THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 4, 1995 TAG: 9412310124
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Lee Tolliver
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
For years, I thought that hunting deer comprised only sitting in a tree stand or waiting for dogs to run a deer past the shooters.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
During the middle of the day, deer often bed down in thickets where they are basically safe from harm's way. Dogs run deer from those spots, but when you don't have dogs - and I don't think much of that style of hunting anyway - how do you get the deer out into open territory?
There's only one way.
You get a group of hunters, station half of them at one end of a thicket, and make the rest do a drive through the extremely tough world where deer make their homes.
I'm here to tell you that this is a miserable way to hunt.
For starters, the thicket is appropriately named - it's thick as molasses in there and some of the stuff that makes it that way is real bad news.
Briers. Lots and lots of 10-foot high, 2-inch thick stalks with razor-sharp needles that apparently grow only to make life pure torture for any human entering their domain.
To do a drive, you had better be dressed properly. Leather chaps are a good idea, but at the very least, wear thick coveralls. A hat covering the ears is also a must, as are gloves. I recommend shooting glasses to protect the eyes, also. Bring a sharp machete to get you through the thicker stuff.
And in the thicket I recently drove with several buddies, you can leave your gun in the truck. Leave the shooting to the guys on the outside.
Driving - where several hunters walk their way through the thicket, shouting and making noise to spook the deer - is some of the hardest work you will likely ever do. At the end of the push, you are tired, sore, probably cut in several places, and more than likely ready to pack up and go home.
The only reward is when the shooters register a kill.
On this particular day, the deer driven from their beds were a tad too smart and definitely too quick for the guys at the shooting end.
We went home, after about eight hours and five drives, empty-handed.
And for myself, that's not a problem.
For me, hunting is as much about fellowship and being out in Mother Nature's wonderment as it is anything else.
But my recent experience in doing drives taught me one thing.
During the middle of the day, I'd just as soon let the deer rest while I do the same. by CNB