The Daily Times-News from Burlington, North Carolina • Page 12

13-A BurllKgtoB (N.ft) Times-News, Wednesday, Dec. 22, 1971 1 --BY JIM DEAN THE NEW GAME LAND PROGRAM initiated by the N. C. Wildlife Resources Commission this year has passed its first test with flying colors. The program which went into effect with the current hunting season brings the amount of land being managed and protected for wildlife in the state to some two million acres, an increase of over a million acres.

When it was instituted prior to this hunting season, cooperative agreements were worked out to bring all four of the state's National Forests plus some large private tracts of land into the agreement. Also, the Wildlife Commission abandoned its previous long lists of special hunts, check stations and replaced a tangle of permits with a single $6 season Game Lands Use Permit which allows sportsmen to hunt any legal game or fish for mo.n' tin trout on the Game Lands throughout the legal sc-- -n as long as they have the required license. Many hunters i that the expansion of the Game Lands won I to infenor protection of game laws Some said the 3 Pro'ectors would be spread too thinly over such a large area Others were apprehensive that doing away with the check stations might lead to increased game violations. With part of a hunting season behind, none of these things have caused problems. Game Lands program is working fine, better even than we expected," says Don Curtis, Chief of the Division of Protection.

''If anything, it has eased our problems in game and fish law enforcement. "We expected our biggest problem to be an unsatisfactory distribution of hunters," says Curtis. "We were afraid that hunters might tend to concentrate in certain areas, but this hasn't happened. Hunters have spread themselves. "We also have learned that by doing away with the fixed check stations, we've been able to increase our efficiency as protectors.

Our new system of transient check points manned by mobile crews of Wildlife Protectors has worked extremely well. We've picked up many unlawful kills that we would have missed with fixed check stations because now, those who are violating game laws don't know where to expect us. One day, we might set up a check point on a road and check every hunter that passes, but at another hour or on another day, we could have our check point somewhere else." Hunters Cooperating Curtis is very enthusiastic about the way hunters have cooperated with the new program. "We've had the best cooperation from hunters that we've ever had," says Curtis. "These hunters like the system and they can see that it will work.

The result is that lawful hunters have turned in many violations far more than in the past. We appreciate it. It makes our job easier, and it provides better protection for our natural resources of game and fish." The new program means that the average hunter or fisherman now has a better chance of being checked by a Wildlife Protector than ever before. "We've always had random reports from people who say that they've been hunting for years and have never been checked," says Curtis. "That's just the law of averages.

Some hunters and fishermen get checked many times. "I recently received a letter from a man who said that he had been fishing four times this year and had been checked six times by eight different Wildlife Protectors. (Protectors often travel in pairs). This is rather unusual, but it only proves that some sportsmen just happen to get checked more often than others. Menhaden Catch Falls Far Short BEAUFORT MOREHEAD CITY AREA The largest commercial fishing boats that -fish North Carolina waters left here for home last week and fishermen aboard did not have much Christmas money jingling in their pockets.

They had a phenomenally bad fall season. The short and usually intense November and December season was almost a non-season, this a Historically plentiful schools of ocean migrating menhaden were not to be found. A few schools were caught and are still being caught, but Federal fisheries authorities say the N.C. fall catch this year will be a third to a half of last fall's catch of 40 million pounds. The fall catch a year ago was the lowest in 30 years, they said.

Manny Leaks of the Texas Chaparrab holds the ABA record for most rebounds with 35 against Kentucky in 1970. Alamaiiee-Caswell Hunt Club Displays Deer Kill Members of the Alamance-Caswell Hunting Club pose with excellent deer kill on recent hunt in the Butner area. Each year members participate in a hunt that usually terminates with resounding success, and the results of this year's outing was no different. Left to right above are Don Steagall, Ver- non Massey, Arthur Everett, Jerry Bowman, Jackie Rich, George Petty, H. G.

Summers, Dan Capp, E. C. Summers and Felix Cobb. Absent for photo were E. L.

Lowder, Vernon Blackwell, Lynn Blackwell, J. W. McCauley, G. D. Anderson and Steve Coley.

(Photo by L. G. James Jr.) Controversy Surrounds Big N.C. Blues East Hofstia 60, Mass. 56 Conn 68, Columbia 62 III wesleyan 88, lona 73 Princeton 83, Stanford 85 CCNY 80, Wagner 65 South Louisville 89, Alabama 70 C.

State 79, Davidson 67 Yale 85, Wake Forest 75 Memphis St. 79, Athletes In Action 73 Fla. So 108, Carroll 85 Term. Tech 75, Ball State 73 Midwest Purdue 88, Jose St. 62 Iowa 86, Nebraska 77 Cincinnati 93, Clemson 6t Marquette SS, Minnesota 40 Southwest Tex -El Paso 83, Colorado 57 Far West Colo St 109, Tcr Christian 78 UC-Santa Barbara 80, Montana SI Long Beach St 96, UC Riverside Michigan Invitational Championship Toledo 88, Michigan 72 Consolation Detroit 84, Ohio U.

77 By JOEL ARRINGTON When giant bluefish have come into the upper Outer Banks surf, sport fishermen have sometimes caught and killed more than they could haul away. Good or bad? During these blitzes of fish weighing 10 to over 25 pounds, beach haul seiners have caught thousands of pounds and sold them, often, for one cent per pound, if they could sell them at all. Last fall, I saw a catch of over 100 boxes (at 100 pounds of blues to the box) left on the beach for gulls because the netters learned, after the catch, that they could not sell them at any price. Good or bad? At least one authority came close to saying these "harvests" are good. Hal Lyman, publisher of "Salt Water Sportsman" magazine, said on a television outdoor show in Virginia a few weeks ago that "it is of no benefit for sport fishermen to release giant blues." For the publisher of a magazine dedicated to the preservation of natural resources, especially marine and es- taurine resources, this sounds like heresy.

At least on the face of it. But Lyman has method in his madness. In a telephone interview, he explained that bluefish populations vary widely, largely because they are subject to disease when they reach a certain number. "There is a worm found in the roe sack," he said, "which proliferates only when the bluefish population is large." It can suddenly reduce the numbers of bluefish to a rudimentary level, according to Lyman. He did not know whether the roe sack parasite infects intermediate-size and small blues.

ONE North Carolina authority, who asked that he not be named, could not corroborate Lyman's theory, but explained that controversy swirls around bluefish, even among scientists. He said one theory is that the Atlantic coast bluefish population is fed by fish which spawn off Florida. Against this is the theory that three or possibly four separate population centers exist along the Atlantic seaboard, each contributing to the total population, but with little interchange of fish. There also is the possibility that blues over a certain weight, say 15 pounds, are past their prime breeding age and therefore contribute little to population growth. If all or some of these theories are correct and are taken to their logical conclusion, beach haul seiners are doing sport fishermen a favor in the long run, and sportsmen should keep all their blues.

However, when commercial fishermen set their nets around 40 surfmen, some of them with fish on, and haul the bluefish school ashore, as I witnessed Thanksgiving weekend at Nags Head, just ask the anglers if they appreciate the "favor." Of course, netters have as much right to the fish as hook and line fishermen, and they are trying to make a few bucks in a trade that is difficult in the best of circumstances. But netters should be considerate of sportsmen. When those I watched Thanksgiving made their haul of 25 boxes, the going price 'of blues was one cent per pound. They made $25. There were five in the crew, so that splits down to five dollars per man, less overhead.

Here were about 40 surf fishermen, many from out-of- state, who had spent a considerable sum to stand in the wash and cast to big blues. What was their contribution to the Nags Head economy? permitted to haul away fish directly under anglers' rods. The economics of it quite aside, common should dictate that. Most sport fishermen would submit, I believe, to a reasonable daily creel limit of commercial netters were also restricted. But if Lyman and the others are right in their theories, there is no point in limits on bluefish.

But are they right? Even Lyman has doubts. "What we need is more research on bluefish," he said. ON THAT TRIP I was in a party of ten. including wives and children. We stayed at the beach for four days, and caught a total of ten bluefish and one spotted seatrout.

It's just a horseback guess, but we calculated that we spent over $200 for each fish. Certainly I am not now, and never have, advocated cessation of beach haul seining But there shouM be regulations which give surf fishermen and commercial fishermen equal opportunity Perhaps restricting certain sections of beach to commercial fishing and other sections to sport- fishing would solve the problem. Netters should not be NHL East Division New York Boston Montreal Toronto Vancvr Buffalo 21 21 19 15 Pts. GF GA 5 6 48 144 76 6 3 45124 70 4 7 45 116 67 9 8 38 96 85 20 Chicago Minn. Calif.

Pitts. Philaphia Pitts. St. Louis L. Angeles 4 20 73 115 7 21 6 20 86131 West Division 23 7 3 49 105 55 20 9 4 44 92 62 7 27 99 130 5 25 84 99 5 25 68 94 5 25 84 99 5 23 86109 1 15 67 127 10 16 10 18 10 16 10 18 9 19 7 24 Tuesday's Results Minnesota 3, Los Angeles 2 Only game scheduled Wednesday's Games Pittsburgh at New York Toronto at Montreal Vancouver at Detroit Los Angeles at St.

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