Thursday, January 19, 2012
Bill Cochran's Mailbag: Tracking deer more fun than scrubbing clubhouse
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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BILL: On the last hunt of the season a young buck made the mistake of running by Bob, an old ex-gunnery sergeant friend and club member. This guy hunts with a 20-gauge, bolt-action shotgun and knows what he’s doing. Bob got off two shots, rocking the deer off his feet with the first round and hitting him with the follow-up.
As it started getting dark, the huntsmasters brought over a blood-trailing dog and trailed the buck until dark, giving up in a little wet swamp. Saturday night Bob endured the good natured poking that comes in a club when you “miss.”
Early Sunday morning, Bob, myself and another veteran hunter went out looking for his buck. We took a lot of barbs when we left, but Bob is the kind of consistently good shot that when he says he hit the deer hard you just know it would be down.
In about a half hour we found the deer about 30 yards past the wet spot where the dog and two huntmasters gave up.
It was a cool night and the venison was just fine. Bob’s two shots had done their job. The fun was feeding the abuse back to the naysayers. And it was a lot more fun trailing a deer than scrubbing out the clubhouse to shut down at the end of the season
JIM RIGGS
Norfolk
BILL: In response to the increase in non-resident fishing license fees implemented last summer (by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries), I’m still in North Carolina fishing down here missing the New River that I was raised up on in West Virginia.
I don’t think the DGIF thought much about us Yankees that had to move south years ago for work and bring our families. With gas around $3.50 a gallon, they picked a rough time to get greedy again. It sounds like they are scrambling around for even more money from the “non-consumptive” outdoorsmen. How many game wardens do you Virginians need compared to other states?
JEFFERY ROSS
BILL: I just saw your Web site and read about the Sunday hunting ban. I thought I would share that there is a new Web site called The Whitetail Army, www.whitetailarmy.org. It is the work of a new, nonprofit organization fully supportive of the elimination of the Sunday hunting ban nationwide. The names of politicians are posted.
DAVID MCELROY
