November 20, 2006
Suburban monster
Joe Golding killed this magnificant 13-pointer last week in Roanoke County, on a fairly small parcel of land surrounded by subdivisions. This deer is yet more proof that a combination of good habitat and little hunting pressure can create some huge bucks in suburbs.
I've heard of a number of good deer going down the past few days, which is not surprising considering that the opening of rifle season means this is when hunting pressure is at its peak.
I got out for a quick hunt Friday afternoon in Franklin County with my buddy Freddy McGuire, who was hoping to get some video footage of me shooting a doe with my bow. We didn't see any deer, but for the second hunt in a row my action was interupted by a stray dog. When the dog trotted under our stand Freddy hissed "Hey!" The dog look up, saw us, and took off like it had been peppered with bird shot. It was pretty funny.
Saturday afternoon I met my good friend Bobby Hogan in Botetourt County. Bobby had killed a heavy eight-pointer Friday so before we hunted I took some pictures. (I'll post one here in the next day or so.)
We hunted together. The plan was for him to shoot a doe if given a chance, while I would try to kill any mature buck that showed up. Whoever wasn't shooting the gun would try to video the action. Early on we had a doe come in to 35 yards but whenever I had clear view Bobby didn't, and vice versa. The doe finally winded us and bolted. It gave us more appreciation for how tough it is to kill a deer on video when hunting in the woods.
Not much later we had a mature buck show up. I was concentrating on the camera's viewfinder so couldn't see it too well, but I could see sweeping main beams. I asked Bobby if it was a shooter and he said, "No." The deer turned out to have only three points -- the main beams and one brow tine. It wasn't like the other tines had been broken off. It was just a genetically inferior deer, apparently. It really needed to be removed from the gene pool, so to speak, but Bobby's got only one buck tag left. I have two but still wasn't willing to burn one on that deer.
I would have loved to hunt today but office work beckoned. Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning I'll be tagging along with a father and his daughter, who is hoping to kill her first deer.
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