Advertisement
News
Problems continue with the state’s new licensing and boater-registration system. This time the headache falls not only on Georgia’s sportsmen, DNR and the company contracted to handle the duties are in the mess as well. For more than five months, from Dec. 23, 2008-May 27, 2009, Georgians who registered their boats through the new online…
Hunting access could expand greatly at Bond Swamp in Bibb and Twiggs counties over the next 15 years, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) wants to hear from hunters in order to do it. The public comment period for a new draft of a 15-year management plan for FWS-managed Bond Swamp ends July…
More than eight years after it was impounded and stocked with F1 bass, Bear Creek Reservoir finally has a boat ramp under construction. It should be completed by August. Now, Jackson County, which will control day-to-day operations at the 505-acre water-supply reservoir near Athens, has announced plans to limit access to just three days a…
The good news first: An interim, 6-month ban on red-snapper fishing on the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to Florida has been put off. Originally slated to begin as early as June, the closure has been pushed back, possibly as late as October, as the measure is reviewed. The bad news: You better catch your…
It was a day long awaited in Houston County, but it finally arrived. Flat Creek PFA is now open. Former Georgia Representative Larry Walker said at the opening ceremony that at one time he wondered if he would live long enough to see the PFA opened, since it was talked about, and then planned for…
In tough economic times, decreased revenues at the state level have trickled down. A lack of funding is putting a squeeze on DNR, and the latest spending cut is mandatory furloughs for all DNR employees, except for employees with the Environmental Protection Division (EPD). DNR Commissioner Chris Clark said his department is looking at a…
The catch-and-release purists might want to take a seat for this one… On May 14, a Douglas angler caught a largemouth bass from a 50-acre Jeff Davis County farm pond that pulled a set of hand-held digital scales to 18-lbs., 8-ozs. If certified scales had taken that weight, there would be a new No. 2…
In late 2006, Congress passed a significantly strengthened Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act, the overriding piece of legislation that guides federal fisheries management. Among other progressive provisions, the new law required managers to end overfishing by 2010. Only a year later, a stock assessment for South Atlantic red snapper, the first modern stock assessment…
This week DNR Law Enforcement busted up an extensive poaching ring in Dodge and Laurens counties and served seven individuals with warrants on 113 poaching-related charges. “In my 28 years with DNR Law Enforcement, I have worked a lot of cases, and I have never seen anything like it,” said Section Supervisor Sgt. Keith Byers.…
When DNR enforcement officers began looking closer at two men charged with turkey-related violations in south Georgia, it sparked an investigation that could bust up wide-spread illegal-hunting activities in and around Dodge and Laurens counties. On April 18, Ranger Johnny Ashe charged William Stacy Jones, of Eastman, with possession of illegally taken wildlife and hunting…
Become a GON subscriber and enjoy full access to ALL of our content.
New monthly payment option available!
Advertisement