Finishing the season with a BANG!!!

All I can say is wow, did we have a great weekend of hunting (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), here in Virginia. Shaun was down, as evidenced by his less than honest portrayal of our hunting experience these last few days of the season in his post. We make man drives and I would have to say I was in on making somewhere in the range of 70-75% of them so I definitely wasn't sitting on my ass. My only thing was that I've killed enough deer this year and I had a designated driver in Shaun so I could sit around and drink a few beers with Sammy and/or Mike while some of them still hunted on Friday and Saturday afternoon. Just to be perfectly clear on the drive front, we usually have two people driving and sometimes three. We were able to do that more these last few days because we had more people hunting. A high of 11 hunters at one point on Saturday.

Just to give you a synopsis - on Thursday we hunted in Blackstone making drives most of the day and we jumped a total of 25 deer that we saw. We made the Continental Can drive backwards (from Ft. Pickett back to Ridge Road) and jumped at least five deer we know of. There were only six of us hunting, Scott and I were making the drive and everyone on stand got to shoot (Scott even got to shoot in the cut-over where we jumped the deer). The only problem with that was that Jay got a running away shot at a doe and missed, Sammy got a shot at a doe he's pretty sure he hit with the shotgun but we were never able to find it, and Mike and Shaun both got shots at what they both described as a 'nice' buck (mountable according to Mike and he doesn't mount small ones). They hit that deer because they found blood but, again, we weren't able to find the deer. Another drive of note was the Parham drive where Mike and Jay ran a group of 8 does by me and I got one of them but should have had at least two, maybe three. They jumped two more deer on that drive but no one else shot. All in all, 15 shots were fired and we ended up with what we thought was just the one doe for the day.

Late that afternoon most of us sat in a stand somewhere for the afternoon hunt. Sammy and Jay (the landowner (and good friend - Mike and Jay basically grew up with Sammy and I've been hunting with these guys for about 20 years) and Mike's brother) went to the squeaker stand and watched down the light line into Ft. Pickett. That's a good place and you usually see a deer or two because you can see so far. The thing is that they're usually so far away the shot is nearly impossible. Shaun sat on my climbing stand overlooking the swamp on the house side of the land and I sat in a stand where I could see Sammy's truck where he and Jay were. Shaun got a shot at a doe but missed. Sammy shot twice at a doe across the creek into Ft. Pickett. We estimate the distance at around 600 yards. He shot and neither he nor Jay could tell if he hit the deer but there were still two deer in the light line so he shot again. They didn't see what happened to the deer so they just decided to leave it alone, rather than cross the creek and go looking in the dark for a deer that he might or might not have hit. We probably should have known better since Sammy is often saying he's "One shot Sam," or singing "Sammy Gee was a man, yes a big man….." or recent sayings like "If it's brown, it's going down," and "If it's brown, it's on the ground." Those are all in good fun and just joking but I'd have to say Sammy pulled off a shot something akin to Dan'l Boone killing a bear with just his bare hands and a knife. I took Shaun back to the Squeaker Stand the next afternoon to sit (because you can drive to the stand) and he looked across and saw what he thought was a deer laying in the light line about 600 yards away. A look through his 14X scope confirmed it so Shaun went and crossed the creek and dragged the deer back to the stand. By then Mike and Sammy had arrived and I told them what we had discovered and the legend of the 1/3 of a mile shot started to emerge. It's a story that will no doubt be passed down for generations and will probably be embellished some but I'm here to tell anyone reading this that I was there that day and it really did happen just the way I've described. It was cold Thursday night (20's) and chilly and rainy all day Friday (30's) so the deer meat was fine. A neighbor and friend of Sammy, Chuck Parrish, suggested that Sammy might want to approach some of the ammunition companies and make a proposal to them for the long range shots he's becoming known for. That would be to make the bullets with a certain percentage of salt content so the meat would be preserved until you could make it to the remote location where the animal was when you brought it down. I think that's a pretty good idea myself.

So, it was actually two deer for Thursday. Friday we made drives in Dundas and while I'm sure we must have gotten a few deer up, I know no one shot any deer that day.

That left Saturday and we were back in Blackstone. Just to hit the highlights, Shaun got a doe on the Parham drive that Mike and I were making. The deer got up in front of Mike and ran right to where Shaun was and he got it. Then on the Locust Grove Drive (again, being made backwards), Aaron shot a three pointer but it didn't die right away so he and a couple of the other young guys went back later and found the deer, finished it off and dragged it on out. We also made the Wal-Mart Drive (so named because it starts behind the Wal-Mart in Blackstone). Mike and Shaun made that drive and they drove a nice little four pointer to Sammy which he dispatched with one load of buckshot. Shaun probably drove the deer to Sammy but on a drive like that it's hard to say exactly where the deer came from unless you see or hear it get up and I don't think that was the case with this deer. It's just that Shaun finished up the drive right near where Sammy was. Sammy was saying later on that he didn't like taking those close-in shots but when you're making drives it only seems right to shoot what comes by you when the drivers are putting in the effort. This was, after all, the day after we confirmed his 600 yard kill shot with a 30-06, 150 grain bullet.

Still hunting for the afternoon on Saturday didn't include me or Sammy, we had a few beers at the trucks. We heard Shaun shoot and we had Shaun's radio so we eventually learned that he had shot a great big doe (for down here) - again while hunting from my climbing stand. I carried my safety strap down to him to make the drag a little easier and carried his pack and gun back for him. Then we heard Mike shooting down below the Locust Grove and it turned out he had five does walk out on him and he was able to kill two of them so it was a six deer day for our group.

After cleaning all the deer, Shaun and I went over to Sammy's in Dundas where a bunch of guys were cooking deer meat, shrimp and potatoes. We ate, I had a few beers, and we headed for home. I should mention that Mom came down with Shaun and while we were hunting, she was cleaning my house (thanks very much Mom, I love you!). Shaun, Mom and I got up for breakfast Sunday and went to the Cracker Barrel. After a nice breakfast, they headed for NY and I went home to get some much needed rest. I've got two big coolers pretty full of deer meat that I'm planning on starting on tonight.

I have pictures I'll post soon - as I said though, it was a great weekend of hunting. A total of eight deer for our little group in three days and it could have quite a few more. Lots of action and excitement and that's why we're hunting after all.