We retired to a farm in southwest Virginia from Pa. 2 years ago, mostly to give our arthritis a break. Virginia has relatively liberal deer limits compared to what I am used to--6 tags with license, and unlimited doe tags at $15 per pair.

I have been fortunate to have hunted in a number of states in the northeast, midwest, and west during the past 50 years, but have never encountered the attitude I find locally--numbers hunters.

When I meet some of the local hunters and ask how the season went, I am answered with a number. For example: "I shot 14", "I shot 23", "I had a tough year and only shot 9" etc. I of course, ask what they do with all these deer, and am often told that they don't eat deer meat, but they give them away. They never seem to elaborate on this last part. A neighbor told me that last year a local woman called the game warden when she discovered a pile of deer on her property with just the backstraps cut out.

My wife and I shot 4 deer between us last year, and 4 this year. It would have been no problem for each of us to have shot several more. Even though we have a week of season left, I doubt that we will hunt. All of the meat (except some that went to friends who asked for some meat) went into our freezer.

My question is: Is that the way it is in the south, or did we just bump into an an unusual situation? Has deer hunting here been reduced to scorekeeping?