Posted By:
TRM
Web Member
09-02-2010 20:47
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Shot some doves today scratched that trigger finger itch. had my 15 by 420. was on track to do it in one box, but ended up just under 2 full boxes. Had a couple brain cramps.
Posted By:
Corey-Cordray
Guest
South Zone 09-01-2010 17:24
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – Over 70 Degrees
Not a bad way to start the year. Managed to kill seven honkers and have three of them be banded. Birds didn’t really like us until about 10:30 or so. I think we’ll try it again on Saturday.
Posted By:
Wild Bill
Guest
Local corn field 09-01-2010 10:28
Mostly Sunny, No Precipitation – Over 70 Degrees
Ok I’ll let you know how the “Texas Dove Loads” do. Shot my 15 doves in 45 min this am. Shot 32 times. I made a good choice on these loads. You need to try them!
Posted By:
Wild Bill
Guest
08-12-2010 21:01
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Can anyone give me any personal reviews on the shot shell “Texas Dove Load” I just ordered a case and hope I didn’t make a mistake!
Posted By:
Wild Bill
Guest
08-12-2010 21:01
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Can anyone give me any personal reviews on the shot shell “Texas Dove Load” I just ordered a case and hope I didn’t make a mistake!
Posted By:
Wild Bill
Guest
08-12-2010 20:59
– – Over 70 Degrees
Does anyone know any late info on the new lake that was proposed for Sullivan CO.
Posted By:
Bert Holtzman
Field Editor
More Great News 06-21-2010 22:09
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SCOTTSBURG, Ind. — A wide swath of Muscatatuck River bottoms stretching across three Southern Indiana counties and 45,600 acres will be preserved for wildlife and opened for hunting, fishing and hiking under an ambitious project Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Friday.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources will immediately begin acquiring the land from willing sellers with the goal of protecting habitat for amphibians, reptiles and waterfowl as well as enhancing flood control in the region and bolstering the state’s hardwood forests.
The project will “create one of the state’s largest complexes of both upland and lowland forest, attracting abundant waterfowl and migratory songbirds,” said Mary McConnell, state director of The Nature Conservancy, who attended the announcement at the Hardy Lake State Recreation Area in Scott County.
“This is an incredibly, incredibly significant property,” she said.
Much of the land should be acquired in the next two years using $21.5 million from hunting and fishing license fees and $10 million from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, DNR officials said. But no landowner will be required to sell.
Daniels said the project was one of “lasting and large importance” in Indiana and continues his administration’s “record” pace of land conservation.
In fact, the Daniels’ visit to Hardy Lake came just one day after the governor announced in Terre Haute that the state would begin acquiring 43,000 acres of land located along 94 miles of the Wabash River and Sugar Creek in west central Indiana.
That project is expected to be the largest conservation project in Indiana history. The Muscatatuck Bottoms project would be the second largest.
It will essentially link two divergent sections of the Jackson-Washington State Forest. McConnell said it will also serve as the hub of a wheel whose spokes include Spring Mill State Park, the Hardy Lake State Recreation Area and other state and federal properties.
Friday’s announcement took place at Hardy Lake, where conservation officers, wildlife advocates and lawmakers gathered to applaud the project.
“This is one of those opportunities of a decade,” said John Goss, executive director of the Indiana Wildlife Federation and a former state DNR director.
In all, the project will include land in Scott, Washington and Jackson counties that is largely undeveloped forest and home to several species that state officials said are endangered or threatened, including birds such as the yellow-crowned night heron, least bittern, red-shouldered hawk and Cerulean warbler.
Two state-endangered reptiles — the Kirtland’s snake and copperbelly watersnake — also are found along the Muscatatuck forests as well as the featherfoil, a state-endangered plant. The forest is characterized by several species of oak, hickory and sweet gum.
Although much of the land has been undisturbed, the state will undertake some restoration efforts to turn farmland back into forests, said Mark Reiter, director of the DNR’s division of fish and wildlife. That includes replanting the hardwood trees that are native to the region.
Scottsburg Mayor Bill Graham said Friday he is pleased the state won’t use eminent domain to take any land and he believes most property owners will sell willingly.
He thinks the resulting recreation area will be a boon to the region’s economic development efforts and Graham told the governor he’d start working on the tourism plan immediately. He pointed on a map where Scottsburg already has a trail system close to the proposed recreation area and said the city will consider expanding it into the space.
Graham acknowledged that the project will take some land off the property tax rolls but he said the “benefits far outweigh any costs.”
A few of the tracts in the proposed recreation area already are owned by the state and some by The Nature Conservancy, which recently spent about $1.5 million buying more than 1,000 acres in the area.
Reiter said the group will likely sell that property to the state at a discount and could help with the purchase of additional parcels. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and Ducks Unlimited are also expected to help with the project.
“I have goose bumps today just thinking about what we’re doing,” said state Rep. Terry Goodin, D-Crothersville, whose district includes much of the Muscatatuck Bottoms property. “As development continues over the next 50 or 75 or 100 years, people are going to look back at this move — at all this preserved land — and think that it was an awesome idea.”
Posted By:
Bert Holtzman
Field Editor
Great news for IN 06-11-2010 15:33
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Groundbreaking wetland initiative seeks to encompass 43,000 acres
Spans four counties, 94 river miles of Sugar Creek, Wabash River
TERRE HAUTE — Indiana is making plans to acquire up to 43,000 acres along the Wabash River and Sugar Creek floodplain in west-central Indiana, part of an unprecedented land conservation/
wetlands project that will benefit wildlife, public recreation and the environment.
Gov. Mitch Daniels announced the initiative Thursday at The Landing. He spoke outdoors, with the Wabash River flowing in the background.
The area involved, which follows 94 river miles along the Wabash River, stretches across four counties from Shades State Park to Fairbanks Landing Fish & Wildlife Area in Sullivan County.
The planned Wabash River wetlands area is expected to be larger than the combined size of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest and Brown County State Park.
“It will be one continuous wildlife habitat, one of the largest in the eastern United States,” Daniels said. His comments drew applause from the large crowd.
The project, which includes two separate habitat areas, is the largest ever undertaken by the Department of Natural Resources. Daniels will announce the second part of the project, located in southeastern Indiana, today.
Daniels said the goal is to make Indiana a national leader in wetlands and wildlife protection. “Coupled with Goose Pond [in Greene County], our experts believe that the new, 94-mile continuous Wabash River habitat will become one of the major Eastern U.S. waterfowl destinations and a tourist destination along with it,” he said.
The state will use $21.5 million from the Lifetime License Trust Fund, a state trust fund dedicated to conservation purposes, and $10 million from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to begin the acquisitions. That investment will leverage millions of dollars in additional private and federal funding for both the protection and restoration of the corridor.
The Lifetime License Trust Fund contains revenue from the sale of lifetime fishing, hunting and trapping licenses. No state tax dollars are involved.
Additional support will come from The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and Ducks Unlimited, a national conservation group based in Memphis, Tenn.
Mary McConnell, Indiana state director for the Nature Conservancy, described the project as “the most amazing and perhaps the most significant investment in conservation in a generation in Indiana. It’s exactly the kind of project that we should be working on as a state,” she said.
The Wabash corridor has long been a priority for the nature conservancy, she said. The Wabash is “Indiana’s river,” she said. It is 475 miles long and one of the most biologically diverse rivers in the country, she said.
The DNR will work to acquire land in the area from willing sellers, building upon the recent excitement regarding the Wabashiki Fish & Wildlife Area, a proposed 7,000-acre project along the Wabash River in West Terre Haute.
McConnell credited local partners involved with the Wabashiki project as being a catalyst for the larger project announced Thursday. “It’s the local partners here that have had a vision from the very beginning,” she said, naming John Mutchner, Keith Ruble and Max Miller. She also referred to Wabash River Development and Beautification Inc., Riverscape and the Vigo County Parks and Recreation Department.
After the governor’s announcement, Miller said the wetlands project will have a major impact not only on wildlife and waterfowl, but on the local economy as well. “We [Terre Haute] are the central city of this project,” he said.
Miller described it as a “once-in-a-lifetime chance” to use a dedicated state trust fund, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funds and other private funding to create the Wabash River wetlands corridor. “I think it’s a legacy that he [Daniels] has put together,” Miller said.
Miller said he may not be around when the project is completed, but “it’s for my grandkids. It’s for the future.”
Robert D. Hoffman, director of Ducks Unlimited for the Great Lakes/Atlantic Regional office, said during the news conference, “This is unprecedented for a state to be developing a corridor … with this many acres.” He described it as an “amazing” initiative
“We should all be very, very proud of what’s going on here,” Hoffman said.
Ducks, geese and other waterfowl that migrate from the Arctic and Canada down through the United States to Mexico will find more and better habitat in Indiana, he said. It will change local migration patterns of waterfowl in this portion of the Mississippi Flyway.
“This is fantastic news” for waterfowl enthusiasts in Indiana, Hoffman said.
While the project could take several years, Daniels said it’s the state’s goal “to make this real as fast as it can practically be done.”
He thanked private and public groups who came together “to do something I hope generations of Hoosiers will look back and be grateful for and enjoy.”
In an interview, Daniels said he believes the Wabash River wetlands project will eventually become known nationally as a wildlife habitat, drawing tourists and outdoor recreation enthusiasts. He also hopes it means a boost to the Terre Haute economy.
The project also will bring significant flood control advantages, the governor said, one reason the federal government is participating.
It will involve purchase of property that can be adversely impacted by flooding, including farmland.
As the project develops, the goal will be to provide plenty of public access for fishing and other outdoor recreational activities, said Nick Heinzelman, DNR director of land acquisition. The state’s goal is “to try to connect the bigger parcels we already own into a continual habitat corridor down the river.”
The property will be acquired from “willing sellers, something that will take time,” Heinzelman said. Some people will be ready to sell their floodplain property immediately, while others may want to wait a few years. Some people may not sell at all.
The overall Wabash project eventually will be six times larger than the 8,000-acre Goose Pond Fish & Wildlife Area, which was purchased in 2006.
Other key objectives of the initiative are to protect habitat for threatened and endangered species; preserve significant rest areas for migratory birds, especially waterfowl, and to create a regionally significant conservation destination.
Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett said the Wabash River wetlands project represents “a once-in-a lifetime project. You don’t have many things that are this large in scale. Terre Haute sits right in the heart of it. We all stand to benefit from this state project.”
Posted By:
Wild Bill
Guest
Sullivan County 02-16-2010 08:47
Sunny & Clear, Winds Calm – 10-20 Degrees – Open Water
Hunted Sat to watch the birds go out to feed then come back in 15 min after shooting hr. My question – why don’t they open the whole state up for the 15 day season?
Posted By:
kayakis
Web Member
elkhart co. feb goose hunt 02-15-2010 19:39
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well had the best hunt of this late season today.shot 1 goose on the river in the morning… then hunted our regular field in the afternoon finished off with 4 more birds for my 5 bird limit. for the 3 of us in the late season jimmy 7 adam 4 tim 5 ………..
