Week 6. Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: Sportsmen's Voice For Wild Public Lands
If you’ve ever set up camp in the backcountry of a National Forest to fish some far-flung trout stream or explored a maze of thickets in a public marsh to discover that wood duck honey hole, you can give some thanks in part to Land Tawney and Sean Clarkson.
Land is President and CEO and Sean serves on the Board of Directors of the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA), whose mission is to conserve America’s treasured public backcountry hunting and fishing habitat and to keep access open for sportsmen. BHA was born in the West and is managed by Land in Missoula, but the organization has quickly expanded nationwide and even into Canada, and Sean is helping build a Capital Region Chapter from his base camp in Spotsylvania, Virginia.
Keeping the public backcountry open to sportsmen
The issues facing public hunting and fishing are a bit different in the mid-Atlantic than the western states. For example, Yellowstone was christened a National Park and the great National Forests of the Rockies were created when much of the West was still federal unincorporated territory, while Shenandoah NP and the Jefferson and Washington NF on the other hand weren’t founded until the 1920s and 30s and were patched together from private farms, a history which is still visible today in their jagged borders. For us in the mid-Atlantic, it’s much more of a challenge of finding access and preserving habitat.
Still, the two states with the most federal land east of the Rockies are right here in the mid-Atlantic in Virginia and North Carolina with places like Shenandoah NP, Pisgah NF and Washington-Jefferson NF, just to name a few. We also have the nation’s most prolific public fishery in the Chesapeake, which also supports a swath of other public hunting areas like Blackwater NWR and other state and local wildlife management areas. BHA’s goal is to make sure these areas stay open for hunters and anglers and to work with a diverse array of public and private stakeholders to see if we can create more.
I heard Land interviewed on the MeatEater podcast and the Orvis podcast with Tom Rosenbauer, and had to connect with him personally about their goals around our region, and he in turn put me in touch with Sean. Land has been leading BHA since 2013, and as a fifth generation Montanan, he can often be found in a duck blind in the Bitterroot Valley, fishing the salmon fly hatch on the Big Hole River, or chasing the wily wapiti in Cinnabar Basin. Sean was raised in the foothills of central Virginia, just east of the first spine of the Blue Ridge, and has spent years roaming those hills in search of small game, whitetail deer, wild turkey, bear, and trout.
I’m lucky I got a hold of these guys in August because I have a feeling that come September, you’ll be hard pressed to get them out of a tree stand or back into cell range. In a couple of phone calls, Land and Sean told me about their agenda for BHA, their plans for the mid-Atlantic and of course -- most importantly -- their own personal 52 week seasons. I talked with them separately but spliced it together here. My questions below are in bold, followed by their responses.
I feel like I need GPS coordinates to track you guys. Not only are in the backcountry all the time, but it looks like your organization is now nationwide?
Land:
We were born in the West around a campfire in Oregon, but we have built chapters in 24 states. First we moved from what you might think of the western states to the Southwest. From there it was the Upper Midwest of Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and we’ve developed a good anchor there. Now we have New York, Pennsylvania, and the six six states in New England, and we just added Texas and one Canadian province. We’re about to to bring on a DC-area chapter too.
Sean:
We’re building a Capital Region Chapter now with Maryland, DC, and Virginia, though it will likely become two separate chapters quickly (Virginia and Maryland/DC), and we may do a completely separate Delmarva chapter in the future because that kinds of its own country.
What is the goal of BHA?
Land:
The overall tagline is the sportsmen’s voice for our wild public lands, waters, and wildlife, though we really have a three major goals.
Land Tawney enforcing no fly zone on public lands
1. The first is access and opportunity, keeping public lands in public hands. If it gets in the wrong hands, we can’t have these conversations about the next two.
2. Two is about conserving fish and wildlife habitat through restoration and smart management, which includes issues like wildlife funding and clean water. We work collaboratively with diverse interests, public and private, from the feds on down to county commissioners.
3. The third is ethics and the notion of fair chase. This is a little bit of a sticky wicket, because everybody’s ethics are a little bit different, but there’s some things we can agree on like hunting animals behind fences — we decided early on that was ridiculous, poor for genetics, and not a good place for hunters. Also we’ve come out strongly against hunting and scouting from drones. That’s now illegal in 13 states.
Really, we’re a member-driven organization, built on grassroots, and we rely on members to tell us what’s important. The big theme is that the idea that all of public land — whatever it is, from BLM, NWR, National Monuments — it all belongs to all of us. All 650 million acres — we all own it.
How about issues specific to the mid-Atlantic?
Sean:
Access is extraordinary important. With such a large and dense population trying to enjoy resources, we want to highlight how important backcountry is in the mid-Atlantic. We do have a lot of opportunities — Virginia actually has more public land open to hunting and fishing than does the much larger state of Texas — but there’s 8 million people in this state and about 20 million in the region, and that results in a ton of pressure on not a lot of land mass. By the way, backcountry in mid Atlantic also means waters, tributaries and fingers off the Bay, marshes, offshore — backcountry is just as easily on the water
Legislative season is thankfully short in most states. What are you up to the rest of the seasons?
Sean Clarkson with a black bear
Fall
Sean:
Well, right now is about the time that it feels like my canines start growing, when we’re moving into fall. It starts after that first break in the August heat, like the one we just had — that first break when the heat and humidity start dying down. The first changes you see are in the black gums and dogwoods, and those are signals that fall is right around the corner.
For me in the fall, it’s deer, bear, turkey. Actually, I’ll start with squirrel and small game or what I call “armed recon.” I know if I can do that successfully, I can find deer.
My favorite time for deer is the two weeks of muzzleloader before the peak rut. The does aren’t in heat yet, and bucks are totally rutted up, looking for somebody somewhere, fighting, running others off.
I actually don’t like hunting peak rut, and I’ll explain why — by the peak, the bucks are hemmed up; they’ve found a hot doe, and they ain’t leaving her. They’re going to be bedded down somewhere in some nasty thicket. I can tell when its peak when it all kinds of shuts down, which in Virginia, on average, is about the first week of rifle season.
Post-rut is short, maybe one week, usually in the first week in December. The bucks are still under rut and now they are hungry, too, but the does have mostly been bred.
In terms of places in the mid-Atlantic, I hunt primarily in Virginia, though I have hunted Eastern Shore of Maryland for sika — if you really want to get frustrated by crazy cool animal, try that [sika]. I’ve hunted it in the marshes of Dorchester County. It’s a great little animal that will drive you crazy. Oh, and I can't wait until Virginia is an elk-hunting state; I love elk hunting and not having to drive to the Rockies would be awesome.
This is also the time that the brook trout start spawning, and there are very few things more beautiful than spawning brook trout in headwater streams. If I already have one or two deer in the freezer, I’ll head up to near the Shenandoah National Park, Skyline Drive, or the Blue Ridge Parkway with a 3-weight fly rod or tenkara. You don’t have to match to the hatch with brook trout — when they hit, they hit hard, and its awesome.
Land:
This Fall is pretty is pretty unique for me because I have a big horn sheep tag. The season for big horn sheep and for big game [here in Montana] is September 15 through the end of November. September 15 also coincides with when the backcountry elk hunt starts.
The first Saturday in October, I’ll start chasing ducks around, and the weekend after that is pheasants and antelope. Basically, it’s jumping from season opener to opener.
Winter
Sean:
This is a hard time. It’s mostly small game for me like squirrels, and also a lot of scouting. Actually the best time to find next years’ deer is right after last year’s season. You want to know where the buck went when pressure is on, and when the leaves are off trees, you can see more. I’ll also do a lot of gear prep, scouting, and getting ready for fishing season.
Land:
After big game, it all turns to duck hunting when it starts getting cold. We don’t have a lot of birds here, but when it gets cold and freezes up, and where you know where to find those pockets of open water, you’ll know where the ducks are.
My brain also starts to turn to ice fishing, and we can pull browns and brookies out of the ice. I’ll do that till the ice stays on February or early March.
Spring
Sean:
Once the shad come, it’s game on again. The shad run is an absolute blast, and I’ll be fishing them in the city of Fredericksburg, where they stack up deep before making their final run. When they’re in there thick, they’re in thick, and you could dip net them. I’ll also fish from around Rockett's Landing all the way up to the fall line in the city of Richmond.
Also, few things more fun that being out in April with the blooming and countryside looking gorgeous, and you’ve got a tom rattling a hillside.
Land:
We need one big spring squall for it to happen, but once that squall happens, we get big stone flies as big as your finger and the fish gorge. If the runoff gets too high, I’ll also do a lot of shed hunting in April and May.
Summer
Sean:
If there’s a body of water, I’m fishing it!
Land:
It’s fishing all summer for me too, especially with the salmon fly and golden stone hatch in June. I’ll drop everything in June in for that! After that it’s a lot of hoppers and other terrestrials, and I’ll be locked in on that.
~ Patrick Ottenhoff, 52 Week Season ~
