What would Thanksgiving Day be without fresh rainbow trout for dinner?

Anglers who annually look forward to the trout stocking of Punderson Lake in Geauga County's Newbury Township can again wet a line on Nov. 24.

This year the Ohio Division of Wildlife will stock about 500 surplus brood stock rainbow trout and golden-strain rainbow trout. Each fish will average between between 16 and 24 inches and weigh two to 10 pounds.

The stocking is set for around noon and will be done by the state park campground, says Phil Hillman, fish management supervisor for the Wildlife Division's Northeast Ohio office in Akron.

The reason for the stocking there and not by the boat launch area is due to frequent low oxygen and high algae problems associated with the marina's boat launch area.

Each year this stocking has proven more and more popular with anglers, some of whom arrive early to station themselves close to where the fish are stocked.

Shore anglers often use jigs tipped with maggots or Berkley PowerBait along with canned corn or else small spawn sacks. Boat anglers do the same but also cast in-line spinners and small spoons.

The stocking provides the lake with enough fish to last through the winter with ice fishing for the trout a popular activity.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

The farm pond was littered with the bodies of six Canada geese.

Not bad for an eye-blink of a shoot involving three goose hunters who hardly settled in before a large flock of birds showed up.

It was no more than 10 minutes after legal shooting time and the hunters were finished with their chore. Not so Berry - my black Labrador retriever - nor for the semi-retired Jenny Lynn, my other Lab who is a senior citizen with all the aching joints that comes with such a status.

Now-a-days Jenny Lynn only accompanies me when I go to the farm pond in search of geese or ducks. It is a short, easy walk from the car to the blind. And it gives Jenny a sense of hunting even if doesn't involve much work. That is why I've hired Berry.

But this morning belonged to Jenny and the memory will walk with me until I die.

At the sound of the gunfire and that of birds whacking the farm pond's surface, Berry was hot on the trail of one of the geese. A fast swimmer, Berry wasted little time in picking out a goose and returning with it.

Jenny sort of hung back, almost questioning what to do. But that indecision didn't last long.

Even before Berry was back with her bird Jenny was swimming ever-so-slowly to another goose. It would take Jenny Lynn longer to go there and come back though she's always been a dependable sort and really enjoys water retrieving.

Try as I could, though, I was unable to convince Berry to get back in the water and fetch another goose. Instead, she wiggled in excitement, sniffing her goose and running to and fro. I was none too happy.

Jenny on the other hand; now there's where all the years paid off. After she returned with the first goose she immediately turned and went for her second bird. Again, ever so slowly out there and back but just as dependable.

When that bird was fetched to shore Jenny went after her third goose, this bird being the furthest of the group.

All I could do was encourage her and shout out praises for her championship performance.It nearly brought tears my eyes.

Jenny Lynn is more than 13 years old and can no longer tolerate either runs on land after pheasants nor all-day waterfowling trips. It grieves me that I have to leave her at home in such circumstances but she's paid her dues - and then some.

And the time is fast approaching, when mild-weather waterfowling will be even too much for the old girl. At that point (no doubt next year) she'll have to take up permanent residence on the dog bed. I do not look forward to that day, I must say.

Still, I will always harbor with great love the warm, bright November morning where Jenny Lynn's strength matched her heart and she fetched three giant Canada geese, one right after the other, with not a complaint or hesitation.

It is such days that makes a dog man burst with pride.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

As far as small-game openers go, today's model was all bright and shiny coming out of the showroom.

The morning sky was a brilliant turquoise and softened the brightest of the stars before they faded with the rising sunlight.

A chilling frost smothered the grass, offering a crunchy scale that crinkled with each foot fall.

I headed for the Club as I always do if I am in town for the small-game opener, which to me is better than the deer season - or even, turkey - opener.
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Maybe that's because growing up I relished the small-game opener with our beagles. My dad, who never took a day off unless it was during his two-week vacation, always made an exception for the small-game opener. It was quite a crew, me, my dad and my two older brothers.

Now it is my turn and the Club in Ashtabula County is always my destination. Oh, I suspect I might find more stocked pheasants at the Grand River Wildlife Area but I'd also have a lot more company. I don't want to be peppered with shot. It's happened before. So I settle on the Club and hope there is still a leftover rooster pheasant from a field trial held periodically there.

Berry, my black Labrador retriever, joined me this morning. We left Jenny Lynn behind, though. She's almost 14 years old and her hips are uncomfortably stiff. I doubt she could handle two hours of rough going through neck-high corn and chest-high ragweed.

After about 15 minutes of hunting I needed to stoop down and retie the laces of my right boot. That's when a bunny jumped out only a few feet away. No way could I get off a quick-enough shot.

Several passes through standing corn didn't yield anything either. Berry never got excited and I didn't see any pheasant scat. I was rapidly becoming disappointed.

What I did see on my final west-to-east pass through the corn was the neck and head of one very much alive rooster pheasant. The bird was perhaps 60 or 70 yards distant and near the end of the corn.

Hoping the bird would stay put in the weed-infested corn patch, I kept walking forward with Berry cruising to my left. But when the pheasant reached the corn's terminal it became airborne and still at that 60 to 70 yard range; way, way, way too far for a shoot.

I tried to mark where the rooster came down and Berry and I searched for the better part of a quarter-hour but we found no bird. I figured it continued on to either adjacent private property or still further to another Club-maintained corn patch.

So I towed Berry through a large-size ragweed field and then turned west along a swale. This wet sink is a thick goo of brush that often holds a pheasant. Not this time, though.

Continuing on, Berry and I took our time going through the woods. Normally not a good place to find pheasants, the woods still serves as a bird thoroughfare. And sometimes you can pin one down beside a tree. Not this time, either.

Tired and starting to get played out, I ushered Berry to a 50-foot-wide strip of trees and brush that separates two fields. I've found many birds before hanging out in this strip that runs for perhaps 150 yards.

Getting to the end where a tractor path connects the two fields, I stopped to collect my thoughts as to what to do next. My shotgun was held at parade rest on my right hand and I hiked up my brush pants with my left hand.

Of course that is when the rooster decided to bolt, pushed out by the eager-beaver Berry. But the charmed bird used the brush to its advantage. Even though it erupted at less than 30 feet away there was too much natural screening for the shot from my 16-gauge Ithaca pump to worm its way to the rooster.

Bluntly, I missed as clean as a whistle.

Berry was none too happy that she couldn't fetch the pheasant and I was even less pleased. I had been bamboozled out of a rabbit and twice on a rooster.

After two hours of hunting I left in order to drop off a photograph of a young man to a mother who had requested it.

Fortunately for me the family also happens to own a farm pond that is often visited by Canada geese. And a small flock was there, too, lounging around on the grass between the barn and the house.

I parked by the barn and walked forward, not carefully or stealthy but normal like. The geese were puzzled and soon waddled into the pond. Flushing the flock I managed to drop two geese.

Maybe next year I'll take the plunge and go to Grand River and hope to find a pheasant or two. Then again, maybe not. For many years now the Club has been the place to begin my small-game hunting season and maybe I'm too old a bunny to make the switch.

Besides, a goose or two isn't a bad consolation prize.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

For now through Thanksgiving are the best of outdoors times.

There is just simply so much to do. Maybe even too much, if that is possible.

Though fishing buddy Bob Ashley has been whacking the steelhead and Paul Liikala has found the night-time walleye bite, my evenings have been spent deer hunting and the mornings chasing geese.

Alas, I have to give in to this evening by covering Lake Metroparks' park board meeting so I'll have to rearrange things. Maybe I'll go deer hunting in the morning. That worked Monday.

In any event there is just so much going on afield that it is difficult to hit the streams too.

This morning was spent in the goose blind and two friends and I bagged four birds out of several flights that maybe totaled 300 geese. Neat thing was three of the birds were dry-land retrieves for my two Labrador retrievers while Berry got wet fetching up the forth goose. And what a party that one provided. I managed to hail it from a long, long way off and we watched it glide straight into the decoys. Nice piece of work.

One of the tempting things too was hearing a tom gobbling its head off in the woodlot across from the pond we were hunting. That gave me another option to think about.

And come Friday morning I'll be at the Club in search of any pheasants that may be left over from a pair of recently held field trials. It's something that I do each year and I rally look forward to the experience.

I love November, fully realizing that after Thanksgiving things move pretty quickly and it will all be over in an eye blink.

For now, however, I'm in seventh hunting heaven.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

State Wildlife officer assigned to Champaign County Jeffrey Tipton, and Adam Smith, State Wildlife Officer officer assigned to Logan County, had a too close call Oct. 30.

The two state wildlife officers were sitting in their cruiser that was parked in a field while on surveillance duty looking for night-time poachers.

Another vehicle with three Champaign County men pulled into the field and directed the headlights toward the cruiser.

One shot was fired, hitting the cruiser in the windshield and piercing the glass.

The officers turned on the cruiser's emergency lights and the suspects fled.

The officers pursued the suspects for 4 1/2 miles, apprehending the suspects with the assistance of the Ohio Highway Patrol and the Champaign County Sheriff Office.

Jim Lehman, the Ohio Division of Wildlife's chief law enforcement officer, said the matter is under investigation that is jointly being conducted by the agency as well as the Ohio Highway Patrol.

Charges could be filed as early as Tuesday or possibly by Wednesday, Lehman said.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

Owners of rowboats, canoes, inflatable boats and kayaks are going to fork over an additional $5 beginning next year.

Because the Ohio Division of Watercraft has assumed ownership of the state's Scenic Rivers Program, the state legislature figured that paddle sports owners would foot the bill. This calculation is based on the assumption that such owners are the direct beneficiaries of the program.

In bureaucratic lingo, the additional $5 is being called the "Waterway Conservation Assessment Fee" and applies only to non-motorized vessels. Ohio has an estimated 83,000 non-motorized vessels, a figure that is growing.

The income - expected to be around $150,000 annually - will go toward management of the Ohio Water Trails and Ohio Scenic Rivers programs. It is expected that the agency will also use the money to develop and maintain boating access to owners of paddle sports vessels.

With the additional charge, the registration tax for non-motorized watercraft becomes $17 for a three-year period. The registrations for one-third of all such vessels is up every year.

Alternative registration decals will cost $22.

Not included in any of these charges is the $3 writing fee, collected by watercraft registration agents.

Fees charged to owners of motorized pleasure craft are NOT going up.

In other Ohio boating-related news, the state has experienced just eight deaths as a result of boating mishaps this year. That figure is about one-half the typical number and also represents the second lowest number of boating-related fatalities on record in Ohio.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com

Ohio's hunters retain access to a nearly 16,000-acre playground.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources - in cooperation with such groups as the Nature Conservancy, the Conservation Fund, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, other groups and agencies as well as Ohio senators Sherrod Brown and George V. Voinovich - will be acquiring the property in two parcels.

Total cost will be $15.1 million with 70 percent of the funding coming from the federal government's U.S. Department of Agriculture/U.S. Forest Service along with private sources.

The ODNR also will release $3.9 million that's all ready been appropriated to complete the purchase of the 3,250-acre Vinton (County) Furnace Experimental State Forest and the adjacent 12,599-acre Raccoon Ecological Management Area.

The fear was the property would pass into private hands and then closed to public access. Final sales work is expected to be completed by next July.

The Vinton Furnace area is said to contain one of the last large remnants of Appalachian forest left in Ohio and provides habitat for the state's endangered bobcat and black bear along with a host of birds, including the highest recorded densities of cerulean warblers.

ODNR spokeswoman Christy Wilt said the property will be open to public access, including hunting, once all the paperwork is completed and the property is owned by the agency.

It has good populations of deer, wild turkeys and even ruffed grouse.

While the site has been open to public hunting for at least the past several decades the current owner has not allowed roadside camping, though previous owners have permitted this activity. The ODNR's Division of Forestry is looking at reestablishing this item.

Interestingly too, the site is the first in the state where wild turkeys were released to repopulate Ohio.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com