C4 | SATURDAY, 02.25.2012 THE LEDGER INDEPENDENT

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C4 | SATURDAY, 02.25.2012 THE LEDGER INDEPENDENTC4 | SPORTS SATURDAY, 02.25.2012 | THE LEDGER INDEPENDENT

This essay is a discussion of issues, not of candi-dates, political parties or personalities.

In this major election year, numerous individu-als have vied or are still contending to oppose the sitting President of the United States. Here in our district we also must

choose a replace-ment for our retiring U.S. Rep-resenta-tive, Geoff Davis, who has done well for the interest of

outdoor sportspersons as a staunch defender of the Second Amendment. We cannot keep his experi-ence and seniority, but we can certainly hope to break even by electing someone equally committed to the cause of firearms rights.

As adherents of the out-door lifestyle, we should always consider our par-ticular interests when we vote. Politicians can impact how we practice our sport in many ways: land use and conservation, the environment, energy policy and, of course, fire-arms laws.

We should support can-didates who will protect hunter and angler access to federal lands suited to such activity. Persons

lawfully entitled to carry firearms for personal de-fense should be able to do so while fishing, hiking or otherwise being engaged in non-hunting outdoor rec-reation in such areas.

To waterfowl hunt-ers, the issue of baiting regulations is vital. We need Congressmen who will sponsor new laws to tighten and clarify the cur-rent rules, which allow far too much officer discretion in determining where wa-terfowlers can legally hunt. Essentially, the law should tighten up to permit hunt-ing over any area that is not specifically baited — that is, where the attractant has been placed solely to bring in birds for shoot-ing. The infamous “zones of influence” — the terri-tory in which fowl might be influenced by a bait site — should be wiped totally from the picture; they are usually ill-defined and the current chaos of officer discretion can extend them over wide areas based on data to which hunters may not have access.

Also, the ideal new law would allow shooting on any site that has received only legitimate agricultural practice. For example, if a cornfield does so poorly the farmer feels it is not worth harvesting, that wasted field should be a le-gitimate place to hunt un-less he mows it down, a le-

gitimate act and necessary for the next year’s crop.

Yet the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) would deem such a site as having been “manipulated.” Current laws also ban hunting over livestock feedlots and can extend zones of influ-ence widely from feedlots. Taken to the potential ex-treme, the USFWS could enforce baiting laws so as to bar hunting from all areas except wildernesses where there is no agricul-ture. We need a Congress that will fix these unrea-sonable laws so that USF-WS bureaucrats, who often behave like anti-hunting zealots, can’t abuse them.

As the cost of energy — especially gasoline — rises, we are facing another spring turkey season with a spike in the tab for travel-ing to our hunting sites. Lucky are we who need to drive only a short distance or even walk to our favorite gobbler woods! But there are many who will feel the pressure of the extra “discretionary” expense of travel to hunting grounds in the far end of their county.

The only way we can help ourselves in this is by electing candidates who will support an aggressive policy of domestic oil pro-duction: drilling, develop-ment and gasoline refining. Personally, I’m ambivalent about the controversial

Keystone Pipeline, which from the standpoint of jobs and cheaper energy seems like a winner. But if the government would use eminent domain (which is an oppressive state evil) to bull the pipeline through someone’s squirrel woods, I won’t chime in to advocate it. I wouldn’t want the thing in my backyard, so I don’t feel that it’s right for me to insist they build it in yours.

All we outdoors folks have a green streak in us; otherwise, we’d be the types who do all our working and playing in offices, factories, arenas and nightclubs. But that doesn’t mean that the agenda of big government leftist eco-socialists who want to cash in as they save the planet deserves our approval. Most of these people are not friends of hunters and their policies generally contribute to soaring energy costs.

My personal ecologi-cal views are simplistic: whatever keeps the land green, increases the size of the forest canopy, reduces visible trash and real (not theoretical) poison in the air and water, is a “good” green. But if the policy covers land with asphalt, steel, and concrete, de-stroys trees, makes energy more expensive, or adds to government regulations, it probably belongs in the pseudo-green category.

If it were up to me, I’d fire most of the EPA bureaucrats and hand shovels and bun-dles of tree seedlings to the few I’d keep on the dole.

Bio-fuel is a double-edged knife for hunting and wildlife. Ethanol has increased the price of grain such as soybeans and corn and added much to the acreage of these crops. With the decline of the tobacco culture in our area, we have seen cropping pat-terns here in Eastern and Central Kentucky come to resemble the Grain Belt. Because we have become a deer-turkey-hunting culture, the added small grains have been a boon to this new kind of hunting.

But in the plains states, ethanol and increased row cropping has diminished Conservation Reserve Program lands to the point that upland game bird populations have gone bust. I know of people who go to Kansas every fall to hunt pheasants and are about to give it up as no longer worth doing.

Now we come to the big subject, which is the Second Amendment. Our enemies would like to bury this issue in this economy-driven campaign year, but we must keep it first in our hearts. We have won great, but narrow and far from decisive, victories in the Supreme Court. There is still room for anti-gun

political hacks at all levels of government to attempt semi-automatic bans, limit magazine capacities, ration the number of gun purchases, make permit-ting processes burdensome and expensive, stifle gun shows, impose the UN global gun control plot and create backdoor registra-tion schemes.

There are still far too many elected and ap-pointed officials who are violating the basic law of the land — the Bill of Rights and Second Amendment — daily, and intellectually dis-honest judges are allowing these lawless individuals to get by with it. As the slogan asks, “‘Just what part of ‘will not be infringed’ don’t they understand?”

Our gains in court could be lost in the future pass-ing of a bad anti-gun law and an unsuccessful court challenge to it should the composition of our federal courts — especially the Su-preme Court — change left-ward. So we must above all else remember that though presidents are short-term help who serve no more than eight years, the judges and justices they appoint can fester like chronic diseases to plague us for decades.

Fishermen and hunters are, as a class, indepen-dent and freedom-loving people. When we vote this year, liberty should be our only value.

OUTDOORS

Outdoorsmen’s interests in a political season

SAM BEVARD

PROVIDEDThe seventh-grade Ripley Blue Jays won the Southern Hills League Division II and the league tournament, finishing the regu-lar season with two losses and a league record of 9-1. Back row, left to right: Coach James Turner, Scottie Ott, Tanner Hatfield, Craig Horton, Lamon Marshall, Tristen Cahall, Jordan Griffith, Dalton Moran, Josh Deaton, Dylan Phillips and assistant coaches Jordan Maibberger and Brad Cannon. Cheerleaders: Second row, left to right: Bailey and Sky. Front row, left to right: Haley, Jo-hannah, Lara, Brooke, Allexandra, Jordan, Cassidy, Elizabeth and Abby. Not shown: cheerleader coach Glenda Mitchell.

CHRIS JENKINSAssociated Press

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. | Trevor Bayne won instant fame with his surprise Daytona 500 victory last year. He earned a small fortune, too.

He didn’t get what he really wanted, though: a full-time ride.

Going into Sunday’s season-opening Day-tona 500, the 21-year-old Bayne is as surprised as anyone that he’s only run-ning a partial schedule for the Wood Brothers in the Sprint Cup Series this year. His situation is even more unsettled in Nation-

wide, where Roush Fen-way Racing is committed only to run the first three races of the season and is hoping a few good runs can attract some more money.

“I figure if we can maybe be leading the points by then, then it would be hard for them to stop racing,” Bayne said. “But you would hope you could accumulate some kind of funding or some kind of sponsorship after the year that we had last year. It’s just tough right now for us, and for every team out there.”

Bayne and reigning Na-tionwide Series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are

two of the most prominent up-and-coming drivers in NASCAR. In happier eco-nomic times, they might have Fortune 500 compa-nies falling all over them.

The fact that neither driver has a full-time ride in Cup even caught the attention of five-time champion Jimmie John-son.

“We’re seeing a lot of things showing that it’s turning around, and hopefully it turns soon and the young guys that are kind of in the queue now will be able to ride it out and get a chance when the time comes,” Johnson said. “But it’s crazy to think that Ricky Sten-house, Trevor Bayne, you look through the list and they’re the first two that come to mind. They’ve had great success — and

white race cars.”Bayne’s stunning Day-

tona win kicked off a 2011 season that NASCAR offi-cials believe was engaging enough to give the sport a momentum boost for 2012. It ended with an epic title fight that ended with Tony Stewart edging out Carl Edwards in the final race of the season.

NASCAR Chief Market-ing Officer Steve Phelps believes those stories will drive fan interest this year, and Phelps sees other signs that NASCAR is re-bounding from the hit it took when the economy started sputtering.

“If you go back a couple of years, obviously, the economic downturn cer-tainly affects our sport more than any other be-cause it’s so dependent on sponsorship,” Phelps said.

Economy brighter in NASCAR, teams still searchingSTATE OF THE SPORT LEADING INTO SUNDAY’S DAYTON 500

WILDCATSFROM C1

“It was about as good of a half as we’ve played all year,” Brown said. “We went 58 percent from the field and still found ourselves down 11. They played their guts out through the entire game.”

Pendleton County start-ed to cool off in the second half and went just 3-of-16 from the field in the third quarter, tallying just nine points during the frame. But unfortunately for the Devils their offense started to sputter at the same time and they also tacked on just nine points during the quarter and were unable to capitalize on the Wildcats’ struggles.

Down the stretch the two teams continued to swap baskets and the Wildcats were able to stay comfort-ably ahead, almost always

by eight to 10 points.“We just never could get

over that eight- or nine-point hurdle,” Brown said. “(Pendleton County) just did everything they needed to do to win the game.”

The Devils placed three players in double figures, led by 18 from Calvin Schalch. He was joined by Johnathon Pilosky’s 15 and Jordan Earlywine’s 10.

“We got the ball in the hands of the guys that do the most damage for us and they all performed well to-night,” Brown said. “They all played well and I’ve got nothing but good things to say for them.”

Deming will learn its 10th Region tournament pairing at today’s draw. With four consecutive wins prior to Friday night and then giving Pendle-ton County a hard-fought contest Brown said the Devils shouldn’t be over-looked going into the re-gion.

“It’s a big plus to be able to play with arguably the No. 2 team in the region,” he said. “Playing a tough game like this should give us the confidence to play with anybody that we draw. If we can put this kind of effort together and do all the little things like we have been we’ll be a tough out for somebody.”

Deming 12 9 9 24 — 54Pendleton 16 16 9 21 — 62D: C. Schalch 18, D. Schalch 3, Jo.

Pilosky 15, Ju. Pilosky 4, Earlywine 10, Cooper 2, Edwards 2. Total: 54.

PC: Antrobus 22, Appleman 1, Monroe 22, Moore 2, Rering 10, Singleton 3, Woods 2. Total: 62.

3-pointers: Deming 3 (C. Shalch, D. Schalch, Earlywine); Pendleton County 8 (Antrobus 4, Monroe 3, Singleton).

Records: Deming 12-20, Pendleton County 18-13.