Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 3, 1994 TAG: 9410050010
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The top three deer in the recent 1994 Virginia Big Game Trophy Show in Harrisonburg were from last year's two-week early muzzleloading season.
The best of the bunch was a 40-point buck killed the third day of the muzzleloading season on a Bedford County mountainside by Walter Hatcher of Bedford. It scored 248 14/16, which ranked it 13th among Virginia's all-time bucks.
Even before Hatcher reached the show, his buck had received widespread recognition in state and national publications.
"People tell me, 'You have killed a buck of a lifetime.' I agree with them. It is true. A 40-point buck - I won't ever do that again. But there are wider and taller racks out there and I am looking for them. I have seen two very respectable deer" during pre-season scouting, he said.
Second in the 1994 contest was a 16-point Rockbridge County buck killed by Mike Shifflett of Glasgow. In third spot was a 17-point Patrick County buck killed by Billy Boyd of Ararat.
As impressive as the past muzzleloading season was, hunters continue talk about the previous one, when Jim Smith of Front Royal killed a 31-point buck that ranks as Virginia's all-time trophy deer. It also is the world record, non-typical muzzleloading buck. It scored 296 under Virginia's measuring system and 259 7/8 under the national Boone and Crockett system.
Hatcher's buck claimed second spot in the black-powder, non-typical world records according to the Longhunters Society, the keeper of black-powder records. It scored 242 6/8 Boone and Crockett. Shifflett's buck ranks ninth non-typical in the world. It bears a wide rack that looks much larger than its 204 Boone and Crockett score.
Virginia has attracted considerable attention as a trophy hunting state, thanks to three black-powder bucks placing in the top 10 of world records the past two seasons. The publicity includes a write-up in the September issue of North American Whitetail. Author Dick Idol, a nationally known deer-hunting expert, expressed surprise that Virginia's trophy list is more impressive than many found in Northern states and Canadian provinces.
"And that's saying a real mouthful for an Eastern Seaboard state - particularly one not noted for giant bucks," Idol said.
The past two years also have established the two-week early muzzleloading season as the time to kill a trophy buck in Virginia.
"Because of the rut," said Shifflett. "It makes all the difference in the world"
The rut is the period deer become sexually active.
"It is the one time they throw caution to the wind, literally," said Matt Knox, deer research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "So they are more likely to be killed."
The rut appeared to peak during last year's muzzleloading season. The big question, is that going to become a trend?
"Time will tell," said Knox, who believes it is too soon to be certain that the muzzleloading season will continue to dominate the state's trophy hunting.
"There is no question, the kind of deer those guys [Hatcher and Shifflett] killed are most vulnerable during the rut," Knox said. "In fact, I would argue even further and say about the only chance you have of killing them, besides killing them illegally, is in the rut. A deer like that doesn't make mistakes. They don't get that big walking around deer hunters."
"The rut is helping, but it doesn't always fall at the same time," said Hatcher. "Sometimes it is the third week of November, during the [regular] deer season. I think last year it was the first and second week [of November] that it was strong. It was peaking."
That time frame covered the muzzleloading season. But Tommy Huffman of Buena Vista also appeared to have the rut working for him the second day of the gun season in Amherst County, when he walked out a logging road and sounded his grunt call.
"I heard something behind me about 70 yards up on the ridge."
It turned out to be an 18-point buck that scored 224 12/16 at Harrisonburg, placing it first among the bucks killed during the regular firearms season.
Hunters like Hatcher, Shifflett and Boyd have more than just the rut going for them. They represent a new breed of dedicated sportsmen who specialize in trophy bucks. They concentrate on rugged, out of the way, areas where bucks are most likely to live long enough to grow towering antlers. They spend enough time in the woods to be there when such a buck makes a mistake.
Shifflett laid aside his contracting business Friday to spend nearly every day of the bow, muzzleloading and gun season in the woods. He uses river access and lengthy pre-dawn hikes to reach areas that average hunters give up on.
"Anything I can use as a front to keep other hunters out, that is what it takes," he said.
For him, the muzzleloading season, which opens Nov. 7, is another opportunity to be afield that wasn't there a few years ago. And while a black-powder rifle is classified as primitive, it isn't that much of a handicap, he said.
"Most of the deer you kill aren't but 30 or 40 yards distance."
Muzzleloading license sales increased more than 25 percent last year, reaching 62,259. The kill increased 115 percent, jumping from 12,115 to 25,995. That meant muzzleloaders took nearly 13 percent of all the deer killed during hunting seasons.
That kind of growth, coupled with the big bucks being taken, has caused some hunters to argue that muzzleloaders have an undue advantage over other deer hunters.
"If they are muzzleloading hunters they love it. If they aren't they are complaining, saying the muzzleloaders are killing all of the big deer," Knox said. "We especially hear that from archers.
"The archers have been out during the rut anyway, but just because of the range of their weapon they are not effective as muzzleloaders."
by CNB