dispatch

The Barbie Fishing Pole Story was hot and lots of people heard it including E.J. Bowden who had to wonder about the 23 lb 4oz fish he caught in 1970.

After seeing the media coverage about the various channel catfish state records being broken, Bowden contacted the N.C. Division of Inland Fisheries, which oversees the State Record Fish Program, and advised staff that the fish he caught way back in 1970 outweighed Hayes’ record breaker by more than two pounds. He even had a write-up accompanied by a picture from the Sept. 6, 1970 issue of the Rocky Mount Telegram to prove it.
He sent in the paperwork that he had kept all these years, which, along with the Rocky Mount Telegram article, included a Xeroxed copy of the original photograph, a state record certificate, and an excerpt from a 1971 Freshwater Fishing and Hunting in North Carolina atlas, listing all of the freshwater fish state record holders of the day, including Bowden.
After carefully reviewing the stack of documents and the photograph of the fish, Kent Nelson, fisheries program manager with the Commission, agreed with Bowden. He was still the official holder of the channel catfish state record in North Carolina.
Nelson said the Wildlife Commission had no state record channel catfish paperwork prior to Paine’s 1971 record, which is why the agency vacated the record in May 2005.
Without Bowden’s picture and accompanying paperwork, there would have been no way anyone would have known he was still the record holder. The fish itself was long gone, although Bowden said he kept it on ice for about 10 years, hoping to have it mounted one day. That day never came, so he left it in the woods for animals to consume.

North Carolina Sportsman

This is one whale of a tale fish story but it’s good to see Mr. Bowden get the recognition he deserves after all these years. How long will the record stand? Who knows but with the growing popularity of catfish in this state it might get broken in the next few years. I’ll go out on a limb and say it won’t be on a Barbie Rod.

Woodlot Stewardship Classes Being Offered

A series of courses will be offered by a variety of organizations including the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to help individuals better manage and develop their woodlot.

A team of land management experts from the Commission, the Cradle of Forestry Interpretive Association, N.C. Division of Forest Resources, N.C. Cooperative Extension Service, USDA Forest Service, N.C. Zoo, N.C. Woodlands, Montgomery Community College, Land Trust for Central NC and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have joined forces to offer the Piedmont Woodland Steward Series through the Biltmore Forest School.
The workshops include:
• April 17-18: Discovering Your Land: Basic Land Management Skills, Davidson County Agricultural Center, Lexington How to set property management goals and objectives while considering the role of your land in the big picture of regional ecosystems. Learn to use basic tools such as plant identification, soil sampling, maps and compasses, and GIS/ GPS information to manage your land.
• May 1-2: Woodscaping Your Woodlands & Firewise Management, Jordan Lake Educational State Forest, Chapel Hill A general overview of managing your forest land, including how topography and soil affect the forest type and a tour of harvesting methods; basic information on forest insects and diseases, pasture management, and secondary forest products; and reducing the risk of wildfire loss by becoming “firewise” in your backyard.
• May 15-16: Native Landscaping & Water Management, N.C. Zoo, Asheboro A general overview of choosing and planting native plants for your property, care of urban trees and basic information on invasive plants, solving stormwater problems with plants, and piedmont grassland restoration.
• May 29-30: Stewardship, Recreation, & Liability, Montgomery Community College and nearby sites, Troy Planning trails on your property, plus the basics of land ownership liability, recreational income opportunities, and conservation easements. Explore management practices in the field and apply your new knowledge and skills. Finalize your goals and objectives. Graduation ceremony and lunch will follow on Saturday for those attending at least three of the four workshops.

NCWRC

The cost for each session is $50 additional information and registration form can be found here. Sounds like some great workshops for landowners wanting to better manage their lands.

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