Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 21, 1993 TAG: 9311210036
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You'd drive a highway toward deer country and the red tail lights of hunters' vehicles were so numerous in the pre-dawn darkness that they were like strings of Christmas lights across the rural landscape.
In the afternoon or at the end of the week, the parade would flow in reverse. The four-wheel drives, the pickups, the rattletraps and the Cadillacs splashed with mud would head home. Gun racks in back windows. Blaze orange illuminating the interior. A stiff buck lashed to the top of a Volkswagen Bug. A deer head poking out beneath a trunk lid. A doe on a Coleman trailer. A river of stories flowing down the highway.
There were times last week when you could drive the same routes unaware deer season was open. A tradition was changing.
No longer is deer hunting compacted into a week or two of intense action, when you'd have a tough time finding parking space along a national forest road.
By using a bow, muzzleloader and modern gun, a hunter in Virginia this season could begin pursuing deer Oct. 2 and not stop until Jan. 1. Thirteen weeks, two days.
One of the big factors that took the intensity out of opening week of the gun season was the two-week muzzleloading season in early November.
"We no longer have a two-week gun season, we have a four-week season," said Jay Jeffreys, a wildlife biologist supervisor for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Big-game checking stations, such as North Side Supply in Bedford County and Old Mill Grocery in Botetourt County, already had recorded more than 100 black-powder deer apiece when the firearm season opened Monday.
Some hunters this season took vacation time during the muzzleloading season, rather than the gun season. Several of the best bucks of the year were muzzleloading kills, including the 36-pointer taken in Bedford County by Walter Hatcher of Big Island. Taxidermist Melvin Mitchell scored it 228 non-typical Boone and Crockett.
It was reasonable to expect that gun hunters might be upset over the idea that black-powder hunters were in their woods two weeks early. But state officials said complaints were nil. Instead of fighting the new, liberal muzzleloading season, modern firearm hunters have joined it.
"Most of the gun hunters now have a muzzleloader and a bow," said Capt. John Heslep, a state game warden.
Heslep and others are seeing still another break in tradition. Hunters aren't just being spread thin across the calendar, but also across the commonwealth. No longer do sportsmen have to travel several counties to congregate in a hunting hot spot like Bath County or Highland County. They can find deer near home, sometimes even in their back yard.
The eroding intensity of deer hunting has made the sport safer. It also has promoted more of a one-on-one pursuit of hunter vs. prey amid woods and fields that are less bothered by human intrusion, where deer move quietly according to their seasonal routine. Success demands more skill, more patience, more woodsmanship, and that's good for the sport.
Among the most successful last week were Pat O'Brien, who killed a 22-point buck in Bedford County that had an outside rack measurement of 25 5/8 inches; Dorothy St. Clair of Botetourt County, who killed a 14-point buck; and Harold Blankenship of Elliston, who got a 12-point buck in Craig County with a 19 3/4-inch outside measurement.
by CNB