Arthur,

This is good a place as any, as long as LBR agrees! I have experienced somewhat of a similar situation over the past 3 or 4 years. Only my expereince covers 20 years.

Twenty years ago I started hunting with my best friend in his home state of West Virginia. We would go up the week of Thanksgiving and hunt the first week of gun season for the elusive whitetail deer.

We continued that for 3 years until I had some bullets whistle over my heard the last time we went during gun season as I was sitting 2/3 of the way up a mountain ridge. All was peaceful and quiet until I heard the bullet whistle overhead and the sound of the rifle firing. 3 or 4 bullets whistled over my head as a shooter below me was shooting, hopefully, at a deer.

I crawled up behind a tree and and prayed to the Lord and promised Him that if He got me out of there alive, I would sell my guns and find a different means of hunting, or quit. Thankfully, archery was an alternative.

When we first started going, our kids were in the 7 to 10 years of age group. Now they are 27 to 30, my two each have a daughter and a son, his oldest son has two boys and a girl and his youngest son has two daughters. The three boys, my son and his two, have been hunting with us for about 5 years now.

The old body is having trouble negotiating the "hills" of the lowcountry of South Carolina, let alone the mountains of Randolph County West Virginia. But for one week a year, I have 51 weeks to recover! And as you say, the memories are priceless.

We have a log that we keep in which we write the events of the hunt for every person on every day we hunt. It is fun to read back and reminensce. The sad part, is the patriarch of the hunt, Jim's dad, went home to be with the Lord in January. This years hunt will be more than just a little bit sad.

Bill

Bill

Praise the Lord, He is worthy