Fishing, hunting to keep area busy

Paul Stackhouse
Outdoors
The Decatur Daily

It appears as if Decatur and the North Alabama area may be in for a busy week when it comes to outdoor sports.

The Southern Collegiate Bass Fishing Series hosted by Auburn will stop at Decatur’s Ingalls Harbor and Wheeler Lake on Friday and Saturday in what could be an interesting tournament depending on the weather conditions.

The meeting was changed from late February to this week.

I spoke with tournament official Jann Swaim of Auburn and he to set the record straight.

“We try to get our schedule out early to avoid a lot of the confusion that can come from college fishing tournaments,” Swaim said. “We had a conflict with FLW on the 25th and 26th, with some of their college-fishing tournaments.

“Just to make everything clear, our weigh-ins are set for Friday the 11th at 3 p.m. and Saturday the 12th at 2 p.m. Both weigh-ins are to take place at Ingalls Harbor in Decatur.”

Decatur and Wheeler Lake hosted the SCBFS championship last year with the Tennessee Volunteers taking home the first-place trophy.

It’s a sure thing that college anglers will be serious out on the water.

You also can expect to hear plenty of the anglers talking it up with their big, rival colleges. Of course, the finger-pointing and talk is for the most part fun and friendly. Even when they played “Rocky Top” after the Tennessee victory last year, members of other schools joined in and sang with the Vols.

For more information, you may visit auburn.edu/bass or CollegiateBassChampionship.com or decaturcvb.org. The Decatur-Morgan County Convention and Visitors Bureau also may be reached by calling 256-350-2028 or 800-524-6181.

Youth hunt

Another event taking place this week is the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s annual youth waterfowl hunt. The event is to take place Saturday and Sunday.

The Special Youth Waterfowl Hunting Days are for youth age 15 years and younger. All young hunters must be accompanied by an adult supervisor. The adult supervisor, who may not hunt, must remain within arm’s length of the youth at all times. The adult may accompany up to two youth participants during the hunt, and must have a state hunting license, state and federal waterfowl stamp, and a Harvest Information Program (HIP) stamp.

Before taking any child hunting, adults will need to know the rules.

A good place to start is by visiting outdooralabama.com.

Hunting injuries

The state released information last week that said the 2010-11 Alabama deer hunting season was marred by 14 treestand-related accidents, four of which resulted in a fatality. This is the highest number of treestand-related fatalities Alabama has experienced in a single year.

In six of the accidents, the nylon strap securing the treestand to the tree broke and caused the hunter to fall to the ground. Officials say the nylon straps broke because of dry rot as a result of being left in the woods for periods as long as several years.