Small game season coming
04/11/07 10:51
New Jersey's second-most-popular hunting season will open Saturday -- small game.
When an estimated 35,000 hunters go out for pheasants, rabbits, quail, foxes and coyotes at 8 a.m. that day, they'll join bowhunters who have been hunting our most popular game, deer, since September. The Division of Fish and Wildlife will stock about 60,000 pheasants at 23 wildlife management areas, including Black River and Berkshire Valley in Morris County, as well as at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
In addition to a hunting license, a $40 pheasant and quail stamp is required to hunt these birds at the state stocked areas, but don't look for any quail up here. About 11,000 will be stocked at Greenwood Forest and Peaslee WMAs in South Jersey. Wherever you hunt, remember there are a lot of people waiting for anyone who does anything wrong, so observe no-trespassing signs and be sure of your targets.
New Jersey's biggest sportsmen's rally thanked the enemies of fishing and hunting at the "Battle of Monmouth" last Sunday.
Several speakers at the N.J. Outdoor Alliance event said the two sponsors of bills to destroy the Fish and Game Council and remove "food and recreation" from hunting and fishing regulations finally got the attention of formerly lethargic hunters and anglers, who filled five acres of parking at the Clarksburg Inn.
The 500 conservationists from throughout the state heard Assemblymen (and women), Senate and Assembly candidates and leaders of hunting, shooting, fishing and trapping organizations warn what to expect if the 11-member Council was replaced by a council of Governor Corzine's political appointees, and fish and wildlife management would be big on "nonlethal," without fish and game being considered food and recreation.
If you weren't there, you wouldn't have read about that in the next day's editions of the two newspapers (Star Ledger and Asbury Park Press) that covered the event. The legislators who spoke were not mentioned in their stories, but an antihunting assemblyman who wasn't there was quoted. Typical. Seventy-five antis held a rally the day before, had three photos and a story in the Sunday Monmouth paper.
Reporters didn't write that legislators from the Senate and Assembly said they would introduce a constitutional amendment at the Nov. 8 quorum call to protect our rights to hunt and fish, which is what at least 30 states have done. The rally was a success. Now the real test is whether hunters, anglers and others in the 12th District can unseat the two incumbents who want to kill the Council.
Antihunters failed when they attempted before to control the Council and stop hunting, said Jim Hutchinson, executive editor of "The Fisherman," even though hunting and fishing brings millions of dollars to the state's General Fund and hunting and fishing licenses and permits contribute $12-million annually while antihunters contribute nothing to conservation. He's right. All they do is complain, look for donations and members.
Tom Fote of the Jersey Coast Anglers Assn. told of being at a children's fishing contest when PETA demonstrators dressed like fish told the kids fishing was cruel. Assemblyman Joseph Malone said hunters and anglers shouldn't be made scapegoats by people who don't like hunting and fishing, and Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck asked who would "pick up the tab" if hunters didn't take 60,000 deer annually.