2022 an eventful year for Ohio’s outdoor enthusiasts, a recap

On Dec 28, 2022

Memories, crooner Dean Martin once insisted in a 1950s hit, are made of this. Now updated for 2022, here are some of the high notes and low notes for the Ohio outdoors:

Turkey hunters were limited to a single bearded bird during the spring for the first time in 30 years. The take totaled 11,872, or 2,674 fewer than were checked in 2021. The fall turkey season was pared to three weeks.

Hunters took 196,988 deer during the 2021-22 season, including 96,184, or about 48.8 percent, with a bow. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease killed numerous deer during summer and fall, most notably in several southwestern counties.

The number of free-range deer confirmed to be infected with the lethal and environmentally persistent chronic wasting disease (CWD) increased to more than a dozen in an area so far restricted to Wyandot and Marion counties. Hardin County was included in a CWD surveillance area where special deer hunting rules applied.

Fourteen persons were convicted of numerous violations involving their roles in a ring illegally taking deer in Gallia County. Jeremy Bennett, a taxidermist near Logan, was handed $5,000 to defray legal expenses and offered an apology from the Ohio Division of Wildlife for an inspecting officer’s apparently overenthusiastic and constitutionally questionable pursuit of Bennett’s work records.

After a two-year break wrought by Covid-19, the Open Season Sportsmen’s Expo, formerly known as the Ohio Outdoor Life/Field & Stream Expo, formerly known as the Deer and Turkey Expo, was held in Columbus.

A Fremont teacher in November landed the largest smallmouth ever taken in the Great Lakes; the 10.15-pound giant won’t be an Ohio record because it was taken from Ontario waters of Lake Erie.

Regulators decided it will be okay in 2023 to fish with three lines everywhere in the state. A six-week cold snap allowed some ice fishing on Lake Erie and a few other places.

The Lake Erie walleye hatch was awarded a smiley emoji by the wildlife division. The world noticed when two fishermen were caught cheating during a walleye fishing tournament in Cleveland.

Native Ohio brook trout, restricted to inhabiting a short stretch of stream in the headwaters of the Chagrin River, were downgraded from threatened to endangered. Two federally endangered species of freshwater mussel – snuffbox Epioblasma triquetra and rayed bean Villosa fabalis – were found in an upper section of the Olentangy River.

Ohio, as the result of a negotiated settlement to a lawsuit, will have to create a plan that curbs nutrients flowing into Lake Erie via the Maumee River. The nutrients are mostly the result of agricultural runoff – fertilizer and manure – that help trigger toxic algae blooms. A draft of the state’s “pollution diet” must be completed by year’s end.

H2Ohio projects to mitigate water pollution, in part by re-establishing wetlands at the headwaters of numerous Ohio streams, continued apace under the administration of Gov. Mike DeWine. A trial to use herbicides on invasive milfoil, an invasive weed, at Indian Lake showed some success and will resume in the spring.

A new marina opened at Alum Creek State Park. Ground was broken for Great Council State Park in Greene County.

Almost 6,900 acres were added to the Appalachian Hills Wildlife Area in southeast Ohio, upping the size of Ohio’s largest such space to 54,525 acres for hunting, fishing, trapping, birding and outdoor recreation.

Acres were added at these designated wild areas: Big Island in Marion County, Woodland Trails in Preble County, North Turkeyfoot in Henry County, Moxley in Erie County, Whipple preserve in Adams County and Beaver Creek scenic river in Columbiana County.