As I told you all before, with a new regime in the state house comes a new balance of power and new appointments in the Ohio Department of Natural Rescources. Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Director David Mustine announced the appointments of two new chiefs and the department’s legislative liaison, as well as five acting division chiefs.

“I am pleased to begin building a team of natural resource professionals who will work with me and Assistant Director Scott Zody to support Governor Kasich’s plan of bringing jobs to Ohio, while serving as dedicated stewards of our environment,” Mustine said.

David Payne will oversee the Division of Parks & Recreation. Mustine noted Payne’s solid experience in state government, which includes working in the offices of the Governor, Auditor of State, and Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Payne has a diverse management background and excels at marketing and strategic development. Payne said he prides himself on bringing people together and working productively with a broad base of constituents. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. Payne is committed to the governor’s plan for getting Ohio back on track, which includes strengthening the Division of Parks & Recreation.

He has a passion for Ohio’s award-winning state parks system and enjoys camping, hiking, and ice fishing. Payne lives in Franklin County with his wife and two daughters.

Laura Jones was appointed Chief of the Office of Communications. She brings to the position more than 25 years of experience in the media and public-relations industry, said Mustine.

Most recently, Jones was audio-visual production manager and Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp program administrator for the ODNR Division of Wildlife. Previously, she served seven years in ODNR Director Sam Speck’s communications office, two years with Governor Bob Taft, and nearly 14 years with the Plain Dealer’s Statehouse bureau. A resident of Franklin County, Jones is an avid outdoors woman who likes to fish, hunt, hike and camp.

Ben Pendery joins the ODNR administrative staff as its legislative liaison. Pendery most recently served with the Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Pendery lives in Franklin County and personal interests include fishing, boating and hunting.

Other appointments announced today by Director Mustine include:       

• Bob Boyles as acting chief for the Division of Forestry. Boyles has been with the department for 28 years. For the past 11 years he has served as Southern District Forest Manager out of Chillicothe.
• Ted Lozier as acting chief for the Division of Soil & Water Resources. Lozier has been with the department for more than 24 years, and has served on several core management teams for division.
• Vicki Mountz as acting chief for the Division of Wildlife. Mountz began her career at ODNR as the department’s first commissioned female watercraft officer. As Wildlife’s executive administrator for Information and Education, she has a total of 25 years with the department.
• Carla Camp as acting chief for the Office of Budget & Finance. Camp spent her first 21 years of state service in the fiscal section of the Department of Youth services, and has been the assistant chief for ODNR.
• Assistant Director Scott Zody will temporarily oversee the Office of Human Resources.  

It’s cold (part 2)

Now that you know how to deal with the cold and tough it out lets go about seeing if you might be able to harvest something while you’re out there.  



Still-hunting

If there’s a better way to spend a crisp, cold day in January than still-hunting through a stand of timber with a couple of inches of snow on the ground, I haven’t found it. Being out in the woods with a fresh snow fall has got to be as close to heaven as a hunter can get.   

Deer hunters who like to still-hunt at this time of year have the advantage of maximum visibility especially if there’s snow on the ground like we have now. With all the foliage down off the trees, deer are easier to spot now than at any other time of year.  



The eyes have it

Of course, that visibility works both ways. You are also easier for a deer to spot. But with a good set of optics, I believe hunters have the upper hand in the January woods. With binoculars, you should be able to pick apart a section of woods and spot deer at long range. And as long as you move slowly and deliberately, you should be able to pick out a deer long before it sees you.



Take the high road

The best vantage point is from the highest ground. And once you’ve found your quarry, you should be able to study the landscape and map out a route to sneak within range of the deer from downwind.



Come to papa

For bowhunters, their best bet is to try to sneak ahead of a deer and wait for it to walk into their effective shooting range. Because of the superb visibility in the winter woods, it’s very difficult to stalk to within 20 or 30 yards of a deer and then actually shoot it with a bow and arrow.

Therefore, come up with a strategy that allows you to get ahead of the deer and let it come to you. Muzzleloader and gun hunters should have an easier time of it because their effective range is much greater than that of a bowhunter.



Shh! Be very quiet

Because deer congregate in and around the thickest cover available at this time of year, a dense swamp or a brush thicket might be where you have to go to get your quarry. Still-hunters working in this cover would do well to wear fleece, to minimize any sounds of clothing rubbing against brush.



Position yourself

And because this is the very end of the season, you’ll presumably be still-hunting through country that has become quite familiar to you by now.

Also, you should know how and where the deer like to move in this area. On late-season still-hunts, use that knowledge to your advantage to pick apart the best country.

On a still-hunt, the wind is naturally the most important factor. You never want to still-hunt with the wind at your back. That’s a waste of time.



Disparities

When you’re moving through the woods, don’t look for only deer that are on their feet. Also dissect the woods with your binoculars, searching for bedded deer as well. Look for an ear, an antler gleaming in the sun, the rounded hump of a deer’s rump. These are the portions of a bedded deer that are likely to be exposed for you to spot.

Also, check out anything that just seems out of place to you. At this time of year, the woods are barren. Walking through them, you’ll become skilled at determining how things should look.

Fallen trees, boulders, brush and saplings all have a general appearance that you’ll recognize as “normal.” But when you see something that looks out of place that you can’t quite identify with the naked eye stop and check it out.

For example, every now and then, you’ll encounter a stump with a white spot on it. You’ll swear it’s a deer until you focus your binoculars on it.



Drive tactics

For the most part, hunting in January is a bowhunter’s game. Some states, such as Ohio this year, have a late muzzleloader season and some even offer limited late firearms hunting usually with a shotgun. During any type of gun season, be it shotgun or muzzleloader, is one of the best time’s to put on drives.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to drive deer to bowhunters but I’ve never myself had any success with it. But hunting with firearms, even if they’re muzzleloaders, is far better suited for deer drives, mainly because of the increased range of the firearms.  

If you want to put on a drive and can hunt with bows and arrows only, just remember to have your drivers move at a snail’s pace. In bow season, a running deer is a safe deer, they will survive to see another season.



Hot topic

Driving deer is a controversial tactic in many areas. Some hunters feel driving is bad because you might run the resident deer off of your particular hunting grounds. Well, back in October or November, when there’s still plenty of hunting to be done, I might agree with them. But this is January!

Once this season ends, there’s no more hunting to be done until the following fall. If you have good deer habitat, any animals you spook out of the area on a drive are probably going to come back, once the season ends and the hunting pressure is gone.



Proper placement

If you’ve hunted an area for a while, odds are you know the lay of the land. You know the funnels and the deer’s preferred escape routes. As a result, you now know where to place your standers to get a shot at driven deer.

If you don’t yet know an area well and have access to them, study topographic maps to figure out how and where you want to move the deer. Pushing deer into a funnel, a peninsula of woods that enters a field or a thicket that necks down until it dwindles out in open timber should be your goal. Place a stander at any of theses pinch points to watch for deer.

As I said earlier, deer in January tend to bunch up, because of a lack of suitable security cover and food. In those areas that have both, count on finding deer maybe even lots of deer.



Slow but sure

The key to a good drive is the slow easy movement of the drivers. Everyone knows, at least in Ohio, the intent of a drive is to move deer not push them. You don’t need to whistle, shout, bang pots and pans or shoot off blank guns to get the deer up and running.

You may laugh at the last statement, but I was once on a drive when I used to hunt Pennsylvania where that’s exactly what they did. Even though I was a young somewhat inexperienced hunter this seemed totally insane to me. Who in their right mind would take a shot or should I say multiple shots at a deer running full tilt. Well guess what, these boys did and I was out of there at lunch time.

Again, the idea is to move deer not scare the bee jesus out of them. Have your drivers walk slowly through the area you’re pushing. Crack a branch occasionally or rattle a branch every now and then. Other than that it’s a slow steady movement through the area and nothing else.



Safety first   

Safety is the main priority any time you put on any type of drive. Whether it one driver and one stander or multiple thereof. You “must” have a leader and they “must” have a plan and everyone “must” follow it, no exceptions.

Notice the emphasis on the word “must.” Running helter skelter through the woods doesn’t make it. That’s how hunters get shot. Every driver “must” know what direction they are going in and where each and every other driver is.

Every stander “must” know exactly how many drivers there are, precisely when the drivers start, which direction they are coming from, the location of number of other standers, their own personal safe shooting zone and where and when the drive is going to culminate. One missing element from this equation could be an accident waiting to happen.   



Get out there

For Ohio deer hunters, January and a tad bit of February is the end of the line until next fall. Don’t let those tags go to waste. You know the ODNR wants us to kill; I mean harvest, as many deer as we can. Otherwise, why do you think they offer so many tags? Get out there. Be aggressive. Leave no trick in the bag and you just might find a way to punch one of those tags!



Chad’s culmination

Chad Weisbarth started hunting this deer season with a long time family hunting spot leveled to slashing’s. He wondered how the season would go. He soon found out after several close encounters with does in the early archery season and passing up a nice 6-point buck with antlers wider than its ears.

With all that behind him, he made his way into the youth gun weekend with high hopes. Unfortunately a full soccer and basketball schedule made for another outcome. He only got to hunt a few hours here and there seeing some deer but again, to no avail.

The regular gun season came and while hunting from a familiar tree stand at the edge of the field he decided to go down and hunt from the ground farther up the field to get a better vantage point. Upon arriving at the hump in the field he was greeted by a group of does that tried to run him over. He didn’t shoot as he was in hopes that a big buck might be following them. But again, no such luck.



Last chance

With black powder season approaching, his father, Ken Weisbarth, one of Ken’s friend’s as well as his son and Chad, were supposed to head to New York on a guided goose hunting trip.

Unfortunately the other young man became very sick and they had to cancel their long awaited trip. Undaunted by his thus far run of bad luck Chad wasn’t going to let it get him down. He decided this would be another opportunity to try again for his buck.

Saturday Jan. 8 was opening day but he had a soccer tournament playing for the Claymores followed by a basketball game he had to play for Geneva High that was inevitably cancelled because of a snowstorm.

Clearly, more bad luck, his Saturday hunt did not happen.



Have some fun

Saturday night, some family members and Chad went snowmobiling putting him home and in bed around midnight. Hey, what the heck, a young fella needs to have some fun every now and then, right?

Chad didn’t know if he would be able to get up in the morning to hunt but then he remembered, Friday night he had had a dream. A dream telling him that he was going to get a deer this weekend so when the alarm rang he forced himself out of bed on Sunday.



Cookie monster

Awaking to his alarm at 6 a.m., he went to the kitchen to eat some chocolate chip cookies. Now that’s a hunter breakfast of champions don’t ya know! After his hearty breakfast he headed out to the garage to get dressed.

Anticipating the cold weather, he decided to put his snowmobile clothes on under his camouflage hunting gear. He still had an extra ten minutes to waste before heading to the tree stand so he sat down and washed his cookies down with a green tea. Well it ain’t O.J., but it’ll do!   



Calling all deer

Arriving in his stand a little early, Chad prepared himself for first light. After about an hour of sitting in the cold without seeing anything and in anticipation of the end to a cold mornings hunt Chad decided to give a few toots on his grunt call.

His aspiration was to call in a deer, hopefully a buck, instead of just waiting for one to materialize. He blew the grunt call several times over the next half hour, with the wind ripping in his face he was eventually forced to turn around in the stand facing downwind.



The grand finale  

Just after having made a call, he saw some movement coming toward him at 100 yards out. Chad reached around to grab his TC Encore, when he turned back the deer had covered about 40 more yards and developed a monster rack!

Chad made a deer noise with his mouth in an effort to stop the monster buck, it worked he put the brakes on and came to a dead stop. His Encore was already up and now with the crosshairs on the kill zone he pulled the trigger. The buck crashed to the ground in its tracks.

In utter disbelief of what had just happened, Chad uttered some unmentionables after which his descent from the tree stand was more like a fireman sliding down the fire pole. When he got to deer and realized that it had a kicker point on the side of its rack, wow that’s awesome, he thought.



Thanks, Dad!

When his dad, Ken Weisbarth, arrived on the scene similar expletive’s emitted from his mouth. Ken was as excited as Chad was in awe of the size of the rack. Dad congratulated Chad me for sticking with his plan all season of trying for the big one. He reminded him of how many hours he spent working and waiting for this moment to happen.

Most of all, dad was excited for Chad and proud of the reward his dedication and hard work had brought him. Chad’s final comment was, “We hunt together as much as we can, for deer and waterfowl mostly. It’s all about spending time together as much as we can.

Thanks, Dad, for all you do and all you’ve taught me.”



Chad’s stats

Chad Weisbarth, a 15-year-old freshman at Geneva High Schoo,l harvested his 10-point monster buck on Jan. 9, 2011 while hunting with his father, Ken, in southern Geneva Township.

He was using a Thompson Center Encore 50cal muzzleloader with 100grains of Triple 7 powder and 223 grain Powerbelt sabot. Chad shot his buck at 60 yards and he dropped right then and there. He was hunting from a 20 foot high custom made tree enclosure wearing Realtree AP with the prescribed amount of Hunter Orange using Dead Down Wind as a cover scent and blowing a grunt call as an attractant.

They checked his bruiser in at Jefferson Golden Dawn where he was guess-ta-mated to tip the scales at 180 field dressed having 10 points and rough scored at 149 BC. This was Chad’s first buck and his second deer so far in his hunting career.



Coyote Open

The Maple County chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation is holding its 2nd Annual Coyote Open on Jan. 21 through Jan. 24. There will be a $750 pay out! $350 for the most coyote harvested, $200 for the heaviest coyote harvested and $200 for the longest coyote harvested. Pre-registration is required. For more information and to sign up, call Bill Trump at 983-7231 or Don Rauch at 759-8735 for details.



4-H Shooting Sports

With spring not being that far away, the Jefferson Conservation Club is looking for some shooters, specifically in the discipline of rifle, .22 calibers. The 4-H Shooting Sports program in the rifle discipline will again be held at the Jefferson Conservation Club located in Sheffield Township. They are looking for return shooters, new and beginner shooters. For more information, call Dave Silva at 998-3808.

Remember, pass it on or it will surely pass on.

Sunderlin is a freelance writer from Geneva. Reach him at djss@roadrunner.com.