Guns are cool and they’re flying off dealers’ shelves.

So much so that record-breaking sales of firearms of all kinds are the new norm as the numbers of people going through the mandated federal background check.

Using statistic provided by the federal government, the firearms industry-based National Shooting Sports Foundation reports that the required NICS firearm-background-checks figure of 1,266,344 is an increase of 31.4 percent over the 963,746 background checks conducted in Feb., 2011.

These figures are adjusted to more accurately reflect actual firearm sales, since some NICS checks are performed for states that use NICS to qualify people for concealed carry permits and for other purposes, says the Foundation.

However, the numbers are not precise sales figures, says the Foundation, with the reason being that one NICS check can be used for multiple purchases.

Also, some people, who after under-going a check, decide not to complete a purchase. Without the adjustments carefully performed by NSSF, the figures would be different.

For example, says the Foundation, the unadjusted February 2012 NICS count is 1,734,646 background checks, an 18.6 percent increase from the unadjusted NICS figure of 1,463,138 in February 2011.

Don’t let the caveats and figures make your head spin, though.

Fact of the matter is that 1.7 million Americans sought guns or gun-related actions in a single month.

Likewise, says the Foundation, February marked the 21st straight month that Foundation-adjusted NICS figures have increased when compared to the same period the previous year.

And icing on the cake for ammunition manufacturers is exportation of handguns. In that category exportations jumped 65.6 percent from 10,557 to 17,487 units.

Within this handgun category, pistol export units increased 72.2 percent from 9,362 to 16,594 units though imported revolver units dipped 25.3 percent from 1,195 to 893 units.

It should come as no surprise either that the buying trend of handgun purchasers is shifting away from revolvers and to semi-automatic firearms.

As for rifle exports they were up 4.6 percent from 16,768 to 17,544 units.

And shotgun category posted a 19.2 percent increase in exported units from 11,502 to 13,705.

Even the muzzle-loader category experienced a gain, this category up 381.3 percent; from 268 to 1,290 units exported.

The icing on the cake was an increase in the amount of ammunition exported. The Foundation says that overall U.S. exports (in units) in six sporting arms and ammunition categories increased 48.5 percent in Jan., 2012 compared to Jan., 2011.

January 2012 exported units in tracked categories totaled 119.0 million, up from 80.2 million reported in Jan., 2011, the Foundation says.

For further details, visit the Foundation’s web site at http://www.nssf.org/research/



- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn

Sales of Ohio fishing licenses are at a fever pitch thanks in no small part to the long stretch of unseasonably warm weather.

For hunting license sales, not so much, however.

The Ohio Division of Wildlife is reporting that for all categories of fishing licenses, sales are up nearly 30 percent when compared to the same period in 2011.

This number includes a nearly 35-percent rise in the number of the all-important resident fishing licenses, the money-making engine that drives the Wildlife Division’s fisheries program. Here to-date sales of licenses climbed from 321,780 in 2011 to 433,799.

Only in two narrowly defined categories of free fishing licenses were drops noted.

Thus the Wildlife Division reported a to-date 33-percent revenue gain from the $7.36 million collected for the period in 2011 to the $9.8 million collected thus far in 2012.

So far, the 2012 fishing license sales are up, which is a great sign,” says  Andy Burt, the Wildlife Division’s licensing coordinator. “Last year we had a poor spring for fishing where it was either too wet or too cold and if it was nice, it was only during the week, not the weekends.”

This year’s weather and sales appear to be just the North Pole opposite from last year, Burt says.

“The dichotomy in the years makes this year appear like it may end up being a huge increase in sales when over the long term it is only slightly above average,” Burt says.

As a result, says Burt, the Wildlife Division will wait until after the July 4th holiday period before projecting where sales of fishing licenses will wind up.

“There is a large proportion of anglers that buy licenses in the spring, but with summer vacations and nice boating weather, there are still a decent number of licenses sold throughout the summer,” Burt says. “
However, if they don’t buy a license by the end of July, they likely won’t buy a license at all.”

The yin to the robust fishing license sales yang is the lackluster sales of hunting licenses. And in virtually every category that matters, too.

The to-date sales of resident hunting licenses fell nearly 7 percent this year when compared to the same period in 2011.

Also off are the sales of youth-only hunting licenses, antlerless-only licenses (down a whopping 23 percent), and either sex deer tags.

Down too, was the sale of spring turkey tags which were required for the recently concluded season for this category. A drop of more than 1,000 spring turkey permits was noted in the adult category and which resulted in a decline in revenue for wild turkey management of almost $80,000.

Overall, therefore, the Wildlife Division has experienced a to-date shrinkage of hunting license sales-generated revenue of nearly $1 million.

“I don’t look too much on the to-date hunting license sales, but I’m not sure how these licenses compare to the five-year average but this year’s sales are down,” Burt said.

Burt did say that a “bump” in hunting license sales will come with the waterfowl season opener and a much larger jump just before the start of the general archery deer-hunting season.

The bottom line, says Burt, is that it’s “too early to tell about the sale of hunting licenses.”

“We do know that sales of hunting licenses are declining in general though we’ll wait to see what happens after the deer gun season when most of our hunting licenses are sold,” Burt said.




-
 Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn

With a curl and quick recoil of his right wrist Mike McCoy ever so softly rolled a slinky black-colored plastic worm into a crevice tucked inside the rotting concrete bulk work.

The worm descended rather swiftly, towed to the bottom’s gooey muck by a stub of a lead pencil sinker.

A jiggle of the fishing and a couple of cranks on the handle of his Ardent spinning reel and McCoy brought the plastic worm to life. Enough life, in fact, that a three-pound male largemouth bass could not resist the temptation.

Like the men folk of so many other species in this world male largemouth bass go a bit crazy when it comes to the arena of progeneration.

Maybe the bass was simply trying to move the fake bait off a spawning bed or perhaps the fish wanted to teach the thing-a-ma-jig a lesson. Whatever, but between a razor-sharp hook, properly matched tackle and McCoy’s professional fishing experience, the largemouth didn’t stand a chance.

“Nice fish,” McCoy said as he only briefly admired the healthy bass before releasing it.

I replied that all bass are nice.

“Yeah, but as my youngest daughter says ‘some bass are nicer,’” McCoy replied.

And so they are, including those bass found within the claws of the Mentor Lagoon’s several fingers that poke their way back from Lake Erie.

These lagoons are among the most unique of their kind in the Great Lakes.

Populated seasonally by hundreds of boats of all kinds, the Lagoons also are the home to a wide variety of fishes: Carp, drum, black and white crappie, bowfin, sunfish, and northern pike.

Yet for anglers like McCoy the Lagoons are Bass Central Station.

But don’t get the idea the fish are everywhere, are simpletons, or can be cropped for the fry pan. They aren’t, they’re not, and they can’t. Not if the Lagoons’ bass fishing is to remain the most poorly kept secret zippered shut by area anglers.

And each Memorial Day holiday weekend for the past five years McCoy has let me occupy the rear deck of his Ranger bass-fishing boat. During these outings we’d spend the day tossing drop-shot-rigged plastics into various Lagoons’ nook and crannies.

This year was no different. Except, that is, for the record-setting heat and the relatively cool reception from the bass.

McCoy piloted his Ranger along the seam where the Lagoons me the bulk work, docks, indentations and such that provide cover for the fish.

“Yesterday the bass were on fire,” McCoy said, stumped that while we were catching nice fish there was – for him anyway – too wide a gap between bass.

Traveling back and forth through a couple of the Lagoon fingers we worked at finding fish. Some usually good spots were unusually void of bass, however.

“Maybe this is an afternoon bite,” McCoy said.

A good professional bass-fishing angler McCoy always has his brain wrapped around the angling whiteboard, analyzing the whys and wherefores that separates his tribe from the rest of us weekend wanna-bes.

Don’t get me wrong. I was having a ball, catching a couple of respectable bass in the process and pleased that I wasn’t embarrassing myself by pitching less than precision-like casts.

All too quickly and our annual bass-fishing retreat was over. The bass weren’t the worse for wear and McCoy kept his considerable angling talents honed to saber sharpness.

Me? Given all that’s happened lately health-wise I think I came out ahead the best.

- By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

Twitter: @Fieldkorn

In spite of near perfect weather for this year’s four-week-long spring turkey-hunting season and some of the worst weather for last year’s season, the kill still was down some three percent this time around.

Which doesn’t come as a huge surprise. Last year’s unseasonably cool temperatures and super abundant rain showers put a world of hurt on turkey pullet survival.

In the end that meant fewer turkeys were available for hunters during the just-concluded season.

Hunters checked 17,647 wild turkeys during the season that ended May 15. The preliminary total represents a three-percent decrease over last year’s harvest number of 18,162, says the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

Once again Ashtabula County again led will a kill of 762 birds. That figure is up from the 700 turkeys killed during the 2011 spring season.

Other top counties were: Ashtabula-762, Tuscarawas-531, Guernsey-495, Coshocton-492, Muskingum-486, Belmont-456, Knox-451, Harrison-450, Trumbull-428 and Adams-420.

Noteworthy perhaps is that Geauga County and Lorain County both reported declines in the kill. Nearly every other Northeast Ohio county saw gains.

Count me as one of the unsuccessful hunters. I watched eight sunrises and one sunset during the four-week season. Birds were heard just three times and seen but once. A pair of jakes which were attracted by my calling wanted to come in but were coaxed into pulling back by a mean, old boss hen. Maybe during the up-coming fall season I can get my revenge and make her our Thanksgiving Day dinner. That's because  hunters are allowed to shoot a turkey of either sex during the fall season.

The Division of Wildlife estimates that more than 70,000 people hunted turkeys during the season. Prior to the start of the spring hunting season, state wildlife biologists estimated the wild turkey population in Ohio to be more than 180,000 birds.

Preliminary spring turkey season results for 2012 are listed. The 2011 final totals are shown in parentheses:
Adams: 420 (502); Allen: 45 (45); Ashland: 237 (224); Ashtabula: 762 (700); Athens: 335 (367); Auglaize: 34 (36); Belmont: 456 (435); Brown: 350 (428); Butler: 184 (200); Carroll: 385 (349); Champaign: 87 (87); Clark: 18 (17); Clermont: 338 (420); Clinton: 60 (75); Columbiana: 410 (394); Coshocton: 492 (443); Crawford: 77 (85); Cuyahoga: 2 (4); Darke: 52 (43); Defiance: 218 (227); Delaware: 126 (131); Erie: 60 (52); Fairfield: 111 (90); Fayette: 6 (5); Franklin: 21 (23); Fulton: 92 (90); Gallia: 289 (370); Geauga: 276 (300); Greene: 20 (23); Guernsey: 495 (498); Hamilton: 119 (139); Hancock: 23 (31); Hardin: 88 (74); Harrison: 450 (474); Henry: 32 (35); Highland: 402 (438); Hocking: 296 (283); Holmes: 259 (215); Huron: 152 (158); Jackson: 292 (296); Jefferson: 365 (374); Knox: 451 (498); Lake: 84 (58); Lawrence: 179 (262); Licking: 380 (425); Logan: 166 (159); Lorain: 177 (182); Lucas: 46 (43); Madison: 1 (4); Mahoning: 238 (226); Marion: 49 (53); Medina: 120 (116); Meigs: 366 (396); Mercer: 20 (17); Miami: 12 (26); Monroe: 417 (440); Montgomery: 20 (15); Morgan: 292 (338); Morrow: 212 (205); Muskingum: 486 (455); Noble: 333 (305); Ottawa: 9 (2); Paulding: 99 (82); Perry: 247 (257); Pickaway: 26 (28); Pike: 280 (270); Portage: 234 (224); Preble: 91 (71); Putnam: 50 (58); Richland: 393 (408); Ross: 333 (344); Sandusky: 13 (17); Scioto: 210 (260); Seneca: 165 (162); Shelby: 42 (39); Stark: 213 (219); Summit: 42 (28); Trumbull: 428 (405); Tuscarawas: 531 (571); Union: 38 (37); Van Wert: 11 (21); Vinton: 263 (256); Warren: 90 (123); Washington: 390 (402); Wayne: 96 (107); Williams: 261 (242); Wood: 19 (21); Wyandot: 88 (105).


- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twiter: @Fieldkorn

Streams of sunshine were starting to trickle into the woodlot, the warm, bright currents growing stronger with each passing minute.

Some of these splashes of light poured onto the woodlot's floorboard while others rode the morning waves to overtake the forest's darkest backwaters.

It was - as are every sun-drenched mornings in May - the time for turkeys to stir, collect their thoughts, and talk to each other. Some birds simply are attempting to tune into another bird's location. Others are out to shout to one, all, and the morning sun, that they are not to be trifled with.

These last turkeys are the toms, or gobblers, that are the point of attraction for several ten thousand of Ohio hunters. Myself included.

Only this particular morning (yesterday, for the record) held special significance, important meaning.

Some 18 hours earlier I had been told I had cancer. To be exact, prostate cancer. To what degree I will find out later this week. As well as having the heavy burden of deciding how best to save my life by which treatment venue to use.

I know all about the upbeat statistics. Ever since the first whiff of the possibility of prostate cancer fell out of my all-ready cluttered cabinet of physical ills I've been on the Internet trail of the disease, looking for data, visually scrounging for pointers and options.

Of course the odds are in my favor, I keep telling myself, and which others also opine in the positive. After all, I exercised due diligence in getting tested each year since I turned 50. That includes having blood drawn for the PSA test which is intended to root out any markers of a cancer-invaded prostate.

Even so, we are talking about cancer here. And while the attending doctors have all spoken in carefully manicured terms about early detection and all that, they have never, ever, have included the word "promise."

Nor can they. As often as not cancer is a stealth intruder that does its murderous deed when the host may very well not be looking.

My hopeful saving grace was that I faithfully stood my post for the past 12 years.

And all of these things washed over me as I watched the woodlot arise out of the darkness and then the awakening life as both joined to capture the flag, which they won't relinquish until nightfall.

So I observed and listened. Maybe with a tint more attention but certainly with more appreciation.

The hens were putting softly but yelped with greater intensity. Their object was to overrule the tempting coaxing that Tommy Oehlenschlager and I applied with our calls.

It was not that gobblers lacked interest. To the contrary. We'd call and from one to possibly five gobblers would respond. They wanted to check out our lusty pleadings but the hens kept their consorts in check.

All of the birds dropped their anchors, moared behind a large block of shrubs and trees; way too thick to see through.

Tommy and I played Battleship with the unseen turkeys for the better part of an hour. A bit of desperation was in order. The conclusion of Ohio's spring turkey-hunting season was only one day ahead. And I hadn't killed a turkey in something like three spring seasons.

Nor would I this season, either.

Shrugging off the stiffness in the legs and in the back I did my best to climb into a standing position. It was some work given that the body is tempered by age.

The birds had gone quietly into the woodlot's recesses, never having turned the corner on the shielding green-stained encumbrance.

By now the tide of light had very nearly reached its apogee inside the forest. Wonderfully, peaceful and seemingly at rest even with its life force coming on line, the woodlot was both a tonic and a temptress.

I was glad to have been both an observer and a participant to the woodlot's night-to-day ritual this morning, just one of countless others I now so desperately desire to enjoy with even greater intensity.

So I wept. Loud enough for Tommy to hear me and pleadingly enough for him to say "You will. They caught it early."

I prayerfully request so. Perhaps these woods need my company as much as I do theirs.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn

Good parents both, Starbright and Jerry dive-bombed the intruders who were out to (temporally) kidnap their five offspring.

Few can blame the pair as the 3 1/2 week-old peregrine falcon chicks called out to their parents while Starbright and Jerry did more than just opine about the capture of their young.

The birds made a continuous run of sorties, striking the hard hats of Ohio Division of Wildlife biologist Jennifer Norris and wildlife technician Laura Graber.

Considering that peregrine falcons are the world’s fastest animals and can achieve power-dive speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, a strike from a bird’s particularly nasty talons on a plastic hard hat can send shudders through a researcher’s noggin.

“It’s an occupational hazard for us and the birds,” Norris said with a chuckle. “Yeah, we got hit on the head a few times.”

The two Wildlife Division wildlife management officials were joined by Jason Keller, the agency’s state wildlife officer assigned to Lake County.

It was the trio’s intent to remove the chicks from their fabricated nesting box that is anchored some 300 feet above the ground. This perch is attached to the wide concrete “smoke stack” at FirstEnergy’s Eastlake coal-fired power plant.

Since 2005 when the artificial nesting structure was first installed, a pair of falcons has set up homesteading. It is assumed that the pair always was - and still is - the female Starbright and her consort, Jerry.

To date the nesting box-using falcon pair has raised 34 chicks, including this year’s brood of three females and two males.

When the cardboard box (interestingly enough, inscribed with the words “Xmas decorations”) containing the five chicks was brought down a group of admiring spectators gawked.

“A box of falcon chicks; too cute,” said an admiring Ann Bugeda, Lake Metroparks’ chief of interpretive services, who came to watch the process.

When the “oohs” and “ahs” were sufficiently exhausted the three Wildlife Division officials went to work. They attached numbered aluminum bands to the chicks’ legs and determined the birds’ sex.

Norris explained also that no longer included in the leg-banding operation is the drawing of blood for DNA analysis. That is because past studies have indicated good health and a good genetic diversity, Norris said.

Further, Norris, said, the Wildlife Division’s falcon-rearing project was itself first hatched in 1988. That is when a falcon pair began occupying a nesting box in Toledo.

From 1989 to 1993 some 46 falcon chicks were hatched in Ohio, a remarkable feat considering that their parents utilize artificial structures attached to buildings. In the wild, peregrine falcons make their homes on ledges found on towering cliffs, Norris said.

“The population of falcons in Ohio has grown to 36 nesting pairs,” Norris said.

Along with Ohio’s falcon-rearing project and that found in other states the nation’s peregrine falcon stocks continue to grow. For this reason the species was removed from the federal government’s endangered species list.

Contributing as well to the falcons’ rebound was the banning of the pesticide DDT. This toxic chemical was good for eradicating bugs but was bad for birds as it climbed the food chain and damaged the species’ ability to produce viable eggs for hatching.

And while still considered as being threatened in Ohio the species’ status is reviewed in the state every five years with such an undertaking to occur this year, Norris said.

As for this year’s class of five chicks the birds have been assigned the names of “Avenger” (after the current hit motion picture), “Skype” and “Twitter” (in keeping with the growth of social media), “Stacks” (for the power plant’s exhaust towers), and Megavar” (an electrical measurement term).

These names will be compared against the those of hundreds of other falcons in order to avoid duplication, said FirstEnergy spokeswoman, Jennifer Young.

Once the chicks were returned to their nesting box life again returned to normal both for them and also for their dotting parents.

Over the next few months these chicks will be taught how to hunt for food, Norris said, with an abundance of pigeons, gulls and other small birds making up a substantial banquet table.

“When the chicks are finally kicked out by their parents and on their own they’ll disperse to other locations,” Norris said. “We know of birds that were raised here in Ohio have been found nesting as far away as Texas.”
O
hio’s falcon program is funded through the Wildlife Division’s non-game and endangered species fund, which is fueled in large measure to donations made through the state income tax check-off program and the sales of specially designated license plates.


- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn

JAMESTOWN, Pa. - Neither a fathead minnow impaled on a small jig nor an one-quarter ounce Road Runner bottom-spin lure could entice a Pymatuning Reservoir black crappie into biting.

Of course, Darl Black and I should have been there yesterday. Hey, wait a minute: Black WAS there yesterday.

A Pennsylvania outdoors writer who specializes in fishing, Black had cooked up a “Pymatuning Crappie Camp” fishing outing for a small group of like-minded journalists.

You don’t need to ring the bell twice for me to accept an invitation like that one. Especially when the subject is about angling for panfish in general and crappies in particular.

Forget those Pymatuning walleye. I’ll take a school of the 14,650-acre reservoir’s tight-knit spawning crappies any day of the week. In this case, that day was Tuesday.

And was the reservoir ever packed. Boats jammed gunwale to gunwale with eager anglers peppered the lake’s waters.

Among those playing hooky for the day was Dave Fury, judge for the Geauga County Court of Common Pleas. Fury enjoys fishing Pymatuning and has done well here, he said as he launched his well-aged boat and engine from the far southern Pennsylvania State Park launch ramp.

That’s the same ramp system from which Black sent several two-person teams of eager crappie anglers merrily on their way.

Black assigned me to his boat, a retrofitted dory that more typically is used by commercial watermen for doing stuff other than fishing.

In Black’s case he figured that his new boat could become a modified platform for inland lakes fishing challenges. There’s plenty of legroom in the craft though it’s seating arrangement currently consists of metal lids atop storage cubicles.

No problem as the floor arrangement allowed me to stand and stretch at my leisure. Such an exercise would prove risky in most any other vessel given my weighty poor center of gravity.

Black said we would start fishing a short distance from the boat launch. The location was just around a bend in the long lake. That is where a beaver has staked out a homesteading claim with the construction of its lodge.

“A friend of mine was here yesterday and he called to say he caught some really nice black crappies,” Black said in anticipation of numerous fish snacking on our offerings.

It was not to be, however. With a skinny-thin distance between our floats and their respective minnow-jig dinner plates, we worked at coaxing fish from the shallow-water tangle of strategically placed branches.

Nothing came calling, though: A mite stressing perhaps, but understandable. Pymatuning Reservoir is not

Thus, when it comes to bunched-up spawning crappies an angler easily can empty the pool before it can refill itself with new recruits. That’s likely what happened, Black opined.

Nor was I going to argue. After all, Black’s assessment made scientific sense. Likewise, I’ve also experienced first-hand this foundational principal of crappie fisheries management.

Thing was though that no matter where Black pointed his boat in the reservoir’s southern quadrant we were unable to locate hungry crappie. Or much else for that matter.

Even in the offsetting bay where the crumbling remains of a World War II-era torpedo testing facility still stands we failed to awaken any fish.

A mad dash - as if Black’s heavy boat really could sprint - to the Pennsylvania side of the reservoir failed to produce any crappie. Equally disappointing was that cell phone calls to other fish camp pairings indicated that in most cases the angling was slow elsewhere as well.

Which gave me time for my gaze to drift. During the course of the fishing day I had enjoyed spying several eagles flapping their way across the reservoir, an osprey looking for fish of its own to catch and a loon that had yet to skedaddle to its summer home somewhere in the North Woods.

By mid-afternoon we were back at the boat launch, waiting for the other crews to enter port.

Our faces had become tinted a rusty sort of hue while our energy levels were bleached some. But I could claim with the honesty of an honest angler that I had spent a right fine day on the water, thank you.

Even when a pair of our boys came in with a livewell bulging with hyper-active black crappies I was not terribly upset. A little, maybe, but not a whole bunch.

Envious, of course, because the pair regaled their non-stop crappie-fishing action that saw them catching about 150 fish, and thanking Black for first providing the exceptional where-to-go tip.

Some days are like that when you’re fishing, certainly. We’ve all been there as anglers and we’ll do so again.

With that being said, I really hope that my all-too-often dismal Pymatuning Reservoir fishing experiences have now reached their final designated terminal.

I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next train and hope that Black will give his most-excellent and well-executed idea a second run on the tracks.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com
Twitter: @Fieldkorn