ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 11, 1996 TAG: 9611120002
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
IF you were to ask Sheilah Hodges where she would most want to be tomorrow, she would tell you deer camp.
``This is like being at home,'' she said of the camp she shares with her husband, Gary, and her children, James and Melissa, along with other relatives and friends. ``Better than being at home. I don't have to worry about them wiping their feet.''
The camp is in the Tub Run area of the George Washington and Jefferson national forests north of New Castle.
It is composed of several pop-up tent trailers for sleeping quarters, and a 16-by-24-foot family room-kitchen framed with 2-by-4s and covered with heavy plastic on the sides and a blue tarp on the roof that gives everything an eerie look on the inside. The day's menu is barbecued ribs, mustard greens, boiled potatoes, baby limas and corn fritters.
At the back of the structure is a fire ring made of rocks, where the men gather to express tall imaginations and grand expectations, and where a nighttime poke at live ashes sends sparks upward into the November sky as if to join the stars. A badminton net nearby gets heavy use on weekends.
``Usually there are about 20 or 25 people who come in here to hunt,'' said Gary Hodges.
The camp doesn't have a formal name, and, if it did, there would be no grand lodge with trophy-laden walls to hang it on.
``We are just common people,'' said Sheilah Hodges. ``We can't pay outrageous amounts of money to belong to a fancy hunt club. But we are a hunt club. The Hodges Hunt Club.''
U.S. Forest Service officials have told the Hodgeses they must disassemble the camp and move it off forest property, right in the middle of the muzzleloading seasons. You can camp pretty much where you want to on the 2 million-acre forest, but there is a regulation that limits stays to 21 consecutive days. After that, the ruling says the camp must be moved off forest property for a minimum of 10 days. Then it can be reassembled.
The policy has been on the books for a number of years, but this is the first season it is being enforced with vigor in the New Castle Ranger District.
``I am sure it is the law,'' said Sheilah Hodges. ``I can understand they don't want you squatting on the national forest, but I believe when you buy your license to hunt you have the right to camp. We are the people who are using the national forest like it was intended, and they are going to put us off.''
The eviction notices, going out across the district, aren't something that Bob Boardwine, the district ranger, takes delight in.
``My basic philosophy is that people ought to be able to come out to the national forest and enjoy it and not be harassed by big government,'' he said. ``That is part of the reason why we have let it [the 21-day limit] slide.''
But the deer hunting season no longer is a two-week affair, he said. It begins with the bow season in early October, flows into the muzzleloading season, then the gun season, and goes out in early January with the late bow and muzzleloading seasons.
``People were coming out, some as early as September, and parking a camper or setting up a tent or somehow occupying a campsite,'' said Boardwine. ``They came earlier and we started having more and more trouble getting them out of there after the hunting season. They never seemed to have time to come back and get their equipment. If the weather got bad, then they couldn't get their equipment out. The worse case scenario, they came in September and didn't get out until mid-March or April.''
Boardwine said enforcing a 21-day limit is a matter of fairness.
``First of all, they are denying anybody else the opportunity to use that campsite,'' he said. ``They begin to exercise homestead rights.''
Fairness isn't the only issue, forest officials say. The camps, which are frequently vacant, have become targets of vandals and thieves.
``We have created an atmosphere where people can steal and it is difficult to catch and prosecute these people,'' said Woody Lipps, supervisor of law enforcement operations on the forest.
Campers frequently leave behind trash, along with the remnants of their camp, including tent poles and open-pit privies, Boardwine said.
``The classic example was on Tub Run,'' he said. ``We discovered a few years ago they had poured some concrete steps and a handrail down to the creek.''
``We don't abuse the forest,'' said Sheilah Hodges. ``We don't have waste and trash out there. When we leave it, this place will be just as clean as when got here - even cleaner. They should fine the ones who are trashing up the place, not the ones who are doing what they are supposed to do.''
The Hooverville-type camps are common in the New Castle District of the forest, particularly along Patterson Creek, Tub Run, Potts Mountain (Virginia 601) and Mill Creek, where they take on a "Grapes of Wrath" appearance..
Maybe they aren't much to look at, but they have heart, said Sheilah Hodges. The Hodges camp is a place where the joys, traditions and responsibilities of hunting are savored and passed onto new generations, she said.
``We stayed at home last year and hunted, and it just wasn't the same,'' she said. ``This is the way we choose to hunt. I don't think they have the right to say we can't.''
The gang at the Hodges camp said it would take them a couple of days to disassemble and reassemble their camp, and that would be a gross waste of hunting and camping time during the muzzleloading season.
``Maybe we could have understood if they had put the word out that we would have to move before we set up camp,'' said Gary Hodges.
``We didn't just decide this year that we were going to start pounding people on the 21-day limit,'' said Lipps. Three years ago forest officials began educating the public on the regulation, he said. Last year, foresters visited camps and left behind printed information on the policy. In a few instances, warning notices were issued.
The process is in various stages this year in other forest districts, Lipps said.
``Some people don't realize how many complaints we receive from the general public, from people who say, `I only have two days to hunt and I go out to camp on Patterson Creek and all the good sites are taken, but there are no people there, just equipment. It is not fair to me to take a secondary campsite while all these other people store their junk on the government.''
When asked how vigorous forest officials intend to police the 21-day limit, Lipps said: ``The law enforcement department's basic philosophy is this isn't a major criminal offense. And we are real busy right now. But we do believe that the regulation exists for a good reason. We are trying to encourage voluntary compliance.
``If you are there 22, 23, 24 days, probably our officers aren't even going to notice you. But for the individuals who come in September and establish a camp and they are still there three months later, then they are going to be receiving violation notices.''
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: BILL COCHRAN. 1. Gary and Sheilah Hodges, and their son,by CNBJames, at their hunting camp on Tub Run in Craig County. The
Hodgeses believe they have the right to stay on national forest
property as long as they wish. U.S. Forest Service officials have
told them the limit is 21 days. 2. The Hodges camp can look more
like a picnic than a deer camp. 3. (no caption) sign. color. Map by
Robert Lunsford. color.