175 acres of land...

[Niner]

Another Thumpish story.........

Back in the .....ummmm....early 1980's when I'd gotten out of the service, and was a newly-wed living/working in Norfolk/VA Beach area, one of the guys where I was working was a local fellow. He invited me out to their family hunting club one weekend, and it was a bit of an "old south" experience....I suppose.

It was sortof kindof like the senario I talked about above. The diff was this that this was a bunch of Suffolk "rednecks" (so to speak). It was a fantastic mix of country white and black folks and EVERYONE was just the salt-of-the-earth kindof folks.

That part of VA back then was shotgun only....may still be for all I know. They were doing "deer drives" that weekend...which now that I think back on it may be why I got the invite. Maybe they needed more guns in the fieild. ANYWAY....
After they'd put all the standers out, they had a guy come working through the wood with a pack of dogs. Beagles maybe????....I forget. And I didn't even so much as see a squirrell, much less a deer.....

I said all that to say this. They DID kill several deer that day. And that evening they were skinned and cut up, and EVERYONE......every single hunter got a cut of the meat to take home. I got a nice rump roast.


Sorry for the Thumpish post. Y'all got the old memory banks rolliing and I'm remembering long-forgotten hunting adventures.

[Buckrub]

Deer Drives is how it used to be done in the South. Our cabin has a permanently painted map of the area, all roads (most don't exist anymore), and the name of "Drives" painted on. E.G., there's an Old Tram Road, and next to it is "Old Tram Drive". They had maps of where to put the standers and where to put the dogs out, and where to pick 'em up. You did NOT get off of your stand until they came and got you. No four wheelers, of course, and a Willys Jeep wouldn't hold everyone, so lots of folks had Power Wagons.

Those guys never thought that you could kill a deer by waiting on it to walk by. They were too wary. So you had to drive them out of the southern thickets, or do without.

While I have come to detest that kind of hunting, and hate it when someone's dogs get over on our property, there IS that tingling in the back of my neck when a chase gets close to me. After it's over, I think "Man, I wish they'd go away".........but when they are approaching, it's lightning in a bottle.