Long deer-hunting season draws to a quiet close

Only a few sounds broke the woodlot's silence; the throaty and curious chirps of some cardinals and the nasal honks from a passing flock of Canada geese.

Not much more, really. Which was okay since neither cardinals nor even geese were the focal points of this visit to the this particular woodlot.

The inside of the hub blind was showing its on-going (and losing battle with the elements). Snows repeatedly had pulled down the folds between the supporting fiberglass staffs, snapping two of the bent arms and making them not only useless but beyond being repairable.

Heaven knows I tried to fix them, too.

No doubt the hub blind was done for, having endured shamelessly more than four months of weathering through rainstorms, snowstorms, nasty heat and even greater nasty cold.

Plus the tunneling of field mice, meadow voles and striped chipmunks. Each and all had found at one time or another that the blind's dark-shaded bowels were a perfect refuge against the prying eyes of owls at night and hawks by day.

The little rodents could feast on the woodlot's abundant mast crop, using a folding picnic chair for a dining table and a small fleece blanket as a convenient toilet. While I didn't object to the former I sure had a powerful dislike to what they did with the latter.

Now it was over. The blind had outlived its usefulness and when it is removed over the next few weeks its life will come to an end in a trash can.

Ends can be terrible things or terribly good things. Always, however, they are melancholy things. This conclusion was no different.

The last day of Ohio's extensively long archery deer-hunting season began with hope, promise and excitement on a Saturday; September 28. It concluded, what? Some 127 days later at around 6:45 p.m. As the atomic clock reckons things?

That span may seem an eternity's worth of hunting time but it's not.

Oh, maybe each individual hunt's hours sort of crept by at a pace even a snail would find boring but the entire season taken as a whole scooted past quicker than a peregrine falcon can take down a citified pigeon.

Go figure.

No one can say I failed to put in my time, that's for sure.

I keep some thorough and detailed written records. In rough form they state I made 51 hunting trips to five locations: Two each in Lake and Ashtabula counties and one in Geauga County. Calculating time spent the hours totaled 138.

Course, not all that coinage went into the archery treasury. A pair of early antlerless-only muzzle-loading season play dates are included as are three general firearms deer-season days plus two more for the statewide muzzle-loading deer-hunting season that was cut short by that near blizzard every local TV weather reporter was treating as the return of the Ice Age.

Another look at the data shows during this rather spacious time frame I counted just 38 deer, of which only six sported antlers.

Can't say those are impressive numbers. The deer totals, that is, and not the days nor hours.

Still, I took home some venison. A Lake County adult doe on October 10 with a crossbow and a younger doe a few days later during the early antlerless-only muzzle-loading-only season.

Think about that for a moment, I let my mind anchor on the details for a spell.

Even though I spent a fair time in this woodlot and four others from October 13 to February 2, neither my Horton crossbow, my Knight muzzle-loader nor my Winchester slug shotgun ever took a poke at another deer.

Pitiful, no? Pitiful, yes.

And while I'll participate in the anticipated up-coming debate regarding the propriety, efficiency and fairness of Ohio's deer management strategy and associated rules/seasons/bag limits/do's and don'ts, you can take it to the bank the deer-hunting clock will be reset come the last Saturday in September.

It's in my blood, I guess, and that juice has a powerful grip that just will not let go.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Whoops; Truck falls through Lake Erie ice, ice-angling occupants safe

This from the U.S. Coast Guard's Ninth District headquarters in Cleveland, which oversees the service's Great Lakes activities:

It certainly ruined a good day of hoped-for ice fishing not to mention going to be a nastily expensive salvaging bill to extract the pick-up. At least until the zebra mussels claim it as their own anyway.

The Coast Guard and representatives from local emergency response agencies responded to the scene of a truck that fell through the ice, Friday morning, near Catawba Island in western Lake Erie.

 

Two people were in the truck when it broke through the ice, but they were able to escape and get to shore before the truck completely fell through the ice.

 

At about 10 a.m., a watchstander at Coast Guard Station Marblehead, Ohio, received a call from a dispatcher at the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office, who was relaying a report originally received by the Catawba Island Township Police Department that a truck was falling through the ice.

The vehicle reportedly fell through the ice about a quarter mile north of Catawba Island near the Miller Ferry Boat Lines.

 

An ice rescue team from Station Marblehead was nearby, on Ohio Route 2 near the Thomas Edison Bridge, and taking part in a motorcade to pay tribute to two fallen Toledo firefighters when they got the call to respond. They drove to the scene, which was about 4 miles south of their location.

 

Once on scene, the rescue team responded on foot to ensure the two men were alright and confirm there was no one else on the ice or in the water.

 

The temperatures were in the upper 20s at the time of the incident. Two pollution investigators from Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Toledo, Ohio, also responded.

 

“If you do venture out on the ice, exercise extreme caution,” said Lt. James Long, chief of response at MSU Toledo. “We also want people to remain vigilant to the ever-changing weather and ice conditions as these two men were very lucky not to have fallen through the ice with their truck," said Long.

 

"The truck did have fuel in the tank so there a pollution risk, but the Coast Guard will do everything we can to minimize the pollution risk as we await the salvage plan from the vehicle's owner," said Long.

 

The Coast Guard and other first responders advise people to remember the acronym I.C.E. when it comes to ice safety, and when planning to venture out on the frozen lakes.

 

I.C.E. = Information, Clothing and Equipment.

 

Information – Check the weather and ice conditions; tell a friend of your intended destination; know who and how to call for help.

 

Clothing – Wear sufficient clothing, including a dry suit, to prevent hypothermia. Choose bright colors and reflective garments to aid searchers if you should end up needing help.

 

Equipment – Never venture onto the ice without proper safety equipment: a marine radio, a Personal Locator Beacon, a life jacket, a compass or GPS, and screw drivers or ice picks, which may allow you to pull yourself out of the water should you break through.

 

The Coast Guard 9th District recently published their "Think Twice with Ice" safety brochure.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Ohio likely to seek hunting fee increases, but for non-residents only

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife is poised to request increases to the license and tag fees charged to non-resident hunters.

Non-resident hunters last faced a hunting license increase 10 years ago, says the Wildlife Division.

However, not on the to-do list is a similar request to up the same fees on resident hunters, particularly deer hunters, says the Wildlife Division’s chief, Scott Zody.

Though the idea for requesting such fee increases almost certainly has the blessing of the John Kasich Administration the matter also will need the approval of the Republican-led Ohio House and Ohio State Senate.

By way of numbers, the current to-date sales of non-resident general hunting licenses stands at 37,894 documents (a 0.09 percent decrease from the to-date sales of 2012-2013 non-resident general hunting licenses).

Similarly, the to-date sales of either-sex deer tags to non-residents is 44,545 documents, or a 0.85 percent drop.

By comparison, the to-date sales of general hunting licenses to Ohio residents is 278,880 for a 1.08 percent decline from the to-date 2012-2013 figures.

Also, to-date ales of either-sex deer tags to Ohio residents total 284,611 permits, a drop of 4.74 percent from the 2012-2013 to-date sales.

"Ohio has become a destination for non-resident hunters to pursue whitetails.  When you look at our non-resident fee structure, we are very underpriced, especially when you look at other popular whitetail states like Illinois, Kansas, and Iowa,” says Zody.

“Most of our non-resident deer hunters come from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan, but we are seeing greater numbers coming from the Carolinas, Tennessee, New York, and other Eastern states.” 

In fact, Zody says, Ohio ranks about 35^th out of the 50 states when it comes to non-resident fee prices.

“Our goal is to bring our non-residents fees more in line with other states, but still be on the lower end of the scale so we continue to be competitively priced,” Zody says.

To illustrate, Zody says the non-resident who ventures into Ohio to hunt deer pays $149; or $125 for a general hunting license and $24 for an either sex tag.

“What we have been discussing would be a modest increase to the base license (of maybe) $20 to 30, and creating a non-resident either-sex deer tag and charging non-residents a higher amount for that tag, for arguments sake, let’s say $100,” Zody says.

Thus, instead of paying $149 a non-resident deer hunter could wind up paying as much as $255, or more than a 90-percent increase.

Zody does admit that any fee increase would prove a delicate balancing act. The simple reason being the Wildlife Division cannot afford to think only of its own bottom line, Zody says.

“We also want to be sensitive to non-resident waterfowl, turkey or small game hunters and not ‘chase them away’,” Zody says.

Then too the Wildlife Division both wants and needs to be “sensitive to the multitude of small business owners out there that cater to non-resident hunters and count on their business each year.”

All this being said, the fact remains increased license fees are mandated in order for the Wildlife Division to continue to move forward with its wildlife management and law-enforcement activities, Zody says.

We are facing unprecedented increases in our Federal Pittman-Robertson allocations due to the huge increases in the sale of guns and ammunition the past 4-5 years,” Zody says.

With the increases to P-R, it is becoming a struggle to match down those funds, not just for Ohio, but in several other states as well,” Zody says.

“We have also been trying to reduce costs where we can – combining field work units, reducing staff or combining positions when vacancies occur, but it becomes a double-edged sword with the P-R dollars - if we don’t match down the funds in any given year, the dollars revert back to Washington and are spent elsewhere.”

Still, any such additional revenue will come from the wallets of non-residents as tapping the purses and the bank accounts of resident hunters are off limits, says Zody also.

“Increasing the fee on non-residents now will help us defer asking our resident hunters, anglers and trappers to pay more,” Zody says.

However, at the same time the Wildlife Division will fight tooth and nail any legislative effort designed to amend a proposal by allowing the issuance of free licenses and tags to active-duty military personnel on leave.

“We are funded almost entirely by license and permit sales and Federal Aid.  When you dilute the pool of paying customers and have the remainder subsidize those who receive a free benefit, it puts greater strain on the system,” Zody says.

“Therefore, we are not in favor of expanding free licenses and permits, and every statewide conservation organization as well as many individual sportsmen and women have expressed their concerns over such proposals.”

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Ohio's Sen. Rob Portman aims for universal concealed-carry reciprocity

The fact that his proposed universal concealed carry allowance has little to no chance of passage in the U.S. Senate and (much) less than that before the Obama Administration is not deterring Rob Portman from pressing on anyway.

Republican Portman – Ohio's junior U.S. Senator – again is trying to convince his colleagues to support his Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. The 2014 version will enter the Senate's elaborate debate and vote system while all previous ones were tucked away without passage by a reluctant Senate.

As proposed by the bill's original sponsor Texas Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn, the measure (if enacted, which it won't but is still worth trying) would allow individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home state to exercise those same rights in any other state that also has concealed carry laws.

Portman is a co-sponsor of the measure.

Since every state now allows some form of concealed carry that means the right to do so would be universal throughout the country in some form or another.

Portman says such an allowance would thus “treat state-issued concealed-carry permits like drivers' licenses.”

“I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment and remain committed to protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Portman says. “This important legislation will allow the nearly 250,000 Ohioans with concealed carry privileges to exercise that same privilege in other states that likewise allow concealed carry.”

Among the opponents' contrary arguments is that some states permit concealed carry with no system of licensing, background checks or testing.

Meanwhile, other states – among them being Ohio – insist that applicants first must attend a several-hour training course, prove minimum proficiency at shooting on a range, undergo a background check, be photographed and fingerprinted and issued a renewable-required permit by a county sheriff.

Now-retired U.S. Senator George V. Voinovich cited this disparity as his reason for opposing a similar reciprocity proposal when he was a serving senator a few years back.

Proponents counter by saying that the patchwork quilt of concealed-carry laws is sown together so haphazardly that traveling gun owners are always potentially in danger of unintentionally violating a law.

And in the House last year a reciprocity bill along the lines of Portman's co-sponsored Senate proposal passed on a bi-partisan vote of 272 to 154.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Public can voice its two cents on fed's Great Lakes anti-invasive species plan

The federal government is ready to go public with its war plans to fight invasive species from entering the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River drainage, which includes the Ohio River that creeps all the way up into Pymatuning Valley.

And the public is invited to participate in the process, too, with the meeting scheduled to take place at the Cleveland Public Library, 325 Superior Ave., N.E, downtown Cleveland.

Accordingly, the government is announcing that:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the White House Council on Environmental Quality are hosting a public meeting in Cleveland Jan. 16, 2014, from 4 - 7 p.m. to discuss the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study (GLMRIS) Report that was submitted to Congress Jan. 6, 2014, and to allow for public comment.

The report presents a range of options and technologies available to prevent the spread of aquatic nuisance species (ANS), such as Asian carp, between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins through aquatic connections.

This meeting is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. With a presentation on the report. Following the presentation the public will have the opportunity to respond; or at least those persons who have pre-registered to do so.

To view the report or to register to speak, visit http://glmris.anl.gov/glmris-report/. Comments will be accepted for the administrative record until approximately 30 days following the last public meeting, or March 3, 2014.

The report identifies eight potential alternatives - from continuing current efforts to complete separation of the watersheds - and evaluates the potential of these alternatives to control the inter-basin spread of 13 aquatic nuisance fish (to include Asian carp), algae, virus, crustaceans and plants in all life stages with high or medium risk for transfer.

The options concentrate on the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS). The CAWS is a complex, multi-use waterway and is the primary direct, continuous inter-basin connection between the Mississippi River Basin and Lake Michigan.

The report provides a description of various evaluation criteria (like estimated cost and timeline information) that can be used by stakeholders to compare plans. However, this report is not a decision document and does not rank, rate or make a recommendation.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

Jfrischk@Ameritech.net

Happy, happy Hippo hunting grounds

This has nothing to do with the outdoors as such (unless you're planning an African safari - the real thing and not one of those lame "photo safaris where the greatest danger lies in being stampeded to death by other guests rushing for the breakfast buffet).

Anyway, North America's oldest hippo in captivity is now the former oldest hippo in captivity.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo released a statement today (Monday, Jan. 13) that reads:

"Blackie, the oldest Nile hippopotamus in North America, was euthanized in his off-exhibit enclosure in Cleveland Metroparks Zoo’s Africa barn today due to advanced age-related ailments. He was estimated to be 59, and it is believed he set the record for the oldest male Nile hippo ever recorded.

 

"He sired three offspring, all males, during his time at the Zoo and he was a favorite of many guests and staff members.

"Due to his advancing age, the Zoo built a special addition with a heated pool onto the Africa barn for him in 2008. He lived out his last several years contentedly eating copious amounts of produce and floating lazily in a pool he didn’t have to share.

"Blackie came to the Zoo from Africa in 1955 when he was about 1, and generations of Clevelanders grew up seeing him in the former Pachyderm Building.

 

"He was born at the Mount Meru Game Sanctuary in Tanzania and brought to Cleveland by Zoo officials and board members, including Vernon and Gordon Stouffer, who were gathering animals on a safari, which was an acceptable method of acquiring zoo animals prior to the passage of the Endangered Species Act.

"Hippos typically live between 30-40 years in the wild and can live a few years longer in captivity. They are herbivores, and in the wild they graze mostly on grasses. They eat a wider variety of foods in the zoo including hay, vegetables, fruits and other produce.

 

"Hippos spend the majority of their time in the water, hence their name which is from the ancient Greek for  'river horse.'

 

"Despite the name, however, the hippo’s closest biological relatives are whales and dolphins.

 

"Hippos are classified as 'vulnerable' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Hippo populations are declining due to habitat loss and poaching but are still found over a large range of eastern and southern Africa."

 

What makes this release interesting from an outdoors standpoint is the most recent issue of "Guns & Ammo" magazine includes a story by firearms/hunting expert and retired Marine Corps General Craig Boddington on hunting Africa's dangerous game animals.

 

While that list includes such shoe-in species as the water buffalo, lion and elephant also on the list is the hippo, widely regarded as both intelligent as well as a nasty-tempered brute that annually kills scores of people.

 

Boddington says hippos are true trophies and hunting them should only be done when the hunter gives the animal the proper respect it deserves.

 

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

Ohio's muzzle-loading deer-hunting season harvest drops dramatically

Bad weather swatted what expectedly might have proven an Ohio record-setting muzzle-loading deer-hunting-season harvest.

 

The preliminary figures for the statewide season that ran January 4 through 7 was a harvest of 16,464 animals, off 23.62 percent from the 2013 muzzle-loading season kill of 21,555 deer. 

 

With just two exceptions virtually every other one of Ohio's 88 counties report a preliminary decrease in this year's muzzle-loading deer-hunting season.

 

That divergence shows up in southwest Ohio's Fayette County which is posting back-to-back identical muzzle-loading deer season harvests of 27 animals.

 

The only other at least status quo county-wide harvest was in Vinton County where its back-to-back identical muzzle-loading season harvest consisted of 392 animals each time.

 

Some counties recorded significant drops, too.

 

Among them being Lake County. Here, muzzle-loading hunters reported a total statewide black-powder season kill of just 20 deer. That figure is off a whopping 66.10 percent from the 2013 muzzle-loading season harvest of 66 deer.

 

No other county - except, again for Fayette and Vinton counties - was immune from the decline, with only eight counties displaying harvest declines of 10 percent or less.

 

The other 80 counties all saw shortfalls greater than Meigs County's drop of "only" 11.83 percent.

 

Some counties share in Lake County's misery. Among them is Ashtabula County where the muzzle-loading season harvest fell 25.83 percent from 422 animals taken during the 2013 season to the 313 deer shot during this year's winter storm-tossed season.

 

Other noteworthy declines are noted. Thee include - with the preliminary 2014 season harvest followed by the 2013 season kill and then the percentage decline: Adams County - 296 deer (347 deer), off 14.70 percent; Brown County - 233 deer (305 deer), off 23.61 percent; Coshocton County - 630 deer (813 deer), off 22.21 percent; Geauga County - 96 deer (126 deer), off 23.81 percent; Guernsey County - 652 deer (821 deer), off 20.58 percent; Harrison County - 513 deer (677 deer), off 24.22 percent; Jefferson County - 472 deer (619 deer), off 23.75 percent; Licking County - 511 deer (675 deer), off 24.30 percent; Lorain County - 142 deer (197 deer), off 27.92 percent; Muskingum County - 593 deer (751 deer), off  21.04 percent; Trumbull County - 222 deer (321 deer), off 30.84 percent; Tuscarawas County - 592 deer (784 deer). off 24.49 percent. 

 

Ohio deer hunters still have time to bag a deer. The state's archery deer-hunting season runs through February 2.

 

However, Ohio Division of Wildlife officials do not believe the kill during these remaining hunting days will up the state's total deer-harvest ante to equal - much less - exceed the 2012-2013 all seasons deer harvest of 218,910 animals.

 

As of today, the preliminary to-date statewide deer harvest stands at 184,891 animals.

 

Last year between this point in the season and the last day, Ohio deer hunters killed roughly an additional 5,000 animals. If that figure is added to this year's to-date harvest figure than a 2013-2014 all-seasons deer harvest of around 190,000 animals.

 

The last time Ohio has experienced a total deer harvest of less than 200,000 animals was in 2003; 11 years ago.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net