Congratulations to Christian Pyles and Chad Bright, two Mason County fishermen who happened to catch state-record fish just a few miles apart on the same day.
 Sunday’s Gazette-Mail column describes how Pyles caught a record skipjack and Bright landed a record blue catfish.
Sid Taylor doesn’t mind at all that his life has gone to the dogs.
Taylor, 71, takes part in rabbit-dog field trials with his star beagles, Annie and Bo. He and his lop-eared companions have earned 73 trophies in the last year and a half, including a second-place finish at the American Rabbit Hound Association’s World Hunt in March.
Sunday’s Gazette-Mail feature reveals how the dogs helped pull their master out of a post-retirement funk.Â
West Virginia wildlife officials recently issued some unpleasant news: The rate of chronic wasting disease among Hampshire County deer appears to have increased.
Tests on deer killed earlier this spring by DNR sharpshooters turned up 11 animals that tested positive for CWD. Division of Natural Resources administrators said the findings didn’t come as any great surprise, even though they more than doubled the number of positive cases found in any previous sampling effort.
The epicenter of the outbreak still appears to be in the Slanesville-Augusta area. Sunday’s Gazette-Mail article details the latest DNR findings.
In an effort to thin the state’s black-bear population, members of the state Natural Resources Commission have voted to open a late-September firearm season.
As outlined in the Sunday Gazette-Mail, biologists expect the nine-day hunt to reduce the bear population by 10 to 15 percent.
When Ted Bone pulled out his box call and started yelping like a hen turkey, he had no idea he would catch the attention of two marauding coyotes.
This week’s Gazette-Mail column details the hair-raising confrontation.
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