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Baiting and concurrent season concern for bear hunters

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Bear Hunters Association has grown increasingly skeptical of the concurrent black bear season in West Virginia.  Association President Eric Beck and past president Don Radcliff both spoke during the public portion of last month’s Natural Resources Commission meeting expressing those concerns.

“Basically our November gun concurrent season we’re giving people entitlement to go kill bear, which is fine, but at the same time we’re letting them kill them over bait,” Beck said. “Whether we’re willing to admit it or not baiting is being used and you can show by the mast years that baiting is being used for bear hunting.”

It’s against the law to hunt bear over bait in West Virginia.  Actually it’s illegal to hunt anything over bait in West Virginia except deer and therein lies the rub with Beck and Radcliff.

“The way it is now, even though he has a bear damage stamp, if he’s sitting over a pile of corn during deer season, you can’t do a thing to him unless there’s a dead bear lying there beside that corn,” said Radcliff.

Radcliff and Beck would both like to see baiting outlawed completely. The fight has been tried before without success and there’s no indication it would be any easier to do away with baiting deer now than it was years ago.  Radcliff suggested a different idea.

He proposed having two different stamps for bear hunting. Radcliff suggested everybody be required to buy the normal bear damage stamp, but if you’re actually wanting to kill the bear all hunters be required to buy a “harvest stamp” in addition to the regular bear damage stamp.

“On that harvest stamp it’s going to say you can’t hunt over bait,” he said. “So if you’re up there in that tree stand and you’ve got that ‘harvest’ stamp in your pocket and you’re hunting over bait, you’re going to be cited.  No longer can you use the excuse, ‘Oh, I’m hunting deer.'”

Radcliff’s and Beck’s remarks were made during the public portion of the meeting. They were not part of any official proposal.  However, they did receive blow back from Larry Lawson a long-time advocate with the West Virginia Bowhunters Association.

“The bear in this state belong to everyone,” Lawson stated emphatically during his time at the mic during the public portion. “Not just the bear hunters (association).”

The DNR’s wildlife section offered up the proposed regulations for 2015’s fall bear season. They again include a concurrent gun season to coincide with buck hunting season in 29 West Virginia Counties.

Hunters would need to be drawn for a permit to kill a bear during buck season in Barbour, Taylor, Tucker, Grant, Hardy, Pendleton, Braxton, Clay, Lewis, Pocahontas, Randolph, Upshur, Webster, McDowell, Mercer, Monroe, Summers, and Calhoun Counties.

No drawn permit would be necessary during the concurrent buck/bear season  in Monongalia, Preston, Berkeley, Hampshire, Jefferson, Morgan, Nicholas, Fayette, Raleigh, Boone, and Kanawha Counties.

The concurrent season was implemented in an effort to control bear numbers in areas not traditionally hunted by houndsmen.  Radcliff and Beck worried the original intent has been exploited and it is negatively impacting bear numbers.

“I agree there are areas in this state where we can’t run dogs.  I know that and fully understand that.  That was how it was put to us when the originally came out with this concurrent deer and bear season,” said Radcliff. “But now, to me, it’s become their ‘go-to’ management tool.  This is the management tool they’re going to use from now on to control the bear population.”

The proposals call for a statewide archery season for bear September 26- November 21 and December 7-December 31.

The traditional bear season from December 7-31 would remain unchanged. Bear hunters who run dogs would also get the opportunity at the special early season September 19-25 in all or parts of 15 counties.

The Natural Resources Commission will finalize the proposed season dates and bag limits after the March sectional meetings and comment period for hunters on the proposals.





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