Chuck Parker: Sportsman Activist

By
Spider Rybaak

Tucked into the northeastern corner of Lake Ontario, claiming the entire western half of Oneida Lake, etched by the Oswego and Salmon Rivers, the finest salmonid streams in the Lower 48, and watered by numerous productive streams and brooks, Oswego County offers some of the best fishing in the Western Hemisphere. 

 Small wonder, then, that it spawns some of the finest conservationists in the country.

Take Chuck Parker, for instance. An avid hunter and angler, the Texas, NY resident believes political activism is every sportsman’s responsibility, and practices what he preaches.

Parker traces the roots of his activism to the Mad River Club, which he joined in 1989. Ever since, he’s served in numerous conservation-minded sportsmen groups in every capacity from secretary to president, and reached the top when he was elected to the presidency of the New York State Conservation Council (NYSCC) a couple years ago, an office he still holds.

Parker describes the NYSCC as an advocacy group dedicated to promoting sportsman’s issues.

“One of our greatest concerns is legislation out of Albany,” says Parker. “We have advisors on the New York State Conservation Fund Advisory Board and the New York State Fish and Wildlife management Board,” he adds.

True conservationists, the NYSCC’s membership knows man is an integral part of the natural order, and graciously accepts responsibility as steward of the environment.

The NYSCC’s website states: “For over 80 years, the NYSCC Inc. has been a leader in advocating the wise use and management of NY’s valuable natural resources to ensure that they are protected for our children’s children.”

In this vein, NYSCC member clubs offer a wide variety of outdoor activities designed to acquaint kids with the great outdoors, including 4 H Youth Shooting Sports Programs, Youth Fly-fishing, the Oswego County Envirothon, Oswego County Soil and Water’s Annual Conservation Field Days (open to 5th graders) and the Plant a Tree program.

Parker has been a Hunter Safety Instructor since 1993, and states, unabashedly, “We stand opposed to the New York Safe Act. We would like to see it overturned.”

And that’s to be expected, considering the group’s respect for the natural order, and its acceptance that man is on the top rung of the food chain.

Parker feels the greatest threat facing hunting and fishing is the lack of activism among outdoorsmen. “I’m involved with a lot of good sportsmen but the problem is 7 out of 10 don’t belong to a sportsmen’s club, so they don’t advocate for our right to hunt and fish.”

His solution:  “Get your friends to join a sportsman’s club and teach your children the importance respecting our natural environment as well as how to safely enjoy all that is has to offer.”

Chuck Parker was named as one of The Syracuse Post-Standard's "Heroes of Conservation" in 2011.  

Coyote: NY’s Top Dog

By Spider Rybaak

Jerry Donegan checking messages as his "pet" coyote looks on.

One of the nicest things about fishing is it exposes you to nature’s menu of wonders. Take night fishing for walleyes at Oneida Lake’s Phillips Point. Jutting into Three Mile Bay/Big Bay Wildlife Management Area, it’s ideal for surf fishing. You arrive in the early evening, wade out as far as you can and start casting. Before long, the sun goes down, taking the wind with it, ironing the lake into a smooth undulating sheet spotted with stars…sometimes the moon.

Casting out into the sparking night, you reel in your line, dreams of walleyes swimming through your mind. But there’s more in store than just what meets the eye: the night’s song of frogs croaking, fish splashing, deer foraging…and coyotes howling.

That’s right, coyotes. The state’s loaded with ‘em; between 20,000 and 30,000 according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Not to worry, though; they’re not all in one place. Requiring anywhere from 5 to 20 square miles of home range, a family of coyotes (parents and the year’s offspring) is very protective of its turf and runs off interlopers.

“Back when my dad started hunting em’ they called them coydogs,” says Jerry Donegan, “which is reasonable, because they looked like a coyote/dog mix.”

“But they’re not hybrids,” claims the Caughdenoy native. “In fact, they stick with their own kind and would rather eat dogs than mate with them. One of my neighbors lost his dachshund to one in his own backyard a few years back. He managed to get the coyote to release the dog but it was curtains for the pooch.”

NYSDEC agrees with Donegan’s assessment, classifying the state’s current top dog (fox used to hold the title) as a distinct species. Called the Eastern coyote, it’s fully 30% larger than its Western counterpart, a size differential some attribute to the species mating with Timber wolves. According to this story, Wiley Coyote’s relatives started moving east to take advantage of the vacuum left when the forces of civilization wiped out our timber wolves. While trekking through the Great White North, they ran into timber wolves in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, and those lucky enough to survive the encounter mated; the rest is history, as they say.

There’s several ways to skin a coyote.

Donegan prefers to go for the critters in organized hunts. He and his buddies start out by searching places like Three Mile Bay/Big Bay and Klondike WMAs for fresh tracks.  When a set is located, cell phones lead the hunters to the spot. They put dogs on the scent, and then spread out, searching for clearings in the woods where they sit down, wait…and hope. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours for the dogs to get the coyote up and running, and pointed in the direction of the hunters.

“Dogs baying while running toward you send adrenalin rushing through your body,” Donegan reveals, a flush of excitement spreading over his face. “And when the coyote appears, coming right at you…it’s the greatest!”

Some guys like to hunt the beasts one-on-one. Decked out in camo, surrounded with masking scents, they sit motionlessly, calling them in by imitating the distress calls of fawns, rabbits, even puppies.

Coyotes take to huge woods like ticks to dogs, and all of Oswego County’s WMAs support them.

However, patches of woods will do when large forests are few. If you like hunting closer to the beaten path, landowners are generally willing to let you on their property.

Donegan thinks “the reason folks are more open to coyote hunting is because they’re so abundant. Seeing populations of small game like pheasants and rabbits in decline, a lot of farmers blame coyotes and are more than happy to allow you to hunt them on their property.”

Coyote hunting season runs from October 1 to March 31. There is no bag limit and they can be taken day or night.

Jerry and wife Ellen holding coyote pelts.

Coyote country.

Robert Donegan with a toothy coyote skull.

Pheasant Season Just Around the Corner

By Spider Rybaak

For most outdoor lovers, October in Oswego County promises streams swollen with trophy salmon and trout, Oneida Lake walleyes moving to within casting distance of shore, and the discordant songs of waterfowl streaming through the air above it all. But water sports ain’t all the county has to offer. Indeed, when the waters meet dry land—and they always do, eventually--new habitats are created, ideal stomping grounds for birds of a different feather: pheasants.

Pheasants hail from Asia. And although they’ve made a solid foothold in America, primarily the Midwest, the species doesn’t do too well in northern NY because our predators, everything from skunks to foxes, feed on their eggs and young.  And while some chicks survive and even propagate, their numbers are few and getting a home grown ring-necked pheasant is extremely challenging.

But Oswego is loaded with edge habitats mature birds find to their liking: farmer’s fields, hedgerows, woodland undergrowth, and brushy clearings around wetlands. So the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation raises thousands of birds each year and releases them into the wild when they reach adulthood.

This year the NYSDEC will release 30,000 birds just before the season opener: October 1, in Oswego County. What’s more, the agency will unloose the county’s share just before the special youth hunting weekend, September 29-30, 2012.

To qualify for the special season, a child must be between 12 and 15 years old, possess a current hunting license, and be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian while hunting. The elder is required for supervision only and isn’t permitted to do any actual hunting (see page 34-35 in the “New York Hunting and Trapping Guide for further information).

The lion’s share of the ring-necks destined for Oswego County is going to be released in two publicly owned parcels: Deer Creek Marsh Wildlife Management Area and Three-Mile Bay WMA.

Three Mile Bay WMA is south of NY 49 in West Monroe and is easily accessible off Toad Harbor Road, McCloud Drive and West Road.

Deer Creek Marsh WMA is a couple miles north of Port Ontario, on the west side of NY 3.

Pheasant in flight near Deer Creek WMA

Deer Creek Marsh WMA pheasant habitat as seen from the Rainbow Shores Drive public access site, about 1/4 mile west of NY 3.

Salmon River Update:

This month marks the lowest the Salmon River has been in September in recent memory. Still, kings have been storming upstream in strength for the past week.

Stringers loaded with kings. 

Late Season Turkeys

By Spider Rybaak

Wounded warrior Chris Jones and the two things that got him into the woods: his white-haired companion and an Action Track Chair.

As with all game, bagging a turkey is easiest—relatively speaking—early in the season. By now, most gobbler hunters have put away their camo and guns and picked up fishing or lawn equipment. Bad mistake: late bloomers are just getting revved up.

Stanley Ouellette, owner of Deer Creek Motel and Pheasant Shooting Preserve, (315) 298-3730, showed me last Tuesday.

“Spider,” he whispered, “we just got a nice jake. Want to take some pictures?”

“Sure,” I responded. “When and where”

“At the hotel, 1 p.m.”

“How come you’re whispering?” I asked.

“Because I’m working a bird right now and don’t want to spook him,” he responded.
“I’ll be there,” I promised.

Wow, I thought as I hung up. The guy can make a phone call while he’s talking turkey.

When I caught up with his group of seven, I was introduced to all of them, but two stood out: Chris Jones and Pat Donnelly; Stan is so modest and low key you hardly know he’s there.

Donnelly, President of Team E Outdoors, a hunting and fishing show which runs  September through February on Time Warner Sports, and is currently available on the Pursuit Channel, 6 p.m., on Thursday nights,  has access to an Action Track Chair, an all-terrain wheelchair. Deciding to devote several segments of his show to Wounded Warriors shooting the bird, he made a deal with Ouellette.

“Stanley provides us with accommodations, time, place to hunt and does all the calling,” admits Donnelly.

Jones is the Wounded Warrior. On August 27, 2011, while stationed in Iraq as a member of the 10th Mountain Division, an IED went off near him, compressing and twisting his spine, causing heavy loss of hearing in both ears and major nerve damage, among other things.

“I love to hunt,” admits the Watertown resident, “and this chair lets me get out there,” he says, sweeping his arm over the fields and forests behind the motel. “I couldn’t have gotten out there without it.”

I asked Stan what technique he used in drawing turkeys close, especially so late in the season.

“Runnin and gunnin,” he replied quickly, with a grin.

“Say what?” I retorted.

Kyle Ott, a member of the field staff for Lights Out Custom Calls, responded “Cover as much ground as possible, call to close the distance, giving him a shorter distance to cover when you call, then sit down and shut up.”

““How do you know when to stop calling?” I asked.

“Once I know he’s closing ground, responding closer, I stop calling,” he answered.

Rick Miick, a local fishing guide and the only one to bag the bird, butted in “Hens came in first today, talking right back to me, mirroring what I was saying. They stayed at the edge of the hedgerow. Not the jakes that were with them, though. As soon as they hit the field and saw my decoy, they broke with the live hens and came running for it. Dead jake.”

Unfortunately, Jones didn’t get a shot.

He recounts his experience: “Stan called three hens that actually pecked at our decoy before returning to the woods. A couple hours later, a couple more came out. But the one tom Stan attracted never came around the open side of our blind. His voice was deep, raspy…a real mature bird. Stan saw it and estimated it at three years old.”

Hunting turkeys is a good way to welcome spring. The weather’s warm, everything’s green and the turkeys are talking their hearts out.

Highly popular Salmon River guide Rick Miick, showing he can shoot turkey, too.

Oswego County’s 2011 Big Game Season Off to a Good Start

By Spider Rybaak

Kevin Marshall with his spikehorn.

It took me 50-something years to figure out there’s only a couple things in life I’m absolutely sure of: you can’t fool Mother Nature, and I make mistakes--a lot of ‘em, usually fooling myself by thinking I can get over on Mother Nature.

A good case in point is my decision to change my favorite deer hunting spot this season. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s forecast for the 2011 season states that “Wildlife Management Unit 6G (the eastern Lake Ontario Plains area I love) “produced several years of high antlerless harvest…With take of adult female deer exceeding take of adult male deer for the last two years, hunters should expect to find a slightly smaller deer herd and a lower buck take in 2011.”

Since opening day is a once-a-year hunting opportunity, and my favorite spot is in WMU 7A, practically on the southern border of WMU 6G, I was caught in a dilemma: do I believe the experts or stay with my instincts and trust Mother Nature would provide. I went with the experts and spent opening day in another county, in a WMU the authorities predicted would be better than it’s been in the recent past.

Bad move! I didn’t see anything.

That night, I get a call from my hunting buddy Stan Ouellette, owner of Deer Creek Outfitters (315-298-3730), asking me how I did.

“Nothing,” I replied. “Heard some rustling and snorting, but didn’t see any flags. How’d you do?”

“We got a nice 10-pointer. If you want some photos, you gotta come up by Monday because we’re gonna skin it.”

You guessed it, Stan’s operation straddles WMU 6G and WMU 7A, right off NY 3. He cultivates several sprawling properties in the area for “quality deer management.”

So I get up there Monday night prepared to photograph a deer. When I enter the Quonset hut he uses for storage, bucks are hanging everywhere; Stan’s clients got two more since the phone call..

That was enough to convince me to change my hunting plans for the rest of the season to what they were before I began believing forecasts. The last weekend of the season will see me still-hunting in the woods on the eastern Lake Ontario plains in the morning, fishing the Salmon River for steelies in the afternoon, and returning to the nearby woods to hunt until dark.

The nice thing about accepting that you make mistakes is that you can learn from each of them. That’s the best way I know of going forward, even if it means going back.

Brian Barna, Lansdale, PA, with a 10-pointer, his first buck.

Roger Baleu, Groveland, MA, and his 8-pointer.

Gobbler Numbers on the Rise

Stan Oulette of Deer Creek Outfitters with toms he led his clients to.

First the bad news: In its report, “Spring Turkey Take by County,” the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that last year’s statewide turkey harvest was roughly 25,800 birds, well below the 10 year average of 34,000.

Now the good news: although the state’s overall harvest was down 25 percent from the year before, Oswego is one of only five counties to boast a higher take in 2010 than in 2009. And from the looks of it, the trend is stretching into this year.

Now, a cynic might say these figures result from more hunters in Oswego County, or that the county somehow managed to avoid the harsh winter weather that did a number on the fowl’s population in the rest of the state.

Say what???!!!

I’m here to tell ya that Oswego County has about the same amount of hunters per capita as the rest of the state, and gets more than its fair share of snow. In fact, a big portion of the county, including some primo turkey range, is in the area known for “lake effect,” a measure meteorologists from around the country use to judge a region’s snowiness.

Truth is Oswego County is exceptionally good to turkeys. Lance Clark, a Senior Wildlife Biologist with the NYSDEC claims “Oswego County ’s turkey population has been building for the past couple of years.”

Most surprising of all, the growing number isn’t exclusive to the southern part of the county, where most of the farms are found. Indeed, a lot of the birds were taken in the Littlejohn, Deer Creek Marsh, and Happy Valley Wildlife Management Areas, vast tracts of undeveloped land.

You see, while turkeys do well in agricultural areas, they can do just as good in deep woods. All they need is mast bearing hardwoods--oak, beechnut, hickory, stuff like that--and openings that provide seeds, insects, and fruits like berries and apples.

Since WMAs are run to enhance wildlife habitat, DEC conducts patch/clear-cutting in heavily forested areas regularly to increase early successional habitats; the dense cover required by broods and the insects they feed on. Happy Valley WMA is the DEC’s most recent recipient of this management tool.

Marshy areas are also great turkey habitat. Two of the state’s finest are Oswego County’s  Deer Creek Marsh and Three Mile Bay/Big Bay WMAs. In fact, anglers fishing for crappie and panfish in Toad Harbor this time of year are always scattering turkeys while walking to fishing spots.

And don’t go thinking the last half of the season is the least productive. Most hunters only go out the first week. After about a few days of being relatively unmolested, most toms go back to doing what they like best: talking to the ladies.

So head out to one of the WMAs mentioned above, set up a hen decoy and start talking turkey. With a little bit of luck and a lot of patience, you’ll be eating wild fowl in no time.

A happy Deer Creek Motel client showing off his bird.