THWACK as others have already said I will repeat, do not label all drive hunters as slobs or unsafe, that is the same as labeling all bowhunters slobs because someone took a crappy shot, wounded a deer that wound up dead 3 days later.

I grew up in the Northern Neck of Va., and participated in an awful lot of drives, heck we even hunted with dogs! We always planned every drive, exactly who was driving and where, who was standing and where, most of our shots were on standing deer, some at walking ones. How can that be you ask?

Well when it was people driving, the drivers did not hoot and holler on the drive, they slowly made their ways back and forth towards the standers, the deer moved, but did not panic.

How in the world did you do drives with dogs and still get standing/walking shots? Well we always used short leg beagles and only used them in large tracts of swamp or thickets. The standers were at a considerable distance from where the dogs were put in and as a result the deer when first jumped would run hard for 100-200 yards and then proceed to mosey on to either slip the dogs or head to the standers.

Oh but people who do drives or use dogs do not do any scouting! WRONG! I do not do drives or hunt in front of dogs any more, but I can tell you right now, that these boys I hunted with spent a lot of time scouting and they knew where the deer where, when they put on a drive you can bet your sweet rear end there were deer.

THWACK there are slobs in every style of hunting, but they are in the minority, the drivers you were exposed to where slobs, just like you see an occasional slob show up here talking about taking 70 yard hail Mary shots! Do not call an entire form of hunting style as slovenly, it is not true.

The Tazman aka Martin Price
Founder and President of
Virginia Disabled Outdoorsmen Club