Bill Cochran

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• Connecting the dots to locate Virginia's best trophy deer hunting
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Deer hunting has changed. So have deer. And deer hunters.

I know that for a fact, because I have covered all three as a writer for 40 years and have been a hunter longer than that. Here’s what’s in and what’s out:

WHAT’S IN: Women hunters. They have been gaining in number. I believe that women are vital to the future wellbeing and growth of hunting and shooting sports. The growth and acceptance of hunting is in the hands of women. Back in the Pleistocene Era of the 20^th century, when I covered opening day, I hesitated interviewing the rare woman who brought a deer to be checked. I knew it could be a great story, but chances were her husband had killed it and she was checking it in to save his deer tag for later. Even if that weren’t the case, people thought it to be true.

WHAT’S OUT: The concept that deer hunting is a high-testosterone, masculine-only affair and that women have no place in the deer woods. In the November issue of Buckmaster Whitetail Magazine, which is about as hardcore deer hunting as you can get, there is an article titled “Hunting With Your Better Half.”  I know the joy of that firsthand. Last year my wife, Katherine, hunted for the first time and killed a buck with a muzzleloader.

WHAT’S IN: Treestands. Most bowhunters use one -- and so do many gun hunters. When I got started, no one even thought about hunting from an elevated stand.

WHAT’S OUT: Deer drives in the western part of the state. I remember in places like Bath County it was common to hear the shouts, whistles and sometimes shots of hunters attempting to drive deer to standers placed along roadsides.

WHAT’S IN: A business-like approach to deer hunting, where a hunter puts in a couple morning hours in his treestand then departs for work or leaves work early for a couple hours of hunting before dark. The hunter eats dinner at home, sleeps in his own bed and showers regularly.

WHAT’S OUT: Deer camps, where friends gathered in a masculine world filled with smoke haze, belches, crude jokes, greasy food, the smell of onions, unwashed dishes, no shaving or bath taking; where cards were played, and fewer people got up to hunt every morning, and most everyone managed to make it home for Thanksgiving Day.

WHAT’S IN: Quality deer management, or QDM. Growing numbers of hunters are passing up shots at small bucks with the idea that if you let them go they will grow. Game regulations are slow to keep pace with this movement, but, in time, regulations mandating the protection of young bucks will be common. Starting next season, Shenandoah County will have a modest QDM regulation.

WHAT’S OUT: Killing just any spike, or three or four point, or gnarly six-pointer that happens to come along unless you are a kid or a first-time hunter. If you didn’t see a trophy buck this season, maybe it is because it got shot as a spike.

WHAT’S IN: Killing does. This is part of QDM. The feeling is, if you want a deer for your freezer your best bet is a doe. Some hunt clubs now require that you kill a doe before you have the right to kill a buck. If you want big bucks you have to keep the doe herd in check. Venison comes before vanity.

WHAT’S OUT: The idea that if you kill does you will harm the deer herd. I recall years ago when hunting with a certain club for the first time, I was told that if I killed a doe I would promptly be ushered off the property and never invited back. Maybe worse.

WHAT’S IN: Checking the deer you kill by telephone. From what I can tell, this trend, which was started last season, has been growing rapidly in popularity this year. About 45 percent of the deer checked last season were phoned in. I’m guessing that will hit the 60 percent this time and more than 80 percent in the future.

WHAT’S OUT: Taking your buck to a country store or fishing and hunting shop to check it, where you shoot the breeze and buy a hotdog and drink and make the proprietor’s cash register ring.

WHAT’S IN: Hunting on private land. Today, you are much more likely to see a nice buck flashing its white tail around the corner of a barn than you are to see one in the wilderness.

WHAT’S OUT: Hunting on the national forest. When I was young, national forest land was the place to hunt, because that’s where the deer were thanks to stocking programs. I killed my first deer with a bow in the Patterson Creek area of the Jefferson National Forest. Places like Patterson Creek, Potts Mountain, Tub Run, Barbours Creek, Jennings Creek are names that come to mind where hunters in the Roanoke area and beyond flocked to hunt. I traveled across Potts Mountain this week and found hunting activity to be so sparse that it was difficult to tell the firearm’s deer season is in progress.

WHAT’S IN: The concept that killing a deer is no big deal, unless you kill one massive enough to take to a trophy show. After all, there is no shortage of deer and the season goes on forever, so why wouldn’t you get one?

WHAT’S OUT: Asking everybody you know, “Get a buck?” I can remember when people would run me down in the grocery store, or church or at the PTA to ask that question. When I said “No,” it reflected on my manhood, and I was fearful that I might lose my job as outdoor editor at the newspaper. Now you could wear antlers around your neck and no one would ask, “Get a buck?”

WHAT’S IN: The rut. Well, the rut, which is the time of sexual activity for deer, has been around since the creation of deer; however, most hunters didn’t pay much attention to it until recent years. Now outdoor magazines, September through January, are jammed with articles on the pre-rut, the rut, the post-rut, the second rut. Skillful sportsmen plan their hunts around the rut.

WHAT’S OUT: Guys like me who didn’t learn about the rut until after several years of hunting. In the old days, it was something people just didn’t know about, or if they did, didn’t talk about. It was an older hunter who told me about how to hunt the rut, and I was amazed, like a kid being told for the first time where babies come from.

NEXT WEEK: I will have Part II of WHAT’S IN AND WHAT’S OUT of deer hunting, unless a trophy buck or something else happens to get in my way, then the subject might change.