Isle of Wight: Judge limits man's outcry against hound hunters

ISLE OF WIGHT -- On his 157 acres of Virginia farm country, professional bass fisherman Curt Lytle has stocked a 2½-acre pond with bass and bluegill and set up wildlife feeding stations in the woods. But he complains a hunt club has let its hounds run onto his property, disrupting his own hunting and frightening his two little girls.

Lytle told a judge in Isle of Wight County that he had had enough of the dogs encroaching on his southeastern Virginia plot in Zuni and scaring his girls, ages 2 and 4.

"We just want this to end," he added.

Today, however, the judge said the hunters had the right to go on Lytle's land to fetch their hounds even though he is sympathetic to Lytle's plight.

Circuit Judge Westbrook J. Parker said the state's "right-to-retrieve" law clearly allows hunters who use dogs to enter anyone's property -- posted or otherwise -- to collar their canines. Hunters cannot carry weapons while pursuing their animals.

Lytle had sought to have members of the Walters Hunt Club prosecuted on civil trespass charges and banned from hunting on his property. In seeking a court injunction, Lytle complained that the dogs' baying awoke him at midnight and cited several encounters with club members, including one in which he suspected a hunter had entered his property with a gun.

Parker continued the case until April, and said Curt and Brandy Lytle would have to prove members of the club intentionally let their dogs loose on their land. A lawyer for the Lytles said he would discuss the case with the couple and whether they wished to continue.

"Basically, what the judge indicated today is the right-to-retrieve continues in Virginia and it does give you a limited right to go on the property of another with your dogs," said Richard E. Railey, who represented the hunt club.

Dating to Virginia's founding, the use of dogs for hunting is a zealously guarded heritage.

The hunting tradition even stirred thousands of outdoor activists to mobilize last year when the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries began talking about possible changes in the hound hunting laws -- specifically the retrieval law. The law dates to the 1930s and Virginia's tradition of fox hunting.

Few hunters will be swayed on the retrieval law, arguing that their beloved and often expensive hounds must be retrieved immediately for their own safety.

Each year, club members look eagerly for the start of fall and winter hunting seasons, a tradition dating back centuries.

"George Washington was a hound hunter. Thomas Jefferson was a hound hunter," said Railey, a member of the game department's board. "It's been a part of our culture in Virginia."

Railey acknowledged, however, that Virginia is a much different state now than in the past -- and the rights of hunters are inevitably going to clash with landowners, even fellow hunters like Lytle. The habitat required to run dogs is diminishing by the day.

"Virginia's a changing place," Railey said.

Several Southern states in recent years have limited hound hunting, and Virginia critics of the retrieve law have suggested a class action might be launched if the General Assembly doesn't act.

Lytle moved from a subdivision to this county of less than 15,000 and "from a fairly empty blackboard" created his wildlife habitat, attracting quail, deer and other animals. He said his legal action was aimed at the hunt club, not the retrieval law.

"The hunters have this attitude that they have this entitlement," Lytle said, calling some club members "belligerent" when he asked them to leave his property.

Duane Rhodes, president of the 38-member hunt club, attended the court hearing with other club members and denied the club had harassed the Lytles.

"We have done everything in our ability to stay off Mr. Lytle's land," he said. "We don't like confrontation any more than the next guy."

The Lytles' lawyer, Thomas B. Kelly, was attempting to restrict hunt club members from the Lytle property by arguing that the hunters could be prosecuted under civil trespass laws. A similar tactic was used to limit a hunt club in Gloucester County.

The judge, he said, "is in tune with the hound hunters' argument. What I'm afraid is he's not analyzing the law with sufficient detail to actually appreciate what our position is."