ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 25, 1996 TAG: 9611260131
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
Opening morning of the deer season, Jason Kestner spotted a four-point buck from a plush treehouse that overlooks a rye field where Catawba Creek and the James River merge in deer-rich Botetourt County.
``I saw him about 10 minutes to 7,'' said Kestner, a 27-year-old who lives near Eagle Rock.
The buck stuck its head out of the tree line that encircles the field, sniffed the breeze, then walked gracefully into the open, 200 yards away.
``He presented a shot about 7 o'clock,'' said Kestner, who was climbing out of the treehouse to claim his deer before the modern firearms season was an hour old.
Fellow members of the Catawba Hunt Club weren't surprised with Kestner's quick success, which sent him back to the clubhouse to watch TV much of the rest of the morning. His stand, known as the ``Big House,'' has a history of giving up at least one buck quickly on opening day. That is, if the occupant can shoot well enough to deal with ranges that reach out to nearly 400 yards. If not, his shirttail is in jeopardy.
Members have a hard time remembering exactly when the club started. The best estimates are the early 1950s, but what is certain, it didn't look like it was going to survive beyond last season.
``We thought we were going to lose it,'' said George Hill of Salem, the club's president.
For more than 40 years, the club was an informal gathering of friends who came to hunt and savor the magic of deer camp on land mostly owned by Rudy Craft, a dairy farmer. Craft enjoyed the chase, along with the comradeship and jokes that went with it. But unlike the others, he couldn't chunk his job for a week or so of hunting. The cows still had to be milked twice a day, hunting season or not.
Craft would adjust his milking time, moving it up two hours in November. He would rise at 2:30 a.m., milk 60-some Holsteins, jump into his rattly pickup and rumble down Lapsley Run, arriving at the cabin in time to wolf down a breakfast of sausage, gravy and biscuits before heading to his stand.
In July 1995, Craft was found dead, just across Catawba Creek from the hunting cabin, where he had been working with his cattle. A heart attack killed him.
The members hadn't just lost a good friend, but the club's future also was in doubt, said Hill.
The dairy operation was sold and, although the hunting land was on the market during the past deer season, Craft's widow let club members enjoy it.
The asking price for the 400 acres was nearly $200,000, more than club members could pay, said Hill.
``I got the group together and said, `Let's make her an offer.''' said Hill.
Sixteen people, young and old, indicated they were willing to pay big bucks for a piece of the action, Hill said. The offer was accepted.
Opening day of the hunting season looked like a rebirth of the good old days, although there has been a slight turn toward formality. The club's name has been shortened from the Catawba Creek Hunt Club to Catawba Hunt Club, and it has an LLC behind it on official papers, designating that members have established a limited liability corporation. There are bylaws, too, and fewer of the kind of guests who once had the habit of just showing up at daylight with the question, ``Any stands open?''
The cabin has been enlarged to sleep 14, and John Reed of Roanoke has been elected hunt master.
``We pretty much let the people who had stands go to those stands,'' he said. ``There haven't been any problems, yet, and I don't think there will be. They just come and tell me where they want to hunt. If a man kills a deer, he gives the stand up.''
There are two honorary members, Sonny Reid of Covington and Camillus Camper of Daleville.
Reid may be the most important man in camp. He is the cook. Someone asked him Monday, ``What's on the menu this week?''
Reid responded: ``Today we have pork chops, tomorrow we have oysters, Wednesday we have chicken, Thursday we have leftovers and Friday we have steaks.'' As for the trimmings, ``Potatoes and beans, that's all they want,'' he said. ``It's not hard to cook.''
At 91, Camper is the oldest man in camp. He has enjoyed the reputation of being able to shoot the whiskers off of a gnat, but some members were beginning to wonder about his eyesight. That question was answered during preseason sighting-in, when he plastered a pie tin with his 6 mm. But members still wouldn't let him climb into the ``Big House,'' where he has spent successful opening days in the past picking off deer at awesome ranges.
``They say I can't climb into it because I might fall, but it's because they know I will kill one up there,'' he said.
The club's treehouses are elaborate, with propane heaters, soft, swivel chairs, rugs, glassed windows and sand bags for steadying a rifle.
Club member Gene Craft of Roanoke, who is Rudy's brother, has hunted from the same stand for 25 years. His dad, the late P.C. Craft, started the club. Gene Craft has 75 acres of his own that adjoin club property, but no one pays attention to where one boundary ends and the other begins.
``The biggest change I have seen in my lifetime, since we first organized this club, we used to kill a lot bigger deer,'' said Craft, who is 66. ``You would see 15 to 18 eight-to 10-pointers hanging on the pole. Now you may see one 10-pointer and two or three eights.''
Every season has opened with the hope that a deer of tremendous proportions will be found on club property, one that is old and wise and has a swollen neck that holds a towering rack thick as a man's wrist - the kind Hill killed the last day of the season in 1968.
The 14-point buck was the biggest deer killed in Virginia that year, and still ranks high in the record book.
The Catawba gang is waiting for another, trusting that the genes from that old boy were passed along in the blood line to show up again, generations later. But those expectations have faded with the overall decline in the quality of the bucks.
Even so, the Catawba Hunt Club members have plunked down hard cash to keep on dreaming big dreams.
LENGTH: Long : 115 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL\Staff. 1. For a time, it appeared the Catawbaby CNBHunt Club would lose everything, including the ``Big House'' (at
left). But it is like old times again this season after members paid
to save the nearly 50-year-old organization. 2. Gene Craft (at top)
was watching for a buck from his treehouse, and 91-year-old Camillus
Camper (above) was declared too old to climb trees, but still was
ready for action. color.