Field Notes

One of roughly 6,000 anglers competing in this past weekend’s Lake Champlain International Fishing Derby, local Vermont man Paul Biggs switched from lures to live bait when his boat motor started to sputter—and landed a 14.45 pound lake trout. The fish set a new tournament record, earning Biggs $25,000. Also, for winning the lake trout division and the coldwater species super bonus category, he won another $9,300, a Starcraft jon boat, and a new Yamaha motor—although given its role in his success, he may want to keep his old one handy for next year’s tournament.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2006/06/20/barre_man_wins_big_lci_prize/

It’s vitally important for wildlife watchers to understand that elk are wild animals that can be unpredictable and dangerous. This story, however, provides a valuable reminder that some of your fellow wildlife watchers may be complete psychos, and you may want to keep a safe distance from them, too.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/9396538/detail.html

Two points about Monday’s Supreme Court decision on wetlands protections under the Clean Water Act (CWA):

1. What else did you expect from this court?
2. It’s time for members of the so-called Congressional Sportsman’s Caucus to stop running away from the issue.

In case you missed it, The Supremes ruled 5-4 in favor of landowners who claimed the Army Corps of Engineers had over-stepped its regulatory authority when it denied  them permits to drain and develop their property. The developers said that their land was beyond CWA rules because it wasn’t connected to any navigable waters. The corps said that the property was linked by drainages to such waters and was therefore under its authority--a standard that for 30 years has been the bedrock for protecting isolated wetlands vital to fish, wildlife and humans.

The ruling called into question the corps’ interpretation of what congress intended to be protected when it passed the CWA, and remanded the case back to the lower court for further review.  That left environmentalists as well as developers hard pressed to claim either victory or Armageddon.

But if you don’t think this indicates where this court is headed on this issue,  read some of the comments Justice Antonin Scalia penned in writing for the majority. He said the corps had stretched its authority under the CWA “beyond parody” by regulating, among other things, “drainage ditches” and “dry arroyos in the middle of the desert.”

That line exposes Scalia’s knowledge of wetlands as a parody. If he bothered to check a dictionary (Webster’s Unabridged, in this case) he would see that an arroyo is a “watercourse or gulch” that is “usually dry except after heavy rains.” Arroyos fall under CWA rules for the same reason that any other seasonal streams or, for that matter, drainage ditches do: They eventually connect to permanent wetlands, and can determine their quality. Scalia, a professed hunter, should know better.

Congress, of course, can stop the erosion of wetlands protections simply by passing a bill that spells out in clear language what it wants saved. Sportsmen, who overwhelmingly support protecting isolated temporary wetlands, should write their senators and congressmen telling them to speak up and stop letting judges like Scalia to speak for them--especially those senators and congressmen who like to brag about being in the Congressional Sportsman’s Caucus.

While watching television, 75-year-old Mary Blake got up to let her dog out and inadvertently let an overprotective whitetail doe in. "She started trampling me, she wanted me dead," Blake told WKYC News. "I punched her in the nose and karate chopped her," said Blake, but it was her dog Buddy that eventually distracted the deer. Having seen the fawn that the doe was trying to protect, Blake didn’t blame the deer for the numerous cuts and bruises it gave her. But she had no illusions about the animal’s intentions, either. “It was trying to kill me, that’s not Bambi you know.”
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=53625

After the recent fatal mauling of 6-year-old Elora Petrasek at the Benton Falls area in the Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee authorities captured two black bears in the area. Now, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service report that the second bear captured has been positively identified as the culprit, as samples gathered from under its front claws tested positive for human DNA at an FBI laboratory.
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060615/COLUMNISTS11/606150341/1006

At Oregon’s Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, thieves stole 200 adult spring chinook salmon from holding pens. Now the hatchery has to make up for those fish in order to collect enough eggs for the production of 1.625-milllion smolts. So in effect, the robbers didn’t just steal some 3,000 pounds of fish from the hatchery, they stole the Icicle River’s fishing season (now closed) from sport and tribal anglers. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/othersports/2003057028_webchinook12.html

On Memorial Day, while fishing offshore from Bermuda with Captain Allen DeSilva, 46-year-old Texan Bill Elliott caught the biggest blue marlin of his life, a 400-pounder. Then, despite a common superstition among blue marlin anglers contending that bananas are bad luck, Elliot unpeeled that very fruit, ate it, and twenty minute later hooked not just the next biggest blue of his life, but the biggest one ever taken during the month of May in Bermuda. After releasing the fish, DeSilva estimated its weight at 1,100 pounds. Since then, according to this Dallas Morning News article, the charter captain  has been getting e-mails from marlin pros around the world who consider the estimate conservative.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/14815233.htm

If you’ll be traveling through Steuben County Indiana any time soon, bring along a clothespin. For almost three months now, the state Department of Natural Resources’ pit--where roadkilled deer had been dumped for the some 17 years--has been closed. Now, with the ripening carcasses of dead deer stinking up the roadways, motorists who had probably never given a thought to roadkill disposal can hardly avoid the issue—at least, not without that clothespin.
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/news/local/14845575.htm

For all you sportsmen who keep your fingers pressed against the pulse of the fashion world, eagerly awaiting each designer’s latest offerings, I’m sorry to report that you’ll likely be disappointed with Polo Ralph Lauren’s upcoming collections. On June 8th, after a series of meetings with PETA, the company announced it will remove fur from its product line beginning with the holiday 2006 collections. Whatever will we wear in 2007?
http://www.ussportsmen.org/interactive/features/Read.cfm?ID=1810

Here’s a little ammo for the next time a vegetarian gives you guff about hunting: According to a new study conducted by Cancer Research UK scientists, children inherit their taste for meat and fish but seem to have no hard-wired liking for veggies—or dessert for that matter. In other words, we are born carnivores.
http://english.pravda.ru/news/science/15-06-2006/82000-taste-0