Issues proposed at the DNR annual public meeting.

Last Monday, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources held its annual public meeting at East Fairmont High School to discuss proposed hunting, trapping and fishing regulations.

I had to work, so unfortunate­ly I couldn’t attend the meeting. But a couple issues were pro­posed that caught the interest of fishermen and deer hunters.

The proposal that has seemed to generate attention among the bass fishermen around the area has to do with changing the catch and release at Stonewall Jackson Lake to allowing a limit of six black bass, with one allowed to be more than 18 inches long.

I called Frank Jernejcic, the warm-water biologist for our state. Present catch-and-release regulations have been in place since the lake was created 25 years ago. They were intended to be re-evaluated after 10 years, but never were.

He said that over the past five years officials have been receiv­ing reports that the quality of the black bass has gone down over the years. So they started to look at condition factors of the Stonewall Lake.

They found that the fish are skinnier than the normal stan­dard and skinnier than fish in other lakes they compared them to.

“That leads us to have to thin the fish out to reduce the popula­tion because it’s the right thing to do biologically,” Jernejcic said. “We believe that the over­population of bass has led to the less-healthier bass.”

In other words, he explained, there are too many bass for the area in which they live.

The new proposal to keep six black bass per day but with only one being more than 18 inches should help get the lake back to a healthier place for the bass.

Jernejcic pointed out that their position is to maximize the recreational opportunities con­sistent with the best biological conditions for the fish.

The second big topic present­ed was a proposal to change the annual buck bag limit to two bucks.

The way I understand it is you can kill two bucks in the appro­priate seasons just like always except if you want to kill your two bucks in bow season, you would have to kill a doe before you can kill your second buck.

Like I always say, you need to read the laws for yourself or call the DNR and ask for yourself. Here is the website with all the new proposals for you to read:www.wvdnr.gov/2013%20sec­tional% 20questionnaire.pdf.

If you’re in favor of or against any of these proposals, mail the questionnaire to the DNR with your views, and it will be viewed. I would love to see us get the buck limit down to two — that would be a great start in West Virginia for a more consis­tent quality of bucks.