The show sounds like it might be worth attending for part of a day, especially since I'll be a newbie to the area and to VA hunting. Figure I might pick up some pointers and a few gear items. Our Air Attache here at the Consulate in Hong Kong will also move to VA this summer. We hope to do some hunting together and we figure the show might be a good place to get familiarized with the scene.

Speaking of "way too many people," what can a hunter expect when hunting on public land in VA? Are there a lot of hunters out on openning day and on weekends? I recall on my last deer hunt in Utah many years back, our party rode horses for two hours into a remote area to discover a sea of blaze orange in the valley below after the sun came up (most were Californians). There was shooting all around us. It sounded like a war zone. Needless to say, the deer were on the move. One hunter who staged on a hillside across from our party shot a small two-point just twenty paces from where we'd tied our horses in a thicket below our position. We had a few words across the valley. It was crazy. Is that what VA hunting is like on public land? Or can I expect something a bit more sane?