Quiz the state’s wildlife boss
Alan Peoples, head of the wildlife division for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, helps prepare some venison jerky at the Oklahoma Wildlife Expo. Peoples will be Outdoors Editor Ed Godfrey's guest during Friday's (Jan. 6) online chat from the H&H Shooting Sports Complex in Oklahoma City. Log on to NewsOK.com by 11:30 a.m. Friday to submit questions.
If you ever wanted to question the chief of the wildlife division for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, you will get your chance Friday on NewsOk.com.
Alan Peoples, head of the wildlife division for the Wildlife Department, will join me at the H&H Shooting Sports Complex Friday at 11:30 a.m. for an online chat.
Log on to NewsOk.com and go to the Outdoors page to join the 30-minute discussion about all things outdoors.
Among the topics will be the proposed changes in the current hunting regulations and the agency’s quail research project now underway, but you are welcome to ask whatever you want.
The public comment period on the new hunting regulation proposals end Jan. 13. The most controversial new hunting regulation proposals involve bear hunting and the baiting of wildlife on public wildlife management areas.
The Wildlife Department wants to eliminate its 20-bear quota for the bear archery season and hold a three-week archery season with no limit on the total number of bears that can be killed. For the past two years, the bear archery season lasted just two days or less because hunters killed a total of 20 bears that quickly.
After the archery season, a 20-bear quota would be in effect for the bear muzzleloader season that follows. The Wildlife Department also wants to eliminate all baiting of wildlife on the state’s public hunting areas.
Log on to NewsOk.com Friday at 11:30 a.m. to join the online chat to see what Peoples has to say about the proposals.
Arcadia Eagle Watch
January is a prime month for eagle watching across Oklahoma and this weekend (Jan. 6-8) is the annual eagle watch at Arcadia Lake near Edmond.
Visitors can go to the lake park office to get maps of the lake and staff will pass on information about where eagles might be seen. The lake park office is about three miles east of Interstate 35 on Second Street.
Admission to the lake is half-price ($3 per vehicle) this weekend. Eagle watchers should bring comfortable walking shoes or hiking boots, rain gear, warm clothes that can be layered, binoculars, ear muffs or warm headgear, gloves and a camera.
For more information, call the park office at 216-7471.
Several eagle watches are scheduled in January and February at lakes and refuges across the state. For more information on those, visit http://www.wildlifedepartment.com/wildlifemgmt/eaglestours.htm
Trout season to open at Dolese
A tackle box filled with Powerbaits is ideal for trout anglers for the opening day of trout season at the Dolese Youth Park Pond in Oklahoma City.
The winter trout season begins Jan. 1 at the Dolese Youth Park Pond, NW 50 and Meridian.
The pond will be stocked with rainbow trout for the Jan. 1 season opener.
The two-month long trout season runs through Feb. 29. The trout fishing is made possible through a donation from BancFirst.
A free trout fishing clinic will be held Jan. 13 from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. at the Putnam City High School gymnasium, 5300 NW 50. Pre-registration is required and participants should call the H.B. Parsons Fish Hatchery at 755-4014.
The clinic will include instruction on trout bait and tackle, pole rigging, trout biology, fish cleaning and recipes, knot tying, safe casting and the Dolese Park trout season’s rules and regulations. The clinic is for all ages and all gear is provided.
Bob Martin, fisheries biologist for the Oklahoma City Parks and Recreation Department, recommends that Dolese trout anglers keep several colors of Powerbaits as well as an assortment of other trout baits in their tackle box. The best baits to use often change throughout the day, he said.
Anglers should have success using 4- to 6-pound test line equipped with a slip sinker and small hook. Along with Powerbaits, other baits of choice include corn, small worms, small minnows, small spinners, jigs and spoons.
There is a daily limit of six trout per person during at Dolese Park. In addition, fishing is permitted from the bank only and each angler may only use one rod and reel. Beginning March 1, anglers can use three rod and reels per person until the rainbows are gone.
Trout caught and placed on a stringer or otherwise held in possession cannot be released. If fishing for trout at Dolese, anglers must have an annual state fishing license and an Oklahoma City Fishing Permit, which is required for anglers ages 16-61, unless exempt.
Big Garvin County non-typical
Tim Johnson of Elmore City claimed this 26-point, 190-class non-typical buck on his land in Garvin County on the opening morning of the deer gun season.
Tim Johnson of Elmore City couldn’t believe the buck that showed up on his Garvin County trail camera during the middle of muzzleloader season.
“I almost fell out of my chair when I was looking on the computer,” Johnson said.
Johnson hunted the huge 26-point nontypical for 24 days out of a box blind — five during the muzzleloader season and 19 more days with a crossbow before the deer gun season opened.
“I was trying every day. I saw him about 10 times live, but I never did get him,” Johnson said. “He was just never close enough for me to take him.”
The buck also appeared on the trail camera of Johnson’s neighbors and they were hunting him as well. But Johnson was able to shoot the buck on the opening morning of gun season.
“The last time I had seen him was the Monday before with a doe,” Johnson. “I was afraid he had left that country with the doe during the rut. But he just showed back up on opening morning.”
The buck green scores in the 190s. If that score holds, it would be one of the five biggest bucks ever taken in Garvin County, based on Cy Curtis scores, he said.
The buck weighed 200 pounds before being field dressed and was aged at 5 1/2 years old.
Johnson, 50, has been hunting deer for 30 years on his family’s land in Garvin County. He has never came close to harvesting a 190-inch buck before.
“It was the buck of a lifetime,” he said. “This thing has drop tines everywhere. I don’t have a clue where he came from. I’ve seen a couple of really good bucks around here, but I’ve not seen anything that looked like him.”
Don’t shoot your eye out
Did you want a BB gun for Christmas?
My favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Story.
I’ve seen it dozens of time and will be watching it again once or twice this year. I’m sure you are familiar with it. It’s the movie where Ralphie desperately wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas but his mom is afraid he will shoot his eye out.
My BB gun was a Daisy and it was a pretty cool Christmas gift. It ranks in my top five Christmas gifts of all time, right up there with my first Zebco 33 rod and reel, the electric football set and Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em robots.
Since The Oklahoman’s outdoors page will be published on Christmas morning this year, I am on the hunt for the Okie versions of A Christmas Story.
Did Santa Claus bring you the BB gun that you always wanted one Christmas? Or maybe it was a Browning over and under shotgun that was left under your tree? Or a Zebco 33 or Abu Garcia reel? Or perhaps it was your first pocket knife? Or a bow? Or a camping tent? Or a boat or canoe?
Whatever it was, if you have a special memory of such a Christmas gift, I want to hear about it. Tell me what it was and why it was so memorable to you. Send your story to egodfrey@opubco.com and it might just be published in The Oklahoman on Christmas morning.
Consider it my Christmas gift to you.
Time to go birding
Many bird watchers will be participating in the annual Christmas bird counts across the state on Saturday.
Several Christmas bird counts are scheduled around the state on Saturday by local Audubon groups and other birders.
At Fort Gibson Lake, volunteers should meet on the east side of the dam beginning at 7:30 a.m. Contact jeri_mcmahon@yahoo.com for more information.
Bird watchers also will be conducting a Christmas bird count at the Hulah Reservoir on Saturday. Contact bhsuzy@cableone.net for more information.
For the 54th straight year, the Oklahoma City Audubon Society will be having its annual bird count on Saturday. The bird watchers will be searching an area 7 ½-miles in all directions from NW 63rd and Portland.
Contact John Shackford at johnsshack@aol.com for more information.
The Payne County Audubon Society also is counting birds on Saturday in Stillwater. Volunteers should meet at 6:30 a.m. at Mom’s Place restaurant in Stillwater.
For information, contact Jim Ownby at james.ownby@okstate.edu.
Tulsa’s bird count also is Saturday. Contact Jo Floyd at jo.loyd@sbcglobal.net.
The Chickasaw National Recreation Area near Sulphur also is hosting a winter bird count on Saturday.
Park rangers at the Travertine Nature Center will hold a program about birds found in the park beginning at 9:30 a.m. then volunteers can accompany ranger staff on the count.
Binoculars and spotting scopes are available to those accompanying the ranger staff. For more information, call the Travertine Nature Center at (580) 622-7234.
Chickasaw National Recreation Area looking for campground hosts
Entrance to the Cold Springs campgrounds at the Chickasaw National Recreation Area.
The Chickasaw National Recreation Area near Sulphur is looking for camp hosts for the 2012 spring and summer camping seasons.
Six host sites are available in park campgrounds. At Chickasaw, the camping season starts as early as March and goes as late as October with the busiest times being from May to September.
The campground host is the eyes and ears in the campgrounds and serves as the guardian steward for the campground area. The host greets visitors and answers questions about the recreation area and campgrounds in an informed and courteous manner, checks for payment on nightly stays, informs visitors of campground rules and regulations, performs minor emergency services, and conducts light grounds maintenance.
Chickasaw National Recreation Area is nestled in south-central Oklahoma, 75 miles south of Oklahoma City and 140 miles north of Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas.
The 9,931-acre recreation area contains Travertine Nature Center, fresh water and mineral springs, six campgrounds with electric and water hookups and comfort stations with showers, 2,350-acre Lake of the Arbuckles, 67-acre Veterans Lake, and over 20 miles of hiking trails.
The recreation area preserves natural and cultural resources and provides recreation for a million and half visitors each year.
Visitor activities center on water recreation in the lakes and streams and include boating, fishing, swimming, camping, picnicking, hiking, nature study, and hunting.
Anyone interested in volunteering as a camp host should contact Volunteer-In-Parks Coordinator Ron Parker at (580) 622-7231 or Daniel Whatley at (580) 622-7291.
Meet Don Wallace
Don Wallace holds a walleye caught in August on a fishing trip to Canada to Sportsman's Lodge.
Here is your chance to meet legendary outdoors television host Don Wallace, who will be my guest during my online chat Friday from the H&H Shooting Sports Complex in Oklahoma City near I-40 and Meridian.
You can participate in a live chat online on NewsOk.com with Don and I on Friday from 11:30 a.m. until noon. The topic is outdoors so you if you ever wanted to know about Don’s favorite lake, favorite show or favorite hunting trip, just ask.
After the online chat, we will be sticking around H&H until 1 p.m. to visit with customers.
Wallace, who is just coming off hip replacement surgery, was the television host of the popular “Wallace Wildlife Show” in Oklahoma City from 1965-1989. Counting reruns, the show aired for more than 40 years.
Even though Don is now 81, he is still active in the outdoors. Every summer, he escorts a group of anglers on a fishing trip to Canada.
Here is an interview with Don that I did for a collected wisdom that was published in August in The Oklahoman.
“I was born in Parsons, Kan. I grew up in Parsons, Pittsburg, Coffeyville and Oswego, that general area of southeast Kansas. My dad was register of deeds of Labette County, Kan., in the 1930s.
I loved to fish and hunt. I just kind of did it on my own. I just roamed the creeks and rivers in southeastern Kansas. My dad was either in the service or he was busy as register of deeds. He took me out once in awhile.
When I was kid, I liked to fish in the Neosho River in southeastern Kansas for carp in the spring. Fishing is just fun for me. I like to fish anything and everything.
I had a BB gun at first and finally got a shotgun. I was so glad to get that shotgun. I loved it. I would go hunting rabbits and squirrels and things like that.
I wasn’t an Oklahoman but I got here as fast as I could. I love Oklahoma. Absolutely love it. It’s been good to me. I feel like it’s my home state. I spent my entire working career in Oklahoma.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do until my senior year of high school in Pittsburg, Kan. Part of our speech class that year, a six-week period of it, was devoted to radio announcing. At the end of that six week period the class voted me the most likely to succeed as a radio announcer.
I thought this would be an easy way to make a living. I started practicing, reading the newspaper out loud. I remember my dad, he once said, ‘Son, you will never make a living doing this.’ As I look back, he may have been right.
But I enjoyed it and I got a job at KWON in Bartlesville in 1949. It was my first job. It paid $1 an hour. Big bucks. I was a radio announcer, reading commercials during breaks, working the switch board, the control board, doing everything myself.
I didn’t stay in Bartlesville very long. I decided I better go to college. I took a pay cut and went to Miami, Okla., for 85 cents an hour. I worked 48 hours a week on the air at KGLC which was a new independent station and I spun records there and went to college at Northeastern A&M.
I bounced around several towns for several years doing radio work. I worked in Muskogee, Tulsa and finally came to Oklahoma City in 1958 to work as a DJ at WKY radio.
I started teen hops in the state of Oklahoma in Tulsa in 1955 and was the first one to play rock and roll on the air in Tulsa. My peers in Tulsa didn’t want to play rock and roll because they thought it was trashy music. But it worked well for me.
My ratings went way up. I had a great following. I had a little fan club with 10,000 card carrying members. I put out a fan club newsletter each month. I did a lot of things like that.
No one in the Oklahoma City market was doing teen hops. I came over to Oklahoma City from Tulsa primarily because WKY was changing its format to go top 40. They allowed me to do teen hops so I ran all over the state for years doing teen hops.
I could see this outdoor thing blossoming. I finally convinced management (at WKY-TV) there was a need for an outdoors show. It took four years of convincing. I wrote memos and gave statistics and stuff like that. This started in 1961. Finally, they gave me an opportunity in 1965 on a drop-in show.
They would just drop me in on weekends wherever they needed to fill 15 minutes. I bought my first camera from the news department for $25. It was a wind-up Bell and Howell. They were going to trade it in. It had one lens on it, a wide-angle lens.
I would shoot film and solicit help anywhere I could. I would go from one teen hop on Friday night to one on Saturday night. In between I would go to some lake somewhere and take my tube or drag a boat and try to get a little footage, come back and put it together.
From the very beginning it was called the Wallace Wildlife Show. This went on for six years as a 15-minute drop in show. In 1971, they had another need in prime time. NBC was not programming against the second half of Marcus Welby, M.D., the most popular show in the United States, so the local stations had to come up with their own.
I lobbied for that 30 minutes. They allowed me to try it. It was a big gamble on my part. If I hadn’t made it, I would have been without a job because I quit radio. I said I could beat the second half of Marcus Welby. I didn’t but I came in second.
Joe Krieger in Tulsa was the first outdoor show in Oklahoma. He was a weatherman in Tulsa and dabbling in the outdoor thing. I was the first in Oklahoma City for sure and one of the first in the nation.
I retired in 1989 but my show was on the air somewhere in the Oklahoma City market from 1965 until just several years ago. I had a big mail count (at WKY-TV). During the ’70s, my show pulled the highest pieces of mail. More than Foreman Scotty or Danny Williams.
I averaged 500 pieces of mail a week. Of course, a lot of them were just writing to me to try to win a prize. I used the old Foreman Scotty hopper and spun it around and gave away prizes out of that.
One of my highest rated shows was in 1974. I was opposite The Muppets. The Muppets were a very strong show on ABC. Everybody thought the Muppets were going to kill me.
I had made a show at the new Lake Guerrero in Mexico. I had promoted it several weeks in advance but didn’t say what lake. It was a show where I caught 33 bass in 33 straight casts. I announced for weeks that it was a lake within relatively easy driving distance of Oklahoma City. Well, everything in life is relative.
I had people with their campers loaded up and their cars loaded up ready to go fishing at this new mystery bass lake. When I finally announced it was Lake Guerrero, a thousand miles away from Oklahoma City, the switchboard went crazy at Channel 4.
I got called a lot of things but I had very high ratings. I guess I am pretty lucky I didn’t get lynched.
I had virtually little or no budget. I got a picture that Bob Lilly, the famous (Dallas Cowboys) football player gave me one time. It said, “To Don Wallace, the best one-man band I know.” I am proud of that picture.
They say if you like what you are doing you can work all day and all night. I am living proof. It was the hardest job I ever loved.
I miss parts of the television show. I enjoyed the camaraderie with the people and traveling and doing things but it was an awful lot of work. One time I figured up that I shot from 1965 to 1989 more than 150 miles of film if it were end to end.
I still love to fish. It’s a lot more fun to fish for fun instead of trying to make TV shows. Those fish don’t bite every day.
Texoma is probably my favorite lake in Oklahoma because you can always catch something there. You won’t get skunked.
Every day is the greatest day of my life. Every day that I wake up on the proper side of the grass. I am very, very lucky.”
What’s worse? Hogs or hunters?
An Oklahoma corn field ravaged by wild hogs
Oklahoma landowners apparently worry more about wild hunters than wild hogs.
Two months ago the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry established an online directory in an attempt to connect hunters and trappers with landowners who are having problems with feral hogs.
“We were hopeful we would have a good pool of both,” said Blayne Arthur, associate commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Agricutlure, Food and Forestry.
Instead, she is surprised by how many hunters and how few landowners have signed up for the registry. More than 500 hunters and trappers have signed up for it but only one landowner.
The damage being caused by feral hogs in Oklahoma hasn’t been overstated. The wild pigs are causing severe economic losses to ranchers and farmers. Oklahoma landowners just don’t seem to trust hunters.
The agency constantly hears from landowners about feral hog problems but most would rather call hunters on their own rather than make their contact information publicly available, Arthur said. And some landowners are reluctant to sign up because of bad experiences with hunters in the past, she said.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Irresponsible hunters who don’t shut gates, damage and litter another man’s property always have eliminated hunting opportunities for others. Even worse are the trespassers and poachers that Oklahoma landowners often have to battle.
That problem has been so bad that a group of landowners in southern Oklahoma in 2007 formed the Oklahoma Wildlife Management Association. The group has successfully lobbied state lawmakers to pass stiffer penalties for trespassing effective this month.
Not only does trespassing and poaching result in landowners denying hunting opportunities to all, but it even discourages them from maintaining or managing wildlife on their land, said Mike Porter, wildlife and fisheries consultant with the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore.
“Trespassing and poaching are two of the greatest impediments to wildlife management on private land,” he said.
The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry issued another news release Monday hoping to persuade more landowners to sign up for it feral swine registry, pointing out that Oklahoma laws limit the liability of landowners when people are invited on their land to hunt.
The agency also suggested that landowners require hunters to sign a written release covering the type of activities that will take place. But it appears that persuading them to add their names to the registry is going to be a tough sell.
Even if landowners don’t want to sign up, at least they will have an extensive list of hog hunters and trappers they can call to help rid them of the feral swine, Arthur said
“No question it is a great resource for landowners who want to reach out to hunters and trappers,” she said. But how many of them will?
A real hunt?
Gov. Mary Fallin with the 1,000-pound bull elk she killed Nov. 20 on the Wildcat Springs Ranch near Stonewall.
I got an angry e-mail Monday from reader Kirt Curell about Sunday’s photo of Gov. Mary Fallin and the elk that she killed on the Wildcat Springs Ranch, a 6,800-acre high fence hunting area near Stonewall.
“A high fence, canned hunt, is in no way representative of a hunt in anyway,” Curell wrote. “I’m sure she was trying to connect with the outdoors men and women. When in fact that is exactly the kind of junk that is killing our tradition.
“Shooting an animal confined within a high fence, I don’t care how many acres, is not fair chase. If you think my beliefs are flawed then so are the Boone and Crockett clubs and tens of thousands of their members.
“The B&C club does not condone high fence hunting and will not accept any animal killed within them. If anything it was an elk shoot not an elk hunt. Do not disgrace true hunters and fisherman with this junk.”
It’s true that Boone & Crockett will not accept any entries from commercial hunting ranches. The question in this case is whether The Oklahoman should publish any photos from them.
I don’t necessarily disagree with Curell’s argument against high fence hunts, although I think it does depend on how big the cage is.
And are commercial hunting areas more unethical than shooting a wild deer that has been baited with corn? It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
I’m not a fan of high fence areas and have debated the ethics of them in previous stories in the newspaper.
Maybe I’m sitting on a high fence here, but I’ve decided not to exclude publishing trophy photos from them simply because they are legal operations in Oklahoma, governed by regulations of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
Frankly, whether I publish a trophy photo from a hunter depends more on the quality of the photo than anything else. I get so many hunting photos that are either distasteful or of poor quality.
In this case, it was a good photo and it was the governor. As I told Curell, people can be their own judges of her hunting ethics.
He didn’t like it which is perfectly okay with me.
