Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030086
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"This is the best thing that has been done that I can think of," said Del. Vic Thomas of Roanoke, who sponsored the bill and fought for its passage. "Now we can be up front with the sportsmen."
With the boat tax money going into the General Fund, the state's boat program has been operating about $2 million in the red annually, a shortfall that has been made up by hunters and fishermen.
The titling tax should make the boat program self-sustaining and free the hunting and fishing funds that have been used to bail it out.
The one drawback - and it is a big one - is the Senate bill doesn't begin the re-routing of funds until 1996, so the game and fish department is destined to suffer through more years of famine until then.
\ JUMBO STRIPERS: Steve Rigney of Altavista reeled in what likely is the best striped bass catch of the new season, a 34-pound giant he hooked on a deep-running Red Fin at Leesville Lake.
Johnny Worrell of Dublin landed an 18-pound, 9-ounce striper from Claytor Lake. (For a more detailed fishing report, call InfoLine, 981-0100 in Roanoke and 382-0200 in the New River Valley. Enter category 3016.)
\ FISHING FUNDS: Sportsmen from across the state and as far away as North Carolina attended a banquet in Charlottesville, where they raised more than $10,000 to defend public fishing rights on the Jackson River below Gathright Dam.
"The last two days, we had to turn them away," said Jim Brewer, one of the organizers. "I think the final count was 328 people. I've never seen a response from fishermen like this."
Anglers were joined by sportsmen representing organizations of canoers, turkey hunters, bass anglers, bear hunters, deer hunters and duck hunters. The unity may have been just as important as the money.
A number of landowners along the trout stream claim they have crown grants that give them ownership of the fishing rights. Some of the banquet money will be used to determine if that is a fact, Brewer said. Legal work so far shows that several of the landowners who claim crown grants really don't have them, he said.
\ HEARING SET: Westvaco's request to close to boating and fishing a 1.7-mile stretch of the Jackson River through its property near Covington will be the subject of a public hearing at 7 p.m. March 9 at Dabney Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge.
Outdoorsmen by the scores have opposed the closing in letters and calls to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The river is classified as navigable, but Westvaco officials say that boating through their property isn't safe.
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is opposed to the closing.
\ HAPPY TRAILS: The mountain bike community, including members of the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club, has purchased a chain saw and is tackling the tangle of downed timber that has blocked biking trails in the Jefferson National Forest.
"We rack-mount the saw on the back of the bike, which gives us fairly speedy access from one bomb zone to another, although that is rarely more than a couple of hundred feet," said Kyle Inman, a club member.
Four of the five race courses in the Virginia State Championship this year are on national forest trails.
\ ELK CELEBRATION: Members of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation grossed a record $53,500 at their Roanoke fund-raising banquet. A net total of $33,500 will go to the foundation's elk conservation projects, said John Rokisky, a committee member of the local chapter.
by CNB