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November 10, 2009 by
Investigators in Ohio believe rising unemployment and a tough economy is driving some ginseng diggers in the state to illegally harvest the root on private land and out of season.
For the past month, State Wildlife Officers from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife have been contacting many Ohio ginseng dealers and diggers as part of an ongoing investigation.
To date, Ohio wildlife officers have identified more than 30 individuals and 60 violations of Ohio law relating to ginseng root harvesting. As the investigation continues, authorities say formal charges will likely include digging ginseng without landowner permission, collecting or possession of ginseng during the closed season, failure to maintain accurate records and failure to certify ginseng prior to export.
The perennial herb is one of the most sought-after medicinal plants in the world. American ginseng occurs from Quebec, Canada, west to Minnesota and south to Georgia and Oklahoma.
Ohio certifies about 3,000 pounds of ginseng for export annually. There are 46 licensed ginseng dealers in the state with an estimated two to four thousand diggers. The number of diggers/harvesters varies annually depending on market conditions.
Last year, 3,626 pounds of ginseng were legally harvested in Ohio and sold to dealers at around $400 a pound. The value of the dried wild root fluctuates, and was as high as $1,000 per pound in 2007.
[ Read Full Post ] August 26, 2009 by
In the late summer months, it’s not unusual when motoring along the banks of Lake Erie in northern Ohio to have some pretty substantial flying objects go splat! on your windshield: like junebugs, dragonflies and the occasional hard-hitting bumblebee.
An 8-pound fish, though? Well, that’s somewhat unusual.
Messy, too.
Leighann Niles and her 5-year-old daughter were traveling on the main road through scenic East Harbor State Park on Monday when they were treated to the sight of a bald eagle flying overhead, a freshly caught fish grasped in its talons.
“I look in the air and see the most beautiful eagle I’d ever seen in my life,” Niles said.
It was about that time that the eagle evidently developed some difficulty with its landing gear, so to speak.
“The next thing I knew, the fish wiggled—it dropped like a brick and completely shattered my windshield,” reported Ms. Niles.
The combined impact of a 40-foot fish freefall and a 2004 Toyota Matrix traveling at 40 miles per hour resulted in one totally ruined windshield.
Neither Niles nor her daughter was injured, but they both have a whopper of a fish story to tell.
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August 20, 2009 by
You may have heard or read about the invasive species of Asian carp that has spread northward, up the Mississippi River and into its tributaries in recent years. Not only does the fish grow quickly and grow large, but it has the unusual propensity for leaping high into the air when rousted by the sound of a passing outboard motor.
Boaters who frequent waters occupied by the exotic species have learned to take special precautions, like wearing protective gear or arming themselves with garbage can lids to use as shields to deflect the airborne bottom-feeders.
Not surprisingly, many hunters, (who are experts at producing lemonade when they are dealt lemons), have succeeded in making the best of the situation. These days, especially along parts of the Illinois River near Peoria, on any summer day you are likely to see numerous boaters armed with bows and arrows, cruising the waters in search of flying carp.
Such was the case earlier this summer, when Jodi Barnes was bowfishing for Illinois River carp with her fiancée, Chris Brackett, whose company, Brackett Outdoors, produces DVDs featuring high-intensity carp-slaying action.
“We were going really slow because that seems to get them to jump really high,” Brackett told my good friend Jeff Lampe, the outdoors editor for the Peoria Journal-Star. “Jodi had shot at one and was leaning forward to reel in her arrow when another fish came out of nowhere to her right and then hit her in the jaw.”
The smackdown was caught with incredible precision by photographer Bill Konway, a passenger in the boat. The resulting impact broke Barnes’ jaw.
Ms. Barnes is currently recovering from her carp-bashing, and her diet will reportedly consist of smoothies and mashed potatoes for the next four weeks.
In the meantime, Beckett is scheduled to take film crews for the National Geographic Channel’s series, “Hooked” in search of slimy, flying target this coming weekend.
Until we hear otherwise, we assume the engagement is still on.
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April 7, 2009 by
There aren’t many movies that depict the finer points of angling, the craft and skill associated with catching fish and the overall pleasure of all things piscatorial.
But leave it to The Newshound to bring Outdoor Life readers the latest in angling entertainment—news about a provocative new fishing movie you’re not going to find playing at your local theatre or Cineplex 4. No sirree! This puppy is destined to make a beeline straight to DVD!
I can't even begin to do justice to the screenplay and plot of “Jaws of the Mississippi,” so here’s the synopsis provided by the movie’s producer, Active Entertainment (based in the American cinematic hotbed of creativity, Lafayette, Louisiana):
A massive hurricane devastates the Gulf of Mexico, with it a US government’s top-secret anti-bioterrorism facility. When one of its highly radioactive chemicals spills into the ocean it triggers mutations in a great white shark, enabling its adaptation to survive in fresh water. As this shark reeks (that’s the producer’s spelling, not mine) havoc on local Mississippi River towns it poses the additional risk of spreading this radioactive material and contaminating the entire freshwater system of the United States. Local fisherman Ward and his hillbilly crew are secretly hired to hunt down this shark, and when they find it threatening a group of teenage boaters, Ward must face his troubled past to save these kids and prevent further catastrophe.
Something tells me the riveting movie dialogue contains a line like: “We’re gonna need a bigger jonboat!”
[ Read Full Post ]April 2, 2009 by
In what authorities are calling a freak accident, a Huntington Beach, Calif. fisherman choked to death on a baitfish while trying to entertain a boatful of school kids on a fishing trip Friday.
The death of Jeff Twaddle, 54, a deckhand on the charter boat Gale Force, was ruled accidental by the county coroner’s office. The official cause of death was “aspiration of fish.”
According to reports, Twaddle was joking with the 20 elementary school children who joined him onboard for an outing that departed from the Rainbow Marina near the Port of Long Beach.
The Orange County Register reports today that the joke quickly turned fatal when Twaddle began choking, lost consciousness, and was unresponsive. Lifeguards attempted to revive the longtime fisherman while en-route to land, where Long Beach paramedics were waiting.
Long Beach fire battalion Chief Frank Hayes said Twaddle was “trying to be lighthearted and make students laugh when he put the fish in his mouth.”
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March 16, 2009 by
British businessman Andrew Cheatle thought his cellphone was gone for good after he dropped it while walking his dog on the beach.
“I was messing about with my dog and my phone must have fallen out and been swept out in the swell,” he told The UK;s Sun newspaper. “I kept calling it but I gave up hope after a couple of days.”
A week after the incident, when his girlfriend received a call originating from Cheatle’s lost phone, she wasn’t sure what to expect when she answered it.
It was trawler fisherman Glen Kerley, who said he discovered the Nokia 1660 phone inside a 25-pound cod he’d netted. He and Cheatle made arrangements to meet.
“I didn’t believe him but went to meet him and found it was my phone—a bit smelly and battered—but incredibly it still worked after I let it dry out,” said Cheatle.
Trawlerman Kerley said it’s not unusual to find objects inside fish, especially with cod.
“Cod are greedy fish—they’ll eat anything. I’ve found plastic cups, stones, teaspoons, batteries and I’ve also heard of someone finding false teeth in one.”
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March 3, 2009 by
Organizers of a weekend ice-fishing tournament in Somerset, Wisc. said they smelled something fishy after receiving several anonymous tips that the contest winner—and recipient of a new pickup truck worth $28,000—had allegedly cheated his way to the grand prize.
But authorities investigating the incident say Lee Shehow, 38, may face criminal charges after admitting he smuggled a 2.42-pound northern pike inside his sweatshirt to win the annual Somerset Youth Athletics 2009 Bass Lake Ice Fishing Contest on Saturday at Bass Lake.
The event drew about 2,500 participants and raised an estimated $150,000 for youth athletics in the Somerset area.
John Monpetit, spokesman for the sponsoring organization, told the Eau Clair Leader-Telegram that investigators at the tournament initially became suspicious of Shehow after “he purchased water at a pace that was inconsistent with what a normal person would drink on a 14-degree day.”
The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer-Press reported yesterday that contest officials asked a polygraphist and former Minnesota State Patrol officer to question Shehow and assess him for a lie-detector test. After the two spoke Sunday morning, Shehow subsequently disqualified himself and returned the keys to the fully loaded 2008 Dodge Dakota pickup truck.
Ice-fishing tournaments are increasingly popular in northern climes during winter months, and most organizers these days keep a watchful eye out for potentially unscrupulous activity.
Jack Baker, president of the North American Ice Fishing Circuit, told the Pioneer-Press that one popular cheating technique is to lower a basket containing fish into the water prior to an event.
But Baker didn’t mention if the pike-inside-the-shirt method was one of the more common ways of skirting contest rules.
During a second awards ceremony on Tuesday, the keys to the new Dodge truck were presented to thrilled runner-up Monica Slimmen of La Crosse for her 1.72-pound pike.
“I haven’t slept in two days, I was so excited,” an ecstatic Slimmen proclaimed. “Karma does come around, and, you know, cheaters don’t win.”
That’s right, Monica. After all, this is ice fishing, not Major League Baseball.
[ Read Full Post ]February 14, 2009 by
It should come as no surprise to regular readers of the Newshound blog that those who choose to deliberately break game and fish regulations are usually not the “sharpest tools in the shed,” so to speak.
Case in point:
A convicted felon prohibited by law from owning firearms or legally hunting didn’t let that stop him from an unusually bone-headed poaching attempt in Bay County, Fla. last week.
In the course of a night-time stakeout, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers Dennis Palmer and Mark Clements witnessed a man instruct his girlfriend’s 13-year-old daughter to shoot at an agency’s mechanical deer decoy—twice—while her mother illuminated the fake whitetail with their pickup truck’s headlights.
The weekly citations report from the FWC did not name the subjects involved in the incident.
According to the FWC, all three were cited for night hunting and road hunting. Fortunately (for them), being incredibly dumb is (currently) not a criminal offense in Florida. Otherwise, additional charges could have been applied in the case.
[ Read Full Post ]January 23, 2009 by
You’ve probably seen the television commercials for Southwest Airlines, where someone does something incredibly bone-headed, and the announcer asks, “Wanna get away?”
We figure that’s probably how Rusty Saunders of Fort Edward, N.Y. felt after he shot—and tagged—what he thought was an elk while hunting in Montana’s Paradise Valley last November.
The details are sketchy as to how Mr. Saunders initially came to his embarrassing revelation, but Mel Frost, the public information officer for the Bozeman office of Montana Fish, Parks and Wildlife confirmed that the Empire State woodsman turned himself in to a game warden in Livingston after realizing he’d bagged a shaggy-furred llama.
Outdoor writer Brett French of the Billings Gazette reported this week that Saunders’ case was ultimately turned over to the Montana Department of Livestock, because, unlike in its native Peru, the llama in considered to be a farm animal in the states, and not wildlife.
After investigating, the livestock folks turned the matter over to Park County authorities without issuing any citations.
“We don’t have any statute to prevent that kind of thing,” Steve Merritt, information officer for the Livestock Department in Helena, told French.
Photos taken by the livestock department showed the field-dressed dark brown and black llama in the back of a red pickup truck, with Saunders’ notched 2008 elk tag clearly attached to its neck. Not surprisingly, the photo is reportedly making the rounds on the Internet, along with verbiage inspired by another television advertising campaign.
30-06 rifle with Leupold Scope? $650;
Out of state license? $600;
Gas to drive from New York? $700;
Taking a trophy Montana llama? Priceless!
[ Read Full Post ]
January 21, 2009 by
A once-prominent big game hunter and guide whose name and image appeared regularly in national hunting publications and advertisements for hunting rifles will never again hunt, fish or be allowed to own a firearm.
Once one of the country’s best-known hunting celebrities, the now-disgraced Kirt Darner, 69, was sentenced on Monday, Jan. 12, in Cibola County, New Mexico District Court to 4,500 hours of community service, fined $10,000 and ordered to pay an unspecified amount of restitution to the New Mexico and Colorado game agencies and a Colorado taxidermy business.
Darner, who pleaded guilty in June 2008 to charges of illegally transporting wild elk to his New Mexico ranch and receiving stolen bighorn sheep heads, faced a maximum penalty of four years in jail. As part of his plea agreement, he is prohibited from hunting, fishing or possessing firearms for life.
Darner was indicted by a grand jury in 2006 on 41 felony and misdemeanor counts, including receiving stolen property, transportation of stolen livestock and tampering with evidence. He was originally charged with illegally moving four state-owned elk from his Lobo Canyon Ranch in Grants, N.M., to another ranch and game park in southeastern New Mexico in 2002. In addition, a search warrant served in 2005 on the Darner property in New Mexico uncovered a desert bighorn sheep head and a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep head that had been stolen from a Montrose, Colo. Taxidermy shop in 2000.
Previously, in Colorado, Darner was convicted of illegal possession of wildlife in 1994. In 1999 he was convicted of second degree tampering with evidence and careless driving in an incident in which he was serving as an outfitter. At that time, Colorado Division of Wildlife officers observed Darner’s client shoot at an elk decoy in a game management unit for which the client didn’t have a license.
Darner gained prominence as a hunter and guide with an affinity for massive mule deer bucks in the 1970s and 80s. When photographic evidence revealed a mule deer Darner claimed to have shot was actually taken by another Colorado hunter 40 years earlier, his entries in the Boone and Crockett Club record book were subsequently expunged.
Though Cibola County Deputy District Attorney Randolph Collins was unsuccessful in his effort to see Darner’s latest sentence include prison time, his argument to the court ironically included an excerpt from Darner’s 1983 book, How to Find Giant Bucks.
“Penalties for game violations are not stiff enough,” Darner’s book stated. “There should be minimum fine and mandatory jail sentences for some crimes, such as shooting a deer out of season. Second offenders should get very stiff, mandatory penalties. If a potential violator knew he’d get a $1,000 fine and a minimum of 30 days in jail for shooting a buck out of season, he’d find more strength to resist the temptation.”
The Deputy DA’s memorandum to the court accurately summed up how a lot of sportsmen feel about the once-iconic figure of the big game hunting community.
“The book title (How to Find Giant Bucks), now given his conduct in our county and his quest to put his profit above all else, has double meaning--how to find giant bucks is really, for him, how to make a lot of money by violating the law.”
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