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Here’s what’s worth reading today, Friday, May 29, 2020:

‘He’s the best of the best’ | Family, friends, community remember boater who died in James City County

People who knew James Jackson, Jr. said he was a treasure to the hunting community in Hampton Roads and across Virginia. He died while he was fishing.

Some call him a treasure to the hunting community. Others say “Bub” was a hunting icon.

 

James City County Police said they got a call Sunday about an unmanned boat in the area of Diascund Creek Reservoir. Jackson was identified as missing from that boat. JCC Police and Fire Departments resumed the search on May 25 with assistance from New Kent Sheriff’s Office and Marine Sonic. Jackson’s body was recovered in the morning. Jackson was not wearing a life jacket.

 

On Tuesday, 13News Now spoke with several people who knew Jackson or who hunted with him. Robert Vermont met Jackson 25 years ago. He said Jackson was always ushering in the next generation of hunters and fishers.

Texas man, ex-Nebraska outfitter sentenced in hunting sting

A Texas man and former Nebraska hunting guide was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to pay more than $80,000 for his part in an illegal hunting operation.

Federal prosecutors say 32-year-old Jordan Cook, of Boerne, just outside San Anotnio, was sentenced Tuesday in Omaha’s federal court after he pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts.

 

The charges stem from an investigation into Hidden Hills Outfitters near Broken Bow, which has been accused of a slew of hunting violations, including hunting deer and turkey in baited areas, from a public road, at night and without valid permits.

 

To date, 25 people have pleaded guilty and have been ordered to pay more than $240,000 in fines and restitution.

Former Spur George Hill is spending the NBA hiatus on his 850-acre ranch with zebras, kangaroos and wildebeest

George Hill, 34 and envisioning life after basketball, is pouring his time away from the court into learning more about animal care, overseeing projects — expanding a lake and building a “barndominium” are currently underway — and watching over his vast, 850-acre ranch and its exotic residents.

In August 2017, he purchased the massive plot of land here in Texas Hill Country, a 35-minute drive north of his family’s offseason home in San Antonio. Over time, the property has been bulldozed, sculpted and preened into a sprawling ranch.

 

Fallow deer were the first animals Hill introduced on his land. Then he added sables — 500-pound brown-and-white antelope that are native to Africa. Now, he has dozens of different animal species.

 

Hill owns scimitar oryx — tan-and-white creatures that also are in the antelope family, with curved, pointy horns and big bellies. He has Arabian oryx and red lechwe. There are New Zealand red stag, kudu and ostrich, too.

 

Hill bought the majority of his animals three years ago, but in early May he added another zebra to his herd. “For my birthday,” Hill says.

Abilene couple can’t cross into Canada to operate fishing business because of COVID-19

Abilene Christian University graduates Derek and Kara Zimmerman and their three children should have left for Ontario, Canada weeks ago.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s been put on hold.

 

The Zimmermans bought the Pine Cliff Lodge in 2019.

 

It’s a seasonal hunting and fishing lodge with six cabins and 12 fishing boats that operates from June to September.

 

This year, due to the COVID crisis, the Canadian government temporarily closed tourism businesses and the Zimmermans have been unable to cross the border.

Montana wildlife officials discuss Big Sky bear attack

Many parts of Montana are now considered bear country and on Monday in Big Sky, there was a bear attack in the Spanish Peaks area.

MTN News talked with Morgan Jacobsen from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks about the bear attack — and what you can do to keep yourself safe.

 

“Finding a bear in this area is not unexpected. Big Sky in the Spanish Peaks area is well within occupied grizzly bear habitat,” Jacobsen said.

 

A man in his 60s was riding his bike Monday on a now-closed private trail when he ran into the grizzly bear.

 

“A lot of this investigation is still ongoing. There’s a lot we don’t know,” Jacobsen explained. “We do know this mountain biker was alone at the time of the attack and fortunately they did survive and they were able to get medical attention.”

Want to harvest more mature bucks? Hunt near food plots, not over them

If you drive long enough on roads in rural Mississippi, sooner or later you’ll probably see an elevated hunting stand overlooking a food plot. It’s a scene found at most camps across the state, but data suggests it may not be the most productive place to harvest a deer.

The Mississippi State University Deer Lab and the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks outfitted mature bucks with GPS collars along the Big Black River in Madison and Yazoo counties. The collars collected locations of the bucks every 15 minutes during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 hunting seasons.

 

Armed with 432,000 waypoints from 42 individual bucks, MSU graduate student Colby Henderson has been able to paint a fairly clear picture of what habitats bucks use and when.

 

“What we actually found, during the day, food plots were not the most selected habitat classification within our landscape during the day,” Henderson said. “During the day, the most selected habitat classifications were hardwood bottomlands and upland habitat during the day.”

Trump Administration pushes expanded hunting, fishing in Wildlife Refuges

A proposed rule to open or expand millions of acres of hunting and fishing opportunities in national wildlife refuges and national fish hatcheries is open for public comment.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to open or expand more than 2.3 million acres to hunting and fishing opportunities in 97 national wildlife refuges throughout the nation — eight which have never been opened before.

 

This proposed rule would result in the service’s largest expansion of hunting and fishing in history, creating what the Trump administration is calling nearly 900 “distinct new hunting and fishing opportunities.”

 

Last year, the administration expanded hunting and fishing in 77 national wildlife refuges across more than 1.4 million acres nationwide.

Study finds support for wolf reintroduction in Colorado; some question the finding

A study published this month suggests broad support for wolf reintroduction in Colorado. But ahead of voters’ November decision, opponents have criticized the findings.

The Colorado State University-led study found 84% of Coloradans would vote yes on Initiative 107, which would mandate wildlife managers to hatch a plan to transplant a limited number of gray wolves to the Western Slope each year starting in 2023.

 

The study said the support was 79% among residents of that rural region. They accounted for 277 of the 734 online respondents.

 

“That’s just bogus,” said Denny Behrens of the Grand Junction-based Colorado Stop the Wolf Coalition.

The group’s website lists 39 counties where commissioners have signed resolutions opposing wolves, which were eliminated from Colorado in the 1940s.

 

In the spring, Stop the Wolf Coalition conducted its own survey, finding only 40% supported the return of the predator.

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