Antlerless hunt will boost deer harvest
http://c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061210/SPORTS01/612100401/1011
By JIM STABILE
Correspondent
More than half of New Jersey's annual deer harvest has been taken and another 20,000 could be added to the total starting this week if antlerless hunting equals past years.
We won't have the final figures for the 2006-07 deer seasons until at least March, but in past years -- including 59,657 taken last year -- bowhunters get most of the deer and shotgunners bag about 10,000, all before the permit shotgun and muzzleloaders get their main shots -- starting this week.
Pennsylvania's Game Commission, which provides fishing and hunting news without needing political approval, reported a preliminary harvest of 3,099 bears, second highest on record. It takes a while to get their mailed-in deer-kill reports from hunters, but they'll have a deer-harvest estimate before trout season.
Reports on our six-day season have varied from very good to very poor, but no official statistics prove results either way, only e-mails, calls and reading Web sites from hunters happy or not. At least most of the week had good deer-hunting weather.
Speaking at the annual Fish Forum at the Hackettstown Hatchery on Dec. 2, Dave Chanda, acting director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said for the first time in three years fishing license sales had remained level (instead of dropping), and the next Fish and Wildlife Digest should be out about Dec. 15, with good information, but without any changes in the Code.
Fish diseases were a concern, from the largemouth b [no swearing please] virus (LMBV) discovered at Lake Hopatcong this year to the Viral Hemorrhagic Septcemia (VHS) in the Great Lakes that has drawn a federal ban on transporting 37 species of live fish from states bordering the Great Lakes, including New York and Pennsylvania.
The disease came into the lakes from ocean vessels' ballast water, causes fish to bleed internally, paralyzes and kills birds, but hasn't been found in New Jersey. It killed about 500 loons in Lake Ontario during October.
Vern Mancini, who owns the Musky Trout Hatchery in Warren County, said he was notified by federal authorities, tried to get information from our state's fisheries personnel and didn't have a phone call returned for two weeks. A seven-page report about bass, dated July 12, 2006, had its first page missing, which typified the state's b [no swearing please] presentation at the hatchery.
Tony Going, president of the NJ B [no swearing please] Federation Chapter, and Tim Clancy of the Knee Deep Club, spoke of the need to address the LMBV problem, and both noted the drop in size and numbers of largemouths at the lake.
The biggest laker caught in the annual gillnet survey at Round Valley Reservoir last month weighed 29 pounds, trout stocking might be reduced there and the daily bag limit might be increased to three and minimum size dropped to 15 inches because there are too many 15- to 20-inch lakers and not enough herring for them.
Merrill Creek's herring population is healthier, possibly because that reservoir's fertilized by 100,000 snow geese every year. The state's other solution for Round Valley: Buy herring for it. Round Valley Trout Association President Dennis Haggerty suggested they consider other forage fish that might do better there.
As many as 22 trout-production streams might not be stocked this year, 16 major trout streams might get 20-percent more trout, the state is shifting to pure strain muskie stocking, discontinuing tiger muskies this year, might propose a 15-inch minimum for pickerel, and is considering raising the 7-inch minimum size on wild trout streams.
West Milford plans to buy 3,000 "animal-resistant" garbage cans this week with the $200,000 it got from the DEP on June 17, 2005. It looks as if they stopped calling them bearproof. They'd better hope making garbage harder to get at doesn't make more bears break into homes. Local and state police were called Halloween when residents became concerned about bears where kids were trick-or-treating.
Also in West Milford, a bear broke a car window to get at a chocolate bar on the front seat Nov. 3, broke into a home's mudroom to get at garbage inside Nov. 13. Last Tuesday, a pregnant woman startled by a bear in Vernon ran, fell and was hospitalized.
The Division during its last reporting period got 158 calls about bears, 78 about deer and six about mountain lions. A memorial service was held Saturday for Russ Cookingham, director of our Division of Fish and Wildlife from 1972-1989, who died last week in his home state of Massachusetts.
The Clover Rod and Gun Club has limited openings for nonmembers at tower shoots in January and February on its grounds in Kingwood Township, Hunterdon County. The shoots feature 100 birds, coffee and pastry before, hot lunch afterward at the spacious lodge.
For more information, check cloverrodandgunclub.com.
http://c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061210/SPORTS01/612100401/1011
By JIM STABILE
Correspondent
More than half of New Jersey's annual deer harvest has been taken and another 20,000 could be added to the total starting this week if antlerless hunting equals past years.
We won't have the final figures for the 2006-07 deer seasons until at least March, but in past years -- including 59,657 taken last year -- bowhunters get most of the deer and shotgunners bag about 10,000, all before the permit shotgun and muzzleloaders get their main shots -- starting this week.
Pennsylvania's Game Commission, which provides fishing and hunting news without needing political approval, reported a preliminary harvest of 3,099 bears, second highest on record. It takes a while to get their mailed-in deer-kill reports from hunters, but they'll have a deer-harvest estimate before trout season.
Reports on our six-day season have varied from very good to very poor, but no official statistics prove results either way, only e-mails, calls and reading Web sites from hunters happy or not. At least most of the week had good deer-hunting weather.
Speaking at the annual Fish Forum at the Hackettstown Hatchery on Dec. 2, Dave Chanda, acting director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife, said for the first time in three years fishing license sales had remained level (instead of dropping), and the next Fish and Wildlife Digest should be out about Dec. 15, with good information, but without any changes in the Code.
Fish diseases were a concern, from the largemouth b [no swearing please] virus (LMBV) discovered at Lake Hopatcong this year to the Viral Hemorrhagic Septcemia (VHS) in the Great Lakes that has drawn a federal ban on transporting 37 species of live fish from states bordering the Great Lakes, including New York and Pennsylvania.
The disease came into the lakes from ocean vessels' ballast water, causes fish to bleed internally, paralyzes and kills birds, but hasn't been found in New Jersey. It killed about 500 loons in Lake Ontario during October.
Vern Mancini, who owns the Musky Trout Hatchery in Warren County, said he was notified by federal authorities, tried to get information from our state's fisheries personnel and didn't have a phone call returned for two weeks. A seven-page report about bass, dated July 12, 2006, had its first page missing, which typified the state's b [no swearing please] presentation at the hatchery.
Tony Going, president of the NJ B [no swearing please] Federation Chapter, and Tim Clancy of the Knee Deep Club, spoke of the need to address the LMBV problem, and both noted the drop in size and numbers of largemouths at the lake.
The biggest laker caught in the annual gillnet survey at Round Valley Reservoir last month weighed 29 pounds, trout stocking might be reduced there and the daily bag limit might be increased to three and minimum size dropped to 15 inches because there are too many 15- to 20-inch lakers and not enough herring for them.
Merrill Creek's herring population is healthier, possibly because that reservoir's fertilized by 100,000 snow geese every year. The state's other solution for Round Valley: Buy herring for it. Round Valley Trout Association President Dennis Haggerty suggested they consider other forage fish that might do better there.
As many as 22 trout-production streams might not be stocked this year, 16 major trout streams might get 20-percent more trout, the state is shifting to pure strain muskie stocking, discontinuing tiger muskies this year, might propose a 15-inch minimum for pickerel, and is considering raising the 7-inch minimum size on wild trout streams.
West Milford plans to buy 3,000 "animal-resistant" garbage cans this week with the $200,000 it got from the DEP on June 17, 2005. It looks as if they stopped calling them bearproof. They'd better hope making garbage harder to get at doesn't make more bears break into homes. Local and state police were called Halloween when residents became concerned about bears where kids were trick-or-treating.
Also in West Milford, a bear broke a car window to get at a chocolate bar on the front seat Nov. 3, broke into a home's mudroom to get at garbage inside Nov. 13. Last Tuesday, a pregnant woman startled by a bear in Vernon ran, fell and was hospitalized.
The Division during its last reporting period got 158 calls about bears, 78 about deer and six about mountain lions. A memorial service was held Saturday for Russ Cookingham, director of our Division of Fish and Wildlife from 1972-1989, who died last week in his home state of Massachusetts.
The Clover Rod and Gun Club has limited openings for nonmembers at tower shoots in January and February on its grounds in Kingwood Township, Hunterdon County. The shoots feature 100 birds, coffee and pastry before, hot lunch afterward at the spacious lodge.
For more information, check cloverrodandgunclub.com.
