West Virginia wildlife officials have proposed regulations that would allow hunters to kill more white-tailed deer, black bears and turkeys this fall.
The proposals came less than two months after hunters enjoyed especially good hunting for deer and bears. Deer hunters enjoyed their best buck kill since 2009, and bear hunters enjoyed their best season ever.
Division of Natural Resources biologists made the proposals during Sunday's quarterly meeting of the state Natural Resources Commission, the seven-man panel that sets season lengths and bag limits. If approved, the revised limits would encourage hunters to control deer and bear populations by allowing them to kill more antlerless deer and more female bears.
Gary Foster, the DNR's game management supervisor, said the changes were prescribed in the state's management plans for both species.
"Our deer and bear operational plans give us guidance on the setting of the seasons," Foster explained. "Typically when harvests are up, it means we are at or above our harvest objectives and need to allow additional harvest to bring the populations back to prescribed levels."
Under the proposals, antlerless deer bag limits would become more liberal in 21 counties or parts of counties, more restrictive in two, and would remain the same in 33.
In the more-liberal category, eight counties that were closed to antlerless-deer hunting in 2015 would be open under limited-permit hunting in 2016: Boone, southern Clay, northern Greenbrier, western Mineral, western Pendleton, Tucker, northern Wayne and Webster. Those counties would have a one-deer bag limit.
Two counties that were open to limited-permit hunting in 2015 would be open to unlimited-permit hunting in 2016: Mercer and Randolph. Those counties would also have a one-deer limit.
Five unlimited-permit counties that had one-deer limits in 2015 would have a three-deer limit in 2016: eastern Pendleton, Pleasants, Preston, Summers and Taylor.
Six unlimited-permit counties that had three-deer limits in 2015 would have three-deer bag limits in 2016, with an added stipulation that hunters would be required to kill an antlerless deer before they would be allowed to kill a second buck: Gilmer, Hardy, Lewis, Upshur, Wetzel and Wirt.
On the more-restrictive side, one county that had a three-deer limit with the second-buck stipulation in 2015 would have only a three-deer limit in 2016: Monroe. Also, one county that had a three-deer limit in 2016 would have a one-deer limit in 2016: Ohio.
The antlerless-deer limits in all other counties, or parts of counties, would remain the same.
Thirteen counties would have more liberal regulations for bears this fall:
n Gilmer, Harrison, Lincoln and Wirt counties, which were open to hunting without hounds only during the archery and traditional December seasons in 2015, would also become open to limited-permit hunting during the 2016 firearm season for buck deer.
n Lewis, Mercer, Monroe, Summers and Taylor counties, which were open to limited-permit hunting without hounds during the 2015 buck season, would see the permit requirement dropped in 2016.
n Logan, McDowell, Mingo and Wyoming counties, which were open to archery and crossbow hunting during a split season in 2015, would be open continuously in 2016 from Sept. 24 to Dec. 31.
The only county in which bear hunting regulations would become more conservative this fall is Hampshire, where the limited-permit hound season on the Nathaniel Mountain and Short Mountain wildlife management areas would be eliminated.
Another DNR proposal would open the entire state to fall turkey hunting.
In the past, the fall season had been restricted to 15 "traditional" turkey counties located mostly in the state's eastern mountains. That changed in the early 2000s when the DNR expanded the fall hunt to "non-traditional" counties in which hunters had killed at least 0.75 birds per square mile. Agency officials later lowered that threshold to 0.5 birds per square mile.
The new regulation, if approved, would allow at least one week of fall hunting in every county regardless of its spring harvest. Non-traditional counties with spring kills greater than 0.75 birds per square mile would get two-week fall seasons. All the traditional counties would still have four-week fall seasons except for Preston, which would have a two-week season.
While the DNR's wildlife biologists were proposing more liberal regulations, the agency's fisheries biologists were proposing regulations along more conservative lines.
The most substantial change would be the imposition of a four-fish-per-day creel limit on flathead catfish caught from the Kanawha and Ohio rivers. Only one of the four fish could exceed 35 inches in length.
Currently the catch of flatheads is unregulated, with no creel or size limits. DNR officials believe, however, that regulations are needed to help protect an increasingly popular trophy-fish resource.
If approved, the regulations would extend along the entire length of the Ohio where it borders on West Virginia and on the Kanawha from its mouth to the junction of the New and Gauley rivers.
Fisheries biologists also proposed catch-and-release fishing regulations for two popular trout waters: a 0.2-mile segment of lower Seneca Creek; and Mill Creek and all its tributaries within the boundaries of Kumbrabow State Forest.
Both waters recently underwent stream-improvement projects designed to improve fishing. The new catch-and-release segment on Seneca would merge into another catch-and-release area on the North Fork of the South Branch. The Mill Creek segment would be free-standing.
All the proposals will be put out for comment at a series of 12 public meetings to be held in March. The commission will decide on the proposals at its May 1 meeting.