Can’t get enough Mike Iaconelli
Andy Thompson
March 31, 2008 9:02 PM
My parents regularly send me articles from the Philadelphia Inquirer, my hometown newspaper. This one about bass fishing superstar (I use that term loosely) Mike Iaconelli is interesting. This dude is both nuts and a Philly native. Those two facts are almost certainly related.
Exhibit A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpfPlvLEp2Q
Exhibit B: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZc9gKonOYA
More on fish kills
Andy Thompson
March 29, 2008 7:02 AM
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries released this yesterday on its efforts to understand what’s been causing fish kills in the Shenandoah, James, Maury and Cowpasture Rivers over the past few years. There’s a lot of good information in here.
Dr. Evil would ask if they’re ill tempered…
Andy Thompson
March 28, 2008 1:46 PM
Note to self: Lay off the Chilean salmon…
Read this...
Apparently Costco and Safeway are big buyers of these fish.
(For the Austin Powers illiterate, here’s the Dr. Evil reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh7bYNAHXxw)
Watch the shad row…upstream!
Andy Thompson
March 27, 2008 6:35 AM
I know, I know: Puns are the lowest form of comedy. I couldn’t help myself. Anyway…
Anadromous hickory and American shad are making their yearly run up the James River to spawn, and because of a cool feature on the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Website, you can watch them go. The DGIF has installed a shad cam in the Bosher’s Dam fishway (Bosher’s Dam is the one you can see from the Willey Bridge over the James).
Here’s a link to info about the DGIF’s efforts to restore shad populations in Virginia.
http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/shad-restoration/
False Cape State Park
Andy Thompson
March 26, 2008 10:32 AM
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Three down, nine to go!
The March entry in my state park series is False Cape. I visited Monday with my dad and high school friend John Hassler. We biked in via the beach along Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge and came back yesterday. It was a little on the cold side and darn windy, but still a great time. False Cape is one of the least visited state parks in the system because it’s so isolated (overnighters must choose between hiking, biking or kayaking in the 5 miles through Back Bay NWR). That’s why I was as excited for this trip as any on the list: How many places on America’s East Coast can you stand on the beach, turn around 360 degrees and see no signs of humanity? Not many is my guess. The only place I’ve been that’s similar is Cape Lookout National Seashore on N.C.’s Outer Banks.
The only disappointment? The Back Bay/False Cape area is the only place in the state with feral hogs. We didn’t see a one. We saw lots of signs—wallows, rooted up areas, tracks. But no hogs. Maybe next time.
Look for the column in Friday’s Sports section. The Web version will include a slideshow of pics from the trip.
Fish kills in the James River
Andy Thompson
March 23, 2008 7:03 AM
It’s becoming a rite of spring like any other. Blooming dogwoods, budding azaleas and fish kills in western Virginia. The above pic (by Shenandoah riverkeeper Jeff Kelbe) is of a redbreast sunfish and shows the kind of lesions fish are exhibiting.
This time the first reports came in from the James River in Rockbridge County near Glasgow where the Maury enters. The fisherman who reported the kill said he saw about 20 dead smallmouth bass. In the past, the kills have affected smallmouth bass, rock bass and redbreast sunfish.
The phenomenon started in 2004 in the North Fork of the Shenandoah River, and expanded to the James, Cowpasture and Maury Rivers last spring.
Here’s the DGIF’s report on the fish kills: http://www.dgif.state.va.us/fishing/fish-kills.asp
It has some good information and related links.
This article from the Harrisonburg Daily News Record also has some background and speculation on the causes of the kills.
http://www.dnronline.com/news_details.php?AID=15703&CHID=2#
And this one by the T-D’s Rex Springston goes into more detail on past fish kills.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/969908/killer_of_fish_in_western_va_eases_scientists_search_for/index.html
What the heck, here’s another link. You can never have too much info, right? It’s from the Clarke (Co.) Times-Courier:
http://www.fnfsr.org/site/Fish%20Kill%20Information.html
Pedaling the Atlantic…underwater
Andy Thompson
March 21, 2008 7:35 AM
How boring would the world be without crazy people?
I read a snippet about this in Outside magazine a while back. Some guy named Ted Ciamillo plans to pedal a specialized submarine from West Africa to the Caribbean (2,300 miles) this spring. The sub takes his pedal strokes and transfers that power to a foil that mimics the motion of a dolphin’s tail. It’s pretty amazing. Check out the videos and description at http://www.subhumanproject.com.
Hog wild!
Andy Thompson
March 19, 2008 8:49 AM
Rob Cox wrote an article for the the Wall Street Journal recently on hunting wild boar in Florida. It piqued my interest because this Monday I’m heading to False Cape SP with my father and a friend to do some camping for my state parks series. The False Cape area, including the Back Bay NWR, is the only place in the state where you can find wild hogs. There are lottery hunts for hogs in the fall, but I’m just hoping to get close enough next week to get a picture of one of two. I spoke with a ranger at the park, and she said it shouldn’t be a problem finding the beasts. The park has a population well in the hundreds, she said.
If you want to read more about wild boars in this country (and, really, who doesn’t?), check out this New Yorker article by Ian Frazier from a couple of years
ago. It goes into the history, biology and hunting of feral swine.
http://www.wesjones.com/hogswild.htm
And, of course, no hog blog would be complete without a reference to Hogzilla—King of Feral Swine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogzilla
More on Outer Banks beach access
Andy Thompson
March 18, 2008 7:38 AM
Judging by the emails in my inbox and articles I’ve seen in other newspapers in the region—Charlotte, Va. Beach, Raleigh—the issue of beach access for off-road vehicles on Hatteras Island and some of the surrounding beaches (Ocracoke, for instance) has taken on a life of its own. For a summary and some links to the groups involved, scroll down to my previous post on the matter. This is the latest from the Island Free Press of Ocracoke and Hatteras.
http://www.islandfreepress.org/2008Archives/03.16.2008-ResponseFromDareHydeAndCHAPA.html
At the center of the disagreement between environmental groups and North Carolina’s Dare and Hyde Counties is the piping plover and the habitat that groups like the Audubon Society say it needs to reproduce. Needless to say, the people who live and work on Hatteras and the many that come there to vacation and fish do not want want their beach access limited by the shore bird.
Here’s the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s report on that habitat: http://www.fws.gov/nc-es/piplch/piplch.html
Riverside Outfitters
Andy Thompson
March 16, 2008 7:56 AM
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One of the things Matt Perry of Riverside Outfitters and I talked about during our recent conversation was how persistent drought conditions affect a business like his that’s so reliant on weather. He said by the end of last summer they had to cancel a number of trips down the James because the water was below 3.5 feet. For some perspective, at 5-6 feet you have Class IV rapids. At 4-4.5 feet you don’t have huge waves but his guides can turn the boats around and surf in the waves, which can’t be done when the river is way up.
“As long as it’s north of 3.8 you can make it a fun experience,” he said.
RO will take its first customers of the 2008 season down the river on April 5th. If you want big whitewater—some of those Class IV rapids—April and May are the months to go before the summer low-water doldrums set in.
By the way, the National Weather Service’s link for the Westham Gauge on the James has some cool figures on historical floods in Richmond as well as giving the current river level.
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