Marine Fisheries Commission ends purse-seining of menhaden
May 16 at 11:23 am The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission voted at its May 11 meeting in Atlantic Beach to end the controversial practice of purse-seining for menhaden in North Carolina waters. Menhaden may still be harvested by other means.
Feds force state to close, restrict gill-net fishing in two areas
May 15 at 11:26 am The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission voted at its May meeting in Atlantic Beach to close the lower Core Sound, Back Sound and the North River to all large-mess gill nets and to restrict the amount of nets that can be fished in an area from Lennoxville Point near Beaufort to the US 58 bridge between Emerald Isle and Cape Carteret.
The votes came on the heels of the National Marine Fisheries Service informing the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries that the state needed to lower the number of “interactions” between gill nets and endangered sea turtles. Closure of several areas and restrictions in other areas were determined by a 6-3 vote to be the best course of action. The three dissenting votes were cast by commercial members of the Commission, fish-house owners Mikey Daniels, Joe Smith and Bradley Styron.
Two youths take gobblers on Macon County handicapped hunt
May 14 at 11:27 am For Miguel Villagomez, a visually impaired eighth grader who was guided by Gene Piver of Asheville, a long-time member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, the hunt ended with a bang at first light that left a big gobbler flopping on the ground.
It took a little longer for 8-year-old Cory Holbrooks of Franklin to connect, but it was no less sweet. Holbrooks, whose walking ability is impaired, high-stepped through a cow pasture in the predawn darkness, learning that it was best to avoid the scattered, plate-sized dark spots.
CCA-NC cuts ties with lobbyist
May 10 at 11:24 am The Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina has ended its relationship with lobbyist Dean Plunkett, who admitting May 2 to having an improper relationship with a staff member of Rep. Thom Tillis (R-Charlotte), the N.C. General Assembly’s Speaker of the House.
Plunkett was asked to resign by CCA officials and did so almost immediately. A CCA-NC official said that if Plunkett hadn’t resigned, the organization that represents North Carolina’s recreational saltwater anglers would have dismissed him.
Commission considers expanding youth turkey-hunting opportunities
May 08 at 3:58 pm The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will take to its July 5 meeting in Raleigh several proposals for changes to the spring wild-turkey season, including a week-long youth season and allowing hunters to take their 2-bird season limit on a single day.
Parsons resigns spot on N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission
May 08 at 1:53 pm W. Doug Parsons of Clinton, a member of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission since 2002, resigned on May 3 after his appointment as a district court judge.
The rule would also allow the hunting of feral swine and coyotes on public lands from ½ hour after sunset to ½ before sunrise with a light by permit only. Night hunting is one means of controlling localized populations of coyotes and feral swine, both of which are non-native to North Carolina and destructive to the landscape.
Stanly County schools sweep state hunter-safety skills titles
May 02 at 11:20 am Gray Stone Day School and Park Ridge Christian School, both from Stanly County, won team championships at the 2012 Youth Hunter Skills Tournament State Championship held April 28 at Millstone 4-H Center near Ellerbe.
About 600 students from 54 schools participated in this year’s tournament, sponsored by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which determined state champions in team and individual categories for rifle, shotgun and archery marksmanship. Competition is conducted on senior (high school) and junior (middle and elementary schools) divisional levels, with overall team and individual awards based on aggregate scores in all events.
Deer harvest is down 1 percent, but still third highest on record
May 01 at 11:22 am Even with two daunting problems to overcome during the 2011-12 deer season, North Carolina hunters tagged the third-highest overall harvest on record, 173,553 whitetails, according to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
The harvest was one percent below the previous season, the second-highest on record, and two percent below the all-time high from 2008-09.
High-school freshman kills huge Rockingham County bird
April 29 at 10:26 pm Apparently, Opening Day of the 2012 spring gobbler season came at just the right time for a teen-aged hunter, amid rampant reports of gobblers charging hunters and decoys.
Dakota Brown, a 14-year-old freshman at Ledford High School in Davidson County, was hunting with his father, Tommy Brown, in Rockingham County when he killed a huge gobbler that carried a set of enormous spurs and will likely rank among the 30 biggest ever taken in North Carolina.
Burr, Hagan file bill to protect Cape Hatteras Seashore ORV use
April 27 at 7:43 pm North Carolina’s two U.S. senators acknowledged April 26 the problem of lack of bi-partisan beach access at Cape Hatteras National Seashore by filing a bill that would roll back limits on off-road-vehicle driving and pedestrian access.
H.R. 4094 (The Preserving Public Access to Cape Hatteras Beaches Act) would overturn the National Park Service’s final beach-access plan – activated in January 2012 after 5 years of study – and reinstate a previous Interim Management Strategy that would regulate motorized and pedestrian access at the seashore.
Winston-Salem hunter kills gobbler with 8 beards in Lenoir County
April 26 at 10:45 am Brian Mattison of Winston-Salem made a trip of nearly 200 miles for a turkey hunt last week, but the result was well worth it, even at almost four dollars a gallon for gasoline.
On Saturday, April 21, hunting at Point of Neuse Plantation near Grifton in Lenoir County, Mattison lured three gobblers off the roost with two soft yelps made from his slate call behind the camouflage of his ground blind. He had no idea that one of them – the one he picked out to kill – would be one of the most-amazing toms ever taken in North Carolina, sporting eight beards.
Young girl bags two huge gobblers
April 25 at 12:08 pm The odds – this or any spring – that a North Carolina turkey hunter would shoot a 21-pound gobbler with twin beards and 1 3/8-inch spurs and name the bird “Buttercup” are about 1,000-to-1.
But that's what Emma Stone did on Youth Day (April 7) in Edgecombe County.
Badin's big blues are biting
April 20 at 3:38 pm Chris Hammill said it wasn’t a sure thing, but he felt pretty certain he could put his party on some big Badin Lake blue catfish if he had a full day to do so.
He apparently knows those fish intimately, because at the end of the day on Wednesday, his party had put two 40-pounders and a 44-pounder in the boat, plus some smaller fish.
