MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Backcountry Hunters and Anglers has a brand new chapter, and it’s right here in West Virginia.
BHA, headquartered in Missoula, Mont., is a non-profit conservation group aimed at advocating outdoors-friendly legislation and “seeks to ensure North America’s outdoor heritage of hunting and fishing in a natural setting.”
“Our freedom to hunt and fish depends on habitat,” the BHA website states. “While many of us enjoy hunting and fishing on a range of landscapes, including farm fields and reservoirs, there is something special – even magical – about hunting deep in the backcountry or fishing on a remote river. Wilderness hunting and fishing deliver a sense of freedom, challenge and solitude that is increasingly trampled by the twin pressures of growing population and increasing technology. … BHA members treasure America’s wilderness system and strive to add to it. We take the advice of Theodore Roosevelt: “Preserve large tracts of wilderness … for the exercise of the skill of the hunter, whether or not he is a man of means.”
West Virginia was added to the chapter circuit in the last round of pickups, bringing the U.S. chapter total to 48. Only Delaware and Hawaii don’t have a chapter.
One of the executive board members, Joshua Walters, notes that even though the Mountain State chapter is new, it still has big goals.
“We had our first board meeting Tuesday,” Walters said. “We’ve got a couple of issues we’re going to start working on – we had to have some actionable issues to become a chapter.
“The biggest thing for the chapter to start: They want to re-designate the New River Gorge as a national park, which would take away roughly 5,000 acres of public hunting access. So that’s a huge priority for us to work with Sen. [Shelley Moore] Capito and Sen. [Joe] Manchin on hopefully coming to an agreement where there would be some kind of an amendment to not lose that many acres of public hunting.”
There’s also public water access and management projects along the Tug River in southern West Virginia that the chapter has their eyes on, and they are collaborating with the Kentucky chapter with those. Other ideas include habitat work, such as the elk restoration project in the southern part of the state.
Walters, a member of BHA for a year and a half, noticed that West Virginia didn’t have a chapter. Of all of its backcountry exploits, this set a lightbulb off in Walters and other current executive board members heads. Seizing the opportunity, the group began planning events. But as soon as a pint night – likely what would have been the biggest event – was to launch, COVID-19 put a halt to it.
“I noticed that West Virginia was one of four or five stats without a chapter, so it was fun to get something started,” Walters said. “We had to have 100 members in West Virginia and four events. I got hooked up with trying to get something started in West Virginia in January and reached out to [leadership] then. We were going to plan a pint night in Morgantown but it got canceled because of COVID-19. It was going to be a good event.”
Without a doubt, backcountry hunting in the east is radically different than the adventures the west hosts, however, Walters believes West Virginia’s opportunities are special.
“With the 1.7 million acres of public land in West Virginia, there’s a lot of areas for folks to explore,” he said. “I wasn’t too aware of how public lands worked growing up, I didn’t hunt too much and when I did it was on private land. Now that I’m older, I’ve gotten into it pretty hardcore. I think bringing awareness to, one, this is everyone’s and, [two], West Virginia has a lot to offer – how do we preserve that?
“Out west it’s a lot different: You are backpacking in for four or five nights. West Virginia is nice because you can do a night trip or day trip, hunt deer or upland birds, fish, anything like that.”
So what about people who have never heard of BHA or have and may want to see what it’s about? Walters notes that while they’re still setting things up, folks do have options.
“We just got our Instagram account set up, and the handle is @WestVirginiaBHA so we’re going to start posting a lot of events and current issues there,” he said. “We’ll launch our Facebook site soon to get some traction on there. With the coronavirus, we’re not sure what in-person events we’ll have but I think a virtual pint night is going to be coming down on the calendar sometime soon, and I think some habitat projects, too. We’ve gotten some traction so far on Instagram. A lot of people have reached out and asked how to get involved.”
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