Lowes in Woodstock opened Tuesday!
Thursday is the grand opening. They are having some sales and specials.
LOWE'S OF WOODSTOCK, VA #2637
1220 HENRY FORD DRIVE
WOODSTOCK, VA 22664
Phone: (540) 459-1040
Fax: (540) 459-1043
M-SA 7-9, SU 8-7
Now we won't have to go far to get the supplies, especially the drywall.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Spring Gobbler Season starts April 14
Spring Gobbler Season
Bag Limit
One per day, bearded turkeys only. Hunters may take one, two or three bearded turkeys depending on how many turkeys were taken in the fall season.
Seasons: Statewide
April 14-May 5:
One-half hour before sunrise until 12 noon each day.
May 7-May 19:
One-half hour before sunrise to sunset.
April 7: Youth Spring Turkey Hunt
One-half hour before sunrise to 12 noon.
Youth hunters (resident or nonresident) must be 15 years of age or younger to participate.
Youth hunters between the age of 12 and 15 must have appropriate valid hunting licenses. Hunters under the age of 12 are not required to have a license, but they must be accompanied by a licensed adult.
All youth must be accompanied and directly supervised and within sight of an adult. Adult hunters accompanying youth must possess a valid Virginia hunting license (or be exempt from purchasing a hunting license); may assist with calling; and shall not carry or discharge a firearm.
Legal Methods and Restrictions
Modern firearms
Archery tackle
Muzzleloading firearms
Decoys and blinds may be used
Unlawful to use electronic calls
Unlawful to use dogs during spring gobbler season
Unlawful to use or have in possession any shot larger than number 2 fine shot during spring gobbler season (See Legal Use of Firearms and Local Firearms Ordinances for details.)
Bag Limit
One per day, bearded turkeys only. Hunters may take one, two or three bearded turkeys depending on how many turkeys were taken in the fall season.
Seasons: Statewide
April 14-May 5:
One-half hour before sunrise until 12 noon each day.
May 7-May 19:
One-half hour before sunrise to sunset.
April 7: Youth Spring Turkey Hunt
One-half hour before sunrise to 12 noon.
Youth hunters (resident or nonresident) must be 15 years of age or younger to participate.
Youth hunters between the age of 12 and 15 must have appropriate valid hunting licenses. Hunters under the age of 12 are not required to have a license, but they must be accompanied by a licensed adult.
All youth must be accompanied and directly supervised and within sight of an adult. Adult hunters accompanying youth must possess a valid Virginia hunting license (or be exempt from purchasing a hunting license); may assist with calling; and shall not carry or discharge a firearm.
Legal Methods and Restrictions
Modern firearms
Archery tackle
Muzzleloading firearms
Decoys and blinds may be used
Unlawful to use electronic calls
Unlawful to use dogs during spring gobbler season
Unlawful to use or have in possession any shot larger than number 2 fine shot during spring gobbler season (See Legal Use of Firearms and Local Firearms Ordinances for details.)
Catchable Trout Stocking Program on Stony Creek
Catchable Trout Stocking Program
As in most states, put-and-take trout fishing draws the most interest and attention in Virginia, probably because of the availability of catchable-sized trout and ease of capture. Virginia's catchable program is supported by hatcheries located at Marion, Paint Bank and Wytheville. Three additional rearing facilities are located at Marion, Montebello and Williamsville.
Trout eggs are collected from large brood stock in early fall and placed incubator trays. This helps to maintain an even flow of well-oxygenated water through the eggs. Once the embryo is developed, trays must be constantly cleaned and dead eggs removed to control disease. After 25-30 days the trout begin to hatch. The small "fry," as they are called, remain attached to their egg sacs for about 14 days, and draw their food from it. The fry are kept indoors in small troughs until their sacs are absorbed and they begin taking small, pelleted food. When they reach a suitable fingerling stage (2-3 inches) they are transported to rearing facilities where they are placed in raceways.
The fish are fed several times daily for at least a year until they reach catchable size (9-11 inches). During this rearing period, it is necessary to clean raceways daily to control disease and occasionally grade fish to ensure that the larger trout will not eat smaller ones.
The program is covered primarily from the sale of trout licenses. In addition to a valid state freshwater fishing license, a trout license is required to legally fish in designated stocked trout waters. Annual output from the program is approximately 1,250,000 catchable trout, in addition to variable numbers of fingerling and sub-catchable trout used in other programs.
By January 1, most streams on the stocking list will have already received at least one stocking and will continue to be stocked through spring. Stockings will be discontinued by the end of May and will resume after October 1.
Streams and lakes will be stocked at various intervals, depending on their potential to hold trout during the late spring and early fall. Fishermen should find that most streams have good numbers of trout throughout the stocking season. Waters to be stocked are listed by county in the Trout Stocking Plan (PDF). The plan indicates the frequency of stocking and the specific stocking periods for each stream.
Call your local VDGIF office for more information. For daily trout stocking updates during stocking season, check the Trout Stocking Schedule or call (434) 525-FISH (3474).
Stocked trout streams are marked with appropriate signs, which identify the portion of stream stocked. Marked sections are open to public fishing, in accordance with agreements between the Department and private landowners. This is the only case where anglers are not required to have landowner permission before fishing on private water.
Stony Creek is stocked in each of the following periods:October (once),November or
December (once),January or February;(once),March (twice),April (twice),and May
(once).
As in most states, put-and-take trout fishing draws the most interest and attention in Virginia, probably because of the availability of catchable-sized trout and ease of capture. Virginia's catchable program is supported by hatcheries located at Marion, Paint Bank and Wytheville. Three additional rearing facilities are located at Marion, Montebello and Williamsville.
Trout eggs are collected from large brood stock in early fall and placed incubator trays. This helps to maintain an even flow of well-oxygenated water through the eggs. Once the embryo is developed, trays must be constantly cleaned and dead eggs removed to control disease. After 25-30 days the trout begin to hatch. The small "fry," as they are called, remain attached to their egg sacs for about 14 days, and draw their food from it. The fry are kept indoors in small troughs until their sacs are absorbed and they begin taking small, pelleted food. When they reach a suitable fingerling stage (2-3 inches) they are transported to rearing facilities where they are placed in raceways.
The fish are fed several times daily for at least a year until they reach catchable size (9-11 inches). During this rearing period, it is necessary to clean raceways daily to control disease and occasionally grade fish to ensure that the larger trout will not eat smaller ones.
The program is covered primarily from the sale of trout licenses. In addition to a valid state freshwater fishing license, a trout license is required to legally fish in designated stocked trout waters. Annual output from the program is approximately 1,250,000 catchable trout, in addition to variable numbers of fingerling and sub-catchable trout used in other programs.
By January 1, most streams on the stocking list will have already received at least one stocking and will continue to be stocked through spring. Stockings will be discontinued by the end of May and will resume after October 1.
Streams and lakes will be stocked at various intervals, depending on their potential to hold trout during the late spring and early fall. Fishermen should find that most streams have good numbers of trout throughout the stocking season. Waters to be stocked are listed by county in the Trout Stocking Plan (PDF). The plan indicates the frequency of stocking and the specific stocking periods for each stream.
Call your local VDGIF office for more information. For daily trout stocking updates during stocking season, check the Trout Stocking Schedule or call (434) 525-FISH (3474).
Stocked trout streams are marked with appropriate signs, which identify the portion of stream stocked. Marked sections are open to public fishing, in accordance with agreements between the Department and private landowners. This is the only case where anglers are not required to have landowner permission before fishing on private water.
Stony Creek is stocked in each of the following periods:October (once),November or
December (once),January or February;(once),March (twice),April (twice),and May
(once).
Monday, March 05, 2007
Big game figures are cause for grins and frowns
By Bill Cochran
If you want to kill a bear, then get a crossbow. If you want to kill a turkey during the fall season, then pray.
Those are a couple of tidbits that can be gleaned from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' preliminary kill figures for the recent deer, bear and turkey hunting seasons.
Before I explain how crossbows and prayer figure into the equation, here is the raw data:
DEER: Hunters reported killing 223,198 deer, which was the second highest figure on record. It was a 4-percent increase over the previous season and 7-percent higher than the most recent 10-year average.
BEAR: The bear kill has been increasing nearly 8-percent annually the past decade and shows no indication of slowing. The recent season was up 13 percent over the previous one, settling on a record of 1,633, which was 122 more than the previous record of 2003.
TURKEY : The fall turkey kill continues to decline, dropping by 6 percent this time as it skidded to a dismal 4,143 total. You have to go back more than 20 years to find a lower figure; in fact, the kill was only about one-fourth the 16,861 record set in 1990.
You can get a whole lot more data from the game department's Web site, www.dgif.virginia.gov , which leaves me to point out some things I found interesting.
Hunters using hounds killed about 50 percent of the bears, which is little surprise since mild temperatures and decent mast kept the big animals active through the entire season. What is interesting, slightly more than one-quarter of the bears were killed during the bow/crossbow season, and 38 percent of these were taken by crossbows.
Sometimes hound hunters grow a bit disgruntled over the early season bow take, saying that the bow-season crowd may be killing a high percentage of females. That concern wasn't merited this time. The percentage of females taken during the bow/crossbow season was 32 percent while it was 33 percent during the hound season.
The fact that the female bear kill averaged just 35 percent for all seasons speaks well for the continued expansion of the bear population. I recall in the 70s when too many females were being killed and there was serious debate that the black bear was facing extinction in Virginia .
Now the concern has switched to turkeys. No one is saying turkeys face extinction, but the fall kill figures sure are plummeting. You have to wonder if the bear kill soon is going to exceed the fall turkey kill.
What's happening to our turkeys or our tradition of turkey hunting?
Wildlife officials continue to blame the decline on the weather. Cold conditions in March were believed to be responsible for delaying the onset of breeding and nesting, which diminished success. High rainfall in April resulted in poor nesting success and survival. A wet spring not only is tough on the chicks, but it also aids predators in finding nesting birds. Then, add to that, there was a good mast crop in the fall and that kept turkeys scattered.
I buy all this, but there has to be something more that we aren't considering. Most of us are seeing more turkeys than ever before. They are showing up everywhere but in the fall kill figures.
Could it be that the major problem isn't the recruitment of turkeys, but the recruitment of turkey hunters? Do we need to take a fresh look at regulations that were put in place in 1995 with the promise that the fall kill would increase by 77 percent in a decade?
The deer kill was the second highest on record, and no doubt would have been even higher had success not been hampered by warm weather during the early season and an abundant mast crop that kept deer scattered.
When it comes to deer management, near-record kills aren't exactly what game officials want, because they often are a red-flag indicator that the deer population is too high.
Hunters reported killing a record 96,951 does, but that might not have been enough to avoid problems in the future.
Here are the top-ten counties for deer, bear and turkey:
DEER
Bedford , 8,215
Loudoun, 6,627
Fauquier, 6,464
Southampton , 6,366
Franklin , 5,201
Pittsylvania, 4,590
Shenandoah, 4,389
Scott, 3,950
Albemarle , 3,910
Augusta , 3,889
BEAR
Rockinghan, 153
Madison , 95
Alleghany, 88
Augusta , 86
Rockbridge, 84
Albemarle , 66
Shenandoah, 66
Page, 60
Rappahannock , 57
Bath 56
TURKEY
Bedford , 157
Botetourt, 138
Scott, 138
Amelia, 132
Halifax , 129
Pittsylvania, 117
Franklin , 105
Shenandoah, 102
Dinwiddie, 90
Alleghany, 86
If you want to kill a bear, then get a crossbow. If you want to kill a turkey during the fall season, then pray.
Those are a couple of tidbits that can be gleaned from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' preliminary kill figures for the recent deer, bear and turkey hunting seasons.
Before I explain how crossbows and prayer figure into the equation, here is the raw data:
DEER: Hunters reported killing 223,198 deer, which was the second highest figure on record. It was a 4-percent increase over the previous season and 7-percent higher than the most recent 10-year average.
BEAR: The bear kill has been increasing nearly 8-percent annually the past decade and shows no indication of slowing. The recent season was up 13 percent over the previous one, settling on a record of 1,633, which was 122 more than the previous record of 2003.
TURKEY : The fall turkey kill continues to decline, dropping by 6 percent this time as it skidded to a dismal 4,143 total. You have to go back more than 20 years to find a lower figure; in fact, the kill was only about one-fourth the 16,861 record set in 1990.
You can get a whole lot more data from the game department's Web site, www.dgif.virginia.gov , which leaves me to point out some things I found interesting.
Hunters using hounds killed about 50 percent of the bears, which is little surprise since mild temperatures and decent mast kept the big animals active through the entire season. What is interesting, slightly more than one-quarter of the bears were killed during the bow/crossbow season, and 38 percent of these were taken by crossbows.
Sometimes hound hunters grow a bit disgruntled over the early season bow take, saying that the bow-season crowd may be killing a high percentage of females. That concern wasn't merited this time. The percentage of females taken during the bow/crossbow season was 32 percent while it was 33 percent during the hound season.
The fact that the female bear kill averaged just 35 percent for all seasons speaks well for the continued expansion of the bear population. I recall in the 70s when too many females were being killed and there was serious debate that the black bear was facing extinction in Virginia .
Now the concern has switched to turkeys. No one is saying turkeys face extinction, but the fall kill figures sure are plummeting. You have to wonder if the bear kill soon is going to exceed the fall turkey kill.
What's happening to our turkeys or our tradition of turkey hunting?
Wildlife officials continue to blame the decline on the weather. Cold conditions in March were believed to be responsible for delaying the onset of breeding and nesting, which diminished success. High rainfall in April resulted in poor nesting success and survival. A wet spring not only is tough on the chicks, but it also aids predators in finding nesting birds. Then, add to that, there was a good mast crop in the fall and that kept turkeys scattered.
I buy all this, but there has to be something more that we aren't considering. Most of us are seeing more turkeys than ever before. They are showing up everywhere but in the fall kill figures.
Could it be that the major problem isn't the recruitment of turkeys, but the recruitment of turkey hunters? Do we need to take a fresh look at regulations that were put in place in 1995 with the promise that the fall kill would increase by 77 percent in a decade?
The deer kill was the second highest on record, and no doubt would have been even higher had success not been hampered by warm weather during the early season and an abundant mast crop that kept deer scattered.
When it comes to deer management, near-record kills aren't exactly what game officials want, because they often are a red-flag indicator that the deer population is too high.
Hunters reported killing a record 96,951 does, but that might not have been enough to avoid problems in the future.
Here are the top-ten counties for deer, bear and turkey:
DEER
Bedford , 8,215
Loudoun, 6,627
Fauquier, 6,464
Southampton , 6,366
Franklin , 5,201
Pittsylvania, 4,590
Shenandoah, 4,389
Scott, 3,950
Albemarle , 3,910
Augusta , 3,889
BEAR
Rockinghan, 153
Madison , 95
Alleghany, 88
Augusta , 86
Rockbridge, 84
Albemarle , 66
Shenandoah, 66
Page, 60
Rappahannock , 57
Bath 56
TURKEY
Bedford , 157
Botetourt, 138
Scott, 138
Amelia, 132
Halifax , 129
Pittsylvania, 117
Franklin , 105
Shenandoah, 102
Dinwiddie, 90
Alleghany, 86
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