ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 19, 1996 TAG: 9611190082
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
Monday was hailed as opening day of the deer season, but before it began Dennis Morgan of Hardy had killed two bucks and was nailing their antlers to the side of a weathered barn at his hunting camp in the Sugar Tree Hollow area of Botetourt County.
Morgan's hunting partner, 74-year-old Bud Bonhotel from Amherst, Ohio, watched and recalled his first deer hunt in the area, in 1948, when the season was a fleeting three-day affair.
``There really were no deer then,'' said Bonhotel. ``I think that first year we got two deer in three days, and there were 18 of us.''
During a recent season, the gang at Sugar Tree Hunt Club killed 18 deer, 15 of them bucks. This reflects the fact that Virginia's deer herd now numbers nearly 1 million animals, and the hunting has been extended from three days to three months. The action begins in early October, with the bow season, merges into the muzzleloading season in early November, is followed by the modern firearms season - that's what opened Monday - and ends with the late bow and muzzleloading season in early January.
Many hunters afield Monday, including Morgan, had killed bucks during the bow and/or black-powder seasons. Morgan got an eight-pointer and spike with his muzzleloader.
When Gary Harper, 35, of Troutville killed an eight-point buck in Botetourt County on Monday, it was his fifth deer of the 1996-97 season - three with a bow, one with a black-powder gun and one with a modern firearm.
His dad, Wayne, killed a doe Monday just after Harper dropped his buck.
``He's lucky,'' said Wayne Harper. ``He shoots the eight-pointer and runs the doe around to me.''
``We eat them pretty good,'' Gary Harper said when he was asked what he was going to do with all those deer. The buck was the 50th deer of his hunting career, he said.
Young sportsmen may not realize they are living in the good old days of deer hunting, said Bonhotel.
``When we hunted, it was all driving,'' he said of his early days afield. ``That was the only way you'd spot them. Now people go sit in a tree all day.''
The equipment is different, too, Bonhotel said.
``Most of us hunted with shotguns. We didn't have the equipment then.''
What rifles there were often were military surplus, old British Army rifles and German Mausers.
``They were OK, but they were heavy,'' said Bonhotel. ``We didn't know what a scope was.''
Donnie Dooley of Vinton killed an eight-point buck Monday near a clear cut on Westvaco property in Botetourt County. Two weeks earlier, on opening day of the black-powder season, he killed a seven-point buck in the same area, so far back into the interior of the commercial timberland property that he took a two-wheel cart to carry out his game.
``The buck came down the edge of the woods and clear cut,'' said Dooley, who made his kill about 9:30 a.m., minutes after his hunting buddy, Ottis Burger of Roanoke, had dropped a doe. It was a dandy morning for hunting, calm and not too cold, Dooley said.
``It was a good day to stay out there all day,'' he said.
Even so, the kill appeared to be down at the Old Mill checking station in Fincastle, the second-busiest game station in Virginia. By noon, only 40 deer had been registered, said David Steffen, research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Before the modern gun season opened Monday, Old Mill had checked 376 bow and muzzleloading kills. Last year its total was 1,298, second only to a check station at Camp A.P. Hill in Caroline County.
``The deer have good body size, but the antlers aren't all that great,'' Steffen said of Monday's crop. One of the best of the day at Old Mill was an 11-point buck checked by Howard Staples Jr. of Roanoke. In Floyd County, Danny Neighbors of Copper Hill killed an 18-point buck that had the kind of rocking-chair rack that made it a candidate for bragging rights, if not a big-buck contest.
``The deer harvest, I think, is down slightly, and the number of big bucks appears to be down significantly,'' said Matt Knox, after taking a look at the bow and black-powder kill. Knox is the state's deer research biologist.
Last year, there were 300 bucks in the state's big game contest.
``I just don't see 300 deer this season,'' said Knox. ``Last year was just exceptional.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL\Staff. Dennis Morgan nails antlers to the theby CNBSugar Tree Hunt Club barn Monday. Morgan and other hunters don't
have to wait for the modern firearms season anymore. color.