E. Joseph Lamp is a professor of English and communications at Anne Arundel Community College, an avowed anti-hunter and a member of the Maryland Wildlife Advisory Commission. In his role as a wildlife adviser to state government, E. Joseph Lamp has worn out his welcome as far as I am concerned.
BOW HUNTER SAFETY
So there we were, somewhere west of Zanesville, Ohio. When you get west of Zanesville you understand why Snuffy Smith called people from there “flatland touristers.” I can envision some staff person for the U.S. Geological Survey who is given the task of mapping western Ohio.
Preparation for the Maryland bear season, which opens tomorrow, has been fun.
Hunting pressure and success during the new September bow and muzzleloader seasons in West Virginia appears to have been light, according to Division of Natural Resources Wildlife Biologist Gary Foster, though the real numbers won’t be known until December.
I like the concept behind Keith Warren’s television show “The High Road,” which airs on The Outdoor Channel.
I look forward to the day when we are no longer considered liberals or conservatives, but simply Americans. I think we are making some progress toward that day, but it is slow.
The bulk of the bear population in Maryland is in Garrett and Allegany counties.
Wow! How cool is that?
I am going to share with you my best kept secret about how to hunt public land successfully during the muzzleloader season and the modern rifle season.
Some of you (I hope many of you) read my article of Aug. 15 on the Times-News’ page one about Woodstock, the peace-love-dove music festival that continues to fascinate, though it took place 40 years ago.
In 1927, hunters killed five deer during Maryland’s first regulated deer hunt.
Can you believe it? Come October, Maryland will conduct its sixth bear season since kick-starting the hunt in 2004 after an absence of more than 50 years.
A few years back, the Maryland Wildlife Service proposed to open the bow season for deer on Sept. 1.
If you read my column of two weeks ago about the kill of hundreds of bass following fishing tournaments on the tidal Potomac River, you may have pondered the same thing as did I.
On a number of occasions, people have told me they viewed mountain lions in these here hills.
Between June 25 and June 28, there were four bass fishing tournaments on the tidal Potomac River near Smallwood State Park and Mattawoman Creek in Charles County.
A popular feature of the Outdoors page for the past 30 years has been the one in which we tell you which of your friends and neighbors have caught trophy sized fish in West Virginia.
There is no guarantee, of course, but the 7-pound, 9-ounce cutthroat trout caught by Cumberland angler David G. Martin on May 20, 2000, may continue to be the Maryland state record for that species forever.
There is an interesting thread on the West Virginia forum of www.bowsite.org titled “bow hunting price out of hand.”
In fact, I contributed my two cents worth in a post because the cost of bowhunting is something that has shocked me in recent years.
I believe that the folks who run the Maryland Inland Fisheries Division are trying to become better communicators. I would add that it is about time.
You felt it. I felt it.
The period of time starting right now can be some of the best fishing of the year for stocked trout.
Not counting medical advances, I believe that a most important invention of my lifetime has been the cell phone. Not only does it save lives and stop crime, it can be used for less serious situations as well.
This is an invitation for you to attend a turkey party to be held just after daylight on May 6.
Never count your Sunday bowhunting days until they are in print in the Maryland hunting guide.
Well, we are into it now, spring gobbler hunting that is. The Maryland season opened yesterday.
The moment I see the scientific evidence to do so, I will happily and with gusto support the Maryland Inland Fisheries Division’s regulations that make it illegal to fish with bait and illegal to keep brook trout on most of the Savage River drainage.
This summer it will be seven years since northern snakeheads, an exotic and predatory fish, took over not only a small pond near Crofton in Anne Arundel County, but also the front pages of state and regional newspapers.
Have you looked at the calendar?
OK, OK. I think I know what happened.
They, whoever they are, say that we learn from our mistakes or at least we are supposed to.
When you aim at the goose in front and kill the trailing bird, it quickly dawns upon you that you were not pointing the shotgun in the proper place.
“Wow,” I remember thinking, “I led the first goose by a couple feet and killed the other goose that was five feet behind it.”
Astute Maryland anglers who may have compared the 2008 trout stocking schedule with the one for 2009 likely noticed that fewer trout would be going into their favorite stream or lake.
One thing you cannot accuse the West Virginia Wildlife Resources Section of is coming up with the trite approach of “Hey, we’ve always done it that way.”
Tell you what.
When it dawned upon me that I had been writing this column for 30 years, I tried to start thinking about the big outdoor stories that have come across my desk during those three decades.
Traditionally, journalists don’t mark the end of a written story by typing “The End,” but by putting 30.
Sandy and I had wonderful opportunities in December and January to watch our grandchildren, Brady and Chelsea.
When you look through Rod & Gun, which will be inserted into tomorrow’s Cumberland Times-News, I’m guessing that some of you, maybe a lot of you, will have the same reaction as did I, that being, “Wow. Those are some pretty nice bucks.”
This is the time of the year that wild game dinners start popping up all around the circulation area of the Cumberland Times-News.
It’s a great tradition.
If you are a hunter, but not a fisherman, and have wanted something to fill in your time between the end of deer season and the beginning of spring gobbler season, look no further than the Maryland hunt for resident Canada geese.
I’m going to be upfront with you.
Fact is, the number of hunters is on the dip.
Apparently, an interesting give and take has started based upon my column “Hunter Up!” that was published in the Dec. 7 Cumberland Times-News.
Although the overall deer kill during the recent firearms season in Garrett and Allegany counties increased from one year ago, the number of bucks in the bag declined, according to the Maryland Wildlife Service.
I have always liked Jim Shockey’s hunting show on The Outdoor Channel, but after the episode I viewed a week ago today I’m sold.
Well, there a lot of deer seasons. In Maryland, things get under way real early, with the bow hunt beginning Sept. 15.
Most observers, whether they get paid by a state agency to do it professionally or simply do it while they sit on the back porch swing, agree that Nov. 14 or so is usually the peak of the white-tailed deer rut in this neck of the woods.
Obviously it is not a scientific estimate, but it makes sense that if you see more dead deer along the side of a highway than in years past that there are more deer around.
The fifth modern Maryland black bear season has come and gone.
Why is it that those of us who hunt in Almost Maryland, the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia and the southcentral counties of Pennsylvania are smarter than those big name folks who whack bucks on The Outdoor Channel?
Maryland’s bear season begins tomorrow.
Although a lot of details are not yet known, the stark reality appears to be that the Savage River Reservoir will have to be drained so that repairs can be made to gates on the dam.
We have it in our sights now, Maryland’s early muzzleloader season for deer.
Before you know it, January will be here and people such as Wendell Beitzel, George Edwards, Kevin Kelly and LeRoy Myers will be getting reacquainted with Interstate 68 and 70 as they drive back and forth to the hallowed, law-making halls of the Maryland General Assembly.
The reason for an early bear season in West Virginia is simple, according to Rich Rogers, the wildlife biologist who works out of Romney and deals with critters in a number of the state’s counties.
Tomorrow is the beginning of Maryland’s wonderfully lengthy deer seasons.
My phone rings.
“Is this the guy that writes the sports?”
No wonder I had forgotten how much fun was involved with competing at the annual sporting clay shoot put on by the Barrelville Outdoor Club.
Because the Maryland Wildlife Service printed its “Guide to Hunting and Trapping 2008-2009” relatively early, the state’s hunters will continue to have a daily bag limit of 12 mourning doves rather than 15 that West Virginia and Pennsylvania are allowing.
Maude LeMaster is one tenacious mountain woman.
A watched pot never boils.
Some numbers I understand.
Another hunting season approaches and for this we give thanks and praise.
Maryland black bear season, version five, is geared to remove 55 to 75 bruins from Garrett and Allegany counties in October. The small harvest quota increase from a year ago makes it the largest annual harvest quota since the season was resumed in 2004 after being closed for 51 years.
With a little help from the U.S. Supreme Court, the people who run the District of Columbia have come to the realization that it is perfectly legal for law abiding citizens to protect and/or defend themselves via the use of handguns.
Most of you know that the writing of my hunting and fishing column and the construction of the Outdoors page is not all that I do here at the Cumberland Times-News.
Here is a tip for any of you who will be taking a 3-year-old on a fishing trip.
You may as well join the thousands of others who have viewed the YouTube video showing the recent incident in Claysburg, Pa. — just a hop, skip and tranquilizer-dart shot up U.S. Route 220 from Cumberland — during which a bear was first struck with a sedative projectile by Pennsylvania Game Commission personnel and then shot to death with bullets from the firearms of local law enforcement officers.
There likely won’t be many squirrels left in heaven once June Metz and Frank Sawyers get done with them.
So here I am, or I should say there I was, sitting in my truck, the rain beating down, a chill in the May 10 morning air.
If it keeps raining the way it has, all of the trout that have been stocked recently are going to get soaking wet.
OK. There are bears in Allegany County. The reason I bring that up is because my phone and my e-mail and even my mailbox (yup, people still send regular mail, especially those who want to remain anonymous) have been busy because of folks seeing bears.
I’m not like some turkey hunting partners I’ve had who can make every imaginable turkey call using just their throats and mouths
The only place my deer tenderloin is going is into a marinade and then onto the grill.
Congratulations to the bowhunters in Washington County. Unless Gov. Martin O’Malley forgets to sign a bill that recently passed successfully through the General Assembly, they will have five Sundays to use their bows and arrows to try to bag deer this coming autumn.
Special note to fish and game outlaws. Officer Blu likes the way you smell. When Blu, a 98-pound black Labrador retriever takes off on the track of a person who may have killed an illegal deer or hunted without written permission or fished without a license he doesn’t know that the person has probably done something illegal.
The Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Service has welcomed a new piece of ground into its system of wildlife management areas and it lies 55 miles to the east of downtown Cumberland.
You know, traditional ways of doing things work.
I’ll be up front with you. It’s been driving me crazy waiting for spring gobbler season. I know that those of you who know me are not surprised. I know as well that I am not alone.
Because West Virginia bears rule, there may very likely be a new set of West Virginia bear rules come next hunting season.
It has been three years since Tom Reed — then Frostburg’s commissioner of water, parks and recreation — decided that he would not allow boats on Piney Reservoir, where the city’s water is stored.
What a difference a river makes.
It is that time of year when hunters and anglers, by way of their elected state officials, get to fight for some bills and fight off others, as delegates and agencies attempt to manage fish and wildlife by way of smoke-filled rooms.
Here we go, again. Barbara Frush needs a hobby, something other than harassing hunters, which is illegal in Maryland, by the way. Thing is, Frush does her harassing from her seat as a Maryland delegate where she represents Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties.
