Evening star., 1959-12-04

Cd a dirty trick and 90 GER
tainly not sporting.
How it worked in our case
is worth the telling, but first
let us remind you that deer
hunters have an ancient and
honorable practice. That is
to snip off the shirt tail of a
hunter who fires at a deep>and
misses. So here's the tail"
1t happened in West Virginia,
on an abandoned farm close
by Sleepy Greek State Forest,
a mountainous 81, ,000-acre pub
lie hunting ground some 80
miles from here.
The farm is owned by Bill
Warf1eld, Annandale contrac-
tor who uses it only for hunt
ing and is thinking Of Or
ganizing a club. Wind whistles
through the cracks in the old
farmhouse, water is toted from
a mountain spring, cooking is
on a Coleman stove, but de-
spite the lack of comforts, the
farm is ideal for its purpose.
In the high grass back of the
farmhouse are numerous i'm
pressions where deer have
bedded for the night. Hoof-
prints, both old and new, are
everywhere. On saplingS in
the thickets or in the pine
forests are "buck rubbings"
where deer have honed the
velvet from their antlers.
Why, one can laze on the
front porch and hunt in COM
fort. because twice on our two
day visit deer bounded close to
the house after being "spooked"
or frightened by some hunter.
Hunters Assemble
The night before the West
Virginia season opened, a group
of hunters, most Of them mem
bers of the Fairfax Rod and
Gun Club, assembled at the
farm.
The hunters included Steve
Creeden. Annandale ATTORNEY
Vince Marcum, Hudson Chan
dler and Herb Koehne of
Arlington and Joe Chambliss of
Alexandria.
There was the usual night
before-the-season anticipation,
small talk about deer signs, a
few jokes and finally 40 winks
that were ended by Bills alarm
clock shouting, Get up and
git"
Deer hunters usually try to
be on their stands at daybreak,
when the deer start moving to-
their feeding grounds. 1t means
a scramble into cold clothing
and colder boots, swig of hot
coffee and a dash for the hills.
Our stand was a perch on a
rotted log at the base of a big
oak, overlooking a brush
ehoked ravine along which deer
were likely to travel the noun
tainside.
The hand warmer with the
buck lure clip was placed so
that it waited a heady odor into
the wind sloughing in the tree
tops. The Winchester "a rested
handily on our knees and we
settled down to a cold wait.
For an hour or more there
were only the usual small
sounds in the forest, the wind
rattling the leaves, a furry that
brought us alert as a squirrel
dashed about, but in time we
heard the unmistakable "clop,
clop" of a deer coming from
doWnwind.
Finally the deer, a big doe,
could be seen, barely visible in
the ravine. 1t passed almost
instantly from sight but was
heard moving about as if pre-
pairing to climb the far side.
Makes Big Mistake
To get a clear view, it would
be necessary for us to step to
one side and as the threshing
continued, we decided to chance
it.
That's where we made the
mistake of our hunting career.
The doe. instead Of heading up
the mountainside, had crossed
the ravine and stood staring
at US transfixed, a scant so feet
away.
Its reactions were quicker
and with a mighty leap the deer
was off into the brush while we
threw a shot without enthusi-
aSm at it's bounding back.
Whether the buck lure had
anything to do with it we don't
know, but we were prepared to
swear back at camp that the
doe wore a panied expression as
if to say: ....
Look. Bud, I only wanted
company"