Michael A. Sawyers
On Feb. 28, that’s next Sunday, West Virginia’s natural resources commissioners will be presented at a meeting in South Charleston with the recommendations of their biologists for the upcoming hunting seasons.
The commissioners will say ‘yea’ or ‘nea’ or maybe make a little change or two and push the regulations forward for public consideration. The closest places to this newspaper where those meetings will be conducted are James Rumsey Technical Institute in Martinsburg on March 15 and Moorefield Middle School on March 16. The meetings begin at 6 p.m.
I’m hoping that the biologists ask the commissioners to continue the September archery and muzzleloader deer seasons that were initiated in 2009.
There were 1,017 deer killed during the one-week bow hunt and another 2,125 during the one-week muzzleloader hunt that followed. All of the deer were antlerless. Bucks were not legal.
It takes time for a new hunt to catch on, no matter which state has instituted it.
I believe that hunters will come to value two weeks of early season deer hunting and will fit it into their schedules.
Preston County often leads the state in the various deer harvests and this was no exception.
Bow hunters whacked 95 and blackpowder shooters took 178 for a total of 273. Some other county totals that will interest us were: Berkeley 30 bow and 45 muzzleloader, Grant 26 and 81, Hampshire 19 and 69, Hardy 27 and 53, Jefferson 12 and 14, Mineral 24 and 48, Morgan 12 and 46, Pendleton 12 and 43.
I have often speculated that center-fire ammunition or broadheads or roundballs sold within the chronic wasting disease containment area of Hampshire County should carry the message “Sold for the prevention of disease only.”
I note that in my home county of Lewis there was a substantial harvest of 44 with bow and 131 with muzzleloader for a total of 175. That was third best in the Mountain State. There are some deer hunting boys down in those hollows and ridges.
My involvement in the experimental seasons was a day and a half during the muzzleloader portion in Morgan County. I saw a few deer, but didn’t get a shot. The closest deer I saw were ones that jumped from where they were bedded 30 yards from my truck as I returned from hunting all day.
If you don’t like bugs and/or sweat, you won’t like this kind of early hunting and my advice would be, well, just don’t go. If the season is conducted again this year and you do go, just make preparations to get the deer meat chilled as quickly as possible.
Just think about February. That should do it.
Contact Outdoor Editor Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.
