StarDestroyer.Net BBS

MKSheppard wrote:My brother is away at the courthouse for his college course on criminal justice,
blah blah, and the case he's watching concerns a West Virginian woman
who offed a woman from Frederick, MD...

LadyTevar wrote:

MKSheppard wrote:My brother is away at the courthouse for his college course on criminal justice,
blah blah, and the case he's watching concerns a West Virginian woman
who offed a woman from Frederick, MD...

Wonder why?

Darth Servo wrote: Shep, I assume there's a point to this

A pointed promotion

Governor mixes business, pleasure
on bowhunting trip to Logan County

Friday November 07, 2003; 10:00 AM

CHAPMANVILLE -- It's good to be the governor.

If someone, say, asks you to promote an activity you enjoy in a corner of the state renowned for that activity, what do you do?

If you're Gov. Bob Wise, you say, "Sure. I'll go bowhunting in Southern West Virginia."

Wise admittedly mixed a little business with pleasure Thursday by spending a rainy day sitting in a tree stand, waiting for one of Logan County's famous trophy bucks to happen along.

"I don't get too many days out hunting," the sopping-wet governor said during a brief lunch break. "This gave me the chance to do my job and get in a little recreation at the same time."

Ed Hamrick, director of the Division of Natural Resources, asked Wise to participate in a videotaped hunt, with the idea that the video's broadcast would help lure more hunters to the state's four bowhunting-only counties.

Since 1979, firearm hunting for deer has been illegal in Logan, McDowell, Mingo and Wyoming counties. The gun ban was imposed because deer populations in those counties had been reduced to dangerously low levels.

Not only did the counties' whitetail populations rebound, they also rebounded with a nearly ideal doe-to-buck ratio. That, combined with a good basic gene pool and an excellent forage base, created a deer herd with big bodies and bucks with big antlers.

Wise and Hamrick said it's now time for the state to begin promoting to the rest of the country a resource that, up until now, has mostly been West Virginia bowhunters' own little secret.

"You can view today as a step in that direction," Hamrick said.

Wise believes the counties' unique trophy-deer situation might provide an ideal lure with which to attract out-of-state and foreign business executives who enjoy hunting.

"Hunting is a gateway sport," he said. "If we can get some business executives in here for hunting -- and they enjoy the experience -- they might decide to come back for something else, either for some other form of recreation or to start a business here."

As an example, the governor cited an encounter he had a few years back with a German business executive.

"We were making conversation, and I asked him if it was difficult to get a hunting license in Germany," Wise said. "He said it was easier to get a Ph.D. than it was to get a hunting license. I told him it was much, much easier here in West Virginia, and that our deer hunting was very, very good.

"He came over here and hunted, and fell in love with the state. His son came over as a high-school exchange student. Long story short, he eventually moved the headquarters of his business here."

Wise said the other point he hoped to make with his daylong hunt was to encourage bowhunters who frequent the four bow-only counties to kill does as well as bucks.

"I'm not necessarily hunting for a trophy here," he said. "I have an important responsibility to try to reduce, if nothing else, the antlerless-deer population."

Kenny Wilson, a DNR Commission member who lives in nearby Chapmanville, applauded the governor's efforts on both counts.

"The word is just starting to get out about these counties, so the governor is doing us a favor in helping to promote the hunting here," Wilson said. "People also need to understand that it's important that we start harvesting some antlerless deer as well as the bucks. That way, the deer population won't get out of control the way it has in other parts of the state."

Wilson said Logan County is just starting to reap the benefits of increased tourism.

"We have a lot of people coming here to ride ATVs on the Hatfield-McCoy Trail network," he said. "When they find out how good the deer hunting is, and how big the bucks are, they come back for hunting."

The result, he added, is that the area is experiencing a motel-building boom.

"Several new motels have opened in the last few years. Two motels that had closed have re-opened, and we're getting ready to put in a 70-room lodge at Chief Logan State Park," he said.

Although the business end of Wise's field trip went well enough, the pleasure end came up a little short. The governor spent a 10-hour day in his tree stand but didn't see any deer. He heard one snort as he hiked back to his stand after lunch, and he heard several nearby during the afternoon, but none materialized out of the rain and fog.

Wise took a philosophical approach toward the skunking, though.

"You think of a lot of things while you're sitting in a tree stand," he said. "Last week, when I was hunting in Gilmer County -- also on a rainy day -- I worked out a lot of this year's legislative agenda.

"I view today's hunt as part of my constituent service package; I go out and attract all the rain, and I leave the nice days for other hunters to enjoy."