In this week's episode of We Love Outdoors with Rich Davenport, your humble host decided to release this podcast a day early, as he will be traveling next week, and wanted to make sure the audience has the updated true information and news that has happened in the past week
NYS has announced that the 2021 hunting season was the safest in recorded history in NY, as 9 Hunter Related Shooting Incidents occurred, with one sadly, being fatal. This despite more hunters in the woods, new hunting opportunities, lowering the hunting age from 14 to 12 and expanding big game hunting hours by 30 minutes on the beginning and end of each day. Two of the HRSIs were self-inflicted, one happened during pheasant hunting, and none of the incidents occurred during the new hunting hour periods. No youths were involved in any of the incidents, again, as it appears complacency is the cause, as the shooters all had at least 40 years of hunting experience. Elevated Hunting Incidents, former treestand incidents, came in at 10, with one being sadly fatal. All but one incident shared the common theme of no safety harness, and the one where the hunter did have a harness on, it wasn't attached to the tree.
In other news, comment periods for Access and Public Use plans for Canadaway and Hanging Bog WMAs close March 2, 2022, while comments on the updated State Forest Management plan closes March 4. Submit your comments and participate in this! And DEC has also released another propsal, amendment to DEC Campground and day use areas to address aquatic invasive species. Some of the language in the press release seems pretty offensive, as recreational vessels do not introduce the invasives, that would be foreign shipping vessels! Recreational watercraft can certainly help spread them once they are introduced.
The inaugural Chautauqua Lake Ice derby wraps up today at high noon, with entries accepted until 1:00 PM. Weather during the last part of February softened the shore ice to the point where it was nearly impossible to get on the lake. A cold spell coming up could tighten everything up for some March fishing.
However, in a preview of open water fishing, Connor Cinelli, son of charter captain Chris Cinelli, has won the Roger Toby steelhead tournament with a 12.58 lbs beast! Congrats young man!
And in record catch news, bass tournament angler Stephen Tyson, Jr. caught a monster striped bass while fishing an Arkansas Bass Fishing league tournament on Hamilton Lake near Hot Springs. He released the fish before weighing it and it was most likely a new Arkansas state record. The one that got away!
In other news, more propaganda is being peddled concerning eagles and lead bullets. Your humble host gives you the actual truth of this, as the claims eagles are being poisoned by hunter's lead bullets when eagles scavenge shot, and unrecovered carcasses, is pure bunk and emotion. Many sources of lead contamination exist, and inorganic solid lead is not toxic. Atomized, colloidal and alkylated, or organic lead is what presents the problems! This is another continuation of anti-hunter, anti-2nd Amendment efforts with great emotion and deception being played yet again. Push back folks.
And the news gets worse for offshore wind, while today's anti-American Democrats double down on stupid, completing a bid on the NY Bight and roughly 400,000 acres of ocean bottom to 6 wind developers for $4.37 BIL. Sets up a circle jerk of money laundering for sure, to get nothing, while conducting no environmental impact studies and ignoring lawsuits moving through the courts.
And Vlad Putin has made his move to cement his energy dominance over the EU with his invasion of Ukraine, enabled by the inept energy policies of Let's Go Brandon and allowing Russia to control prices. Way to
