Young hunters eligible for contest

With less than two weeks remaining in the deer-hunting season — only the archery season is open and only in State Deer Area 6 — young hunters need take advantage of the opportunity to enter the 2011 Youth Hunter of the Year competition.

The program is open to hunters 15 and younger and is administered by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Young hunters are required to write and submit a story about their hunting experience along with photographs of the hunt they described. The LDWF and LOWA will then select a boy and a girl from among the entries for Youth Hunters of the Year awards which will be presented at the LOWA’s annual award banquet in August. The two honorees will receive a plaque and a gift certificate to Bowie Outfitters in Baton Rouge.

The competition requires the young hunters to relate their story from a hunt during the 2011-2012 hunting seasons.

“This is not a big buck nor a big turkey contest,” organizer David Moreland said. “The program is about youths enjoying a hunting experience, with or without success, and keeping the hunting tradition alive in Louisiana.”

The entry deadline is June 30.

Everyone who enters will be enrolled in the Youth Hunter Registry Program and become eligible to win, via a random drawing, a Bowie Outfitters’ gift certificate.

For details, go to the LDWF website: www.wlf.state.la.us and look for the Youth Hunter Registry Program or email LDWF Deer Study leader Scott Durham: [e-mail].

Launch reopened

With water levels up more than three feet in the past 60 days, the boat launch at the North Toledo Bend State Park near Zwolle was reopened earlier this week.

The launch at the South Toledo Bend State Park, closed since July, remains closed because of the reservoir’s low water level and the completion of dredging operations on boat lanes near the park.

The Sabine River Authority’s announcement came with a warning: “The water level at the Toledo Bend Reservoir remains below the recommended safe level, so all water sport participants are advised to avoid excessive speed and exercise caution when navigating waters outside of normal boat lanes.”

Toledo Bend’s water levels hit an all-time low at 159.781 feet in November. Recent rains have raised the level to a 163.28-foot reading Wednesday. Full pool is more than 170 feet.

For Toledo Bend information, go to website: www.Toledo-Bend.com.

Closures, opening

Effective sunset Thursday, the shrimp season in the state’s Shrimp Management Zone 1 is closed by order of LDWF secretary Robert Barham.

The closure does not cover the “open waters of Breton and Chandeleur sounds.”

Barham said the state agency extended the fall shrimp season in Zone 1 in December, but explained that state marine biologists’ recent samples indicated white shrimp in this area were smaller than the state mandated 100-to-the-pound count.

The closure is designed to protect small white shrimp until they can grow to larger and more marketable sizes and further protects juvenile brown shrimp that begin to show up in the state’s inside waters in the later days of the winter months.

At one-half hour after sunset Thursday, all oysters seasons on all public oyster areas east of the Mississippi River will be closed by Barham’s order.

And the LDWF announced this week that the commercial season for “non-sandbar large coastal sharks” will open in state waters Feb. 15.

This group of sharks includes the great, scalloped and smooth hammerheads, nurse sharks, blacktip sharks, bull sharks, lemon sharks, silky sharks, spinner sharks and tiger sharks.

The commercial season will run through 12:01 a.m. April 1 when the commercial and recreational shark season will be closed until the seasons reopen at 12:01 p.m. July 1.

College bass

Two two-man teams from LSU and teams from Louisiana-Lafayette, LSU-Shreveport, Louisiana Tech, Southeastern Louisiana and Louisiana-Monroe are in Del Rio, Texas, for Friday’s opening round of the first of four qualifying events in the FLW College Fishing South Conference.

Doug McClung and Logan Mount, veterans of LSU’s team that defeated Alabama’s team in the 2011 Bassmaster Classic College Challenge, head one LSU team. Brett Matherne and Rhine Perrin from Westwego make up the other LSU team.

Cody McCrary of Baton Rouge is teaming with Neil Arnaud of Lafayette for the ULL team, while

Baton Rougeans Andrew Cavell and Billy Smith III make up Southeastern’s entry.

The Louisiana schools are among 40 teams entered in the tournament. The winners receive $5,000 for their school.