mounting man

Not being able to fall asleep the night before Buck season. Praying for snow,that night. Being the brunt of jokes from your uncles that morning!You were only 12 years old!
Putting on a Buffalo plaid Woolrich coat,that was too big,but warm! On the back of it,with 4 safety pins,was a Red Bandanna. On to the middle of it was your ticket to man hood,your Hunting License!!! In with the license,in side the leather holder,you had put pencil and a piece of string,to put your tag on the Deer's antler. Your boots were 5 buckle black rubber with felt liners and socks. And to top it all off,a red hat of some type?
You can hear some the guys out side and they come into the house. They are covered with snow! They were outside putting tire chains on the cars!!! It is still dark and very cold plus the wind had started to blow!
Most of them carried a 30-30 Winchester,a couple had 03-a3 army rifles. I had a 12 gauge and slugs.
Now this is up in the Pa. mountains.When we got to the hunting area there were 15 or 20 other guys in the gang there waiting to see what we going to do. Some men went up the ridge and some went down into the valley. It is still dark. I was placed by a tree and told to stay there and keep your eyes open and to shoot a buck?
It got light and i was shivering and proud to be there with these guys.
A half hour later the woods came alive with gun shots and deer running every direction. 15 minutes of this and it calmed down and was quite!! The next thing i hear was yelling,pans being hit with sticks,whistles blowing and guns being fired once in a while????
I seen a lot of deer! 10 and 15 at a time. I could see no horns,at the speed they were going!
By 10 am it had calmed down and the guys were coming back to the cars. Some were dragging bucks. About half of them had got a buck,from spikes to small 10 point.
They put on more drives and got a couple more bucks. We quit about 3 pm and i was glad. I was so cold i couldn't hardly get my zipper down to pee!!!!!!My dad came and got me that evening. He didn't hunt,the war had taken killing out of him! The next day i had warmed up but my fingers were still sore from the cold.Every time i moved moved them and it tingled it reminded me of the great time i had!
Oh,by the way,this was 1958!

Oldtimr

I remember all of that and the only thing I don't miss s cold feet. I would give a lot to have just once, a day back to hunt with my dad and my brothers when we were kids, be it small game or deer.

MaineRida

A lot of what you enjoyed is similar, but in Maine you are not allowed to drive or feed deer. If you saw five deer in the entire season you were doing well. But the excitement was the same as well as the comradry of the hunting group (no more than five). Still look to have the same experiences with my kids as well as the grandkids!

Father Forkhorn

I remember something close to it. I did my seminary in western Pennsylvania and hunted in the mountains in a cabin with several acquaintances each year.

I miss that experience very much.

Mojotex

Yep I was an excited kid and had a tough time sleeping the evening before. But the snow thing ? Hardly ! Not SE Louisiana !! Hot as 10 hells, mosquito infested swamp hunting, rowed in --- dogs and all in pirogues. My stand was usually on a big stump of a cypress tree that had been felled decades before, watching a pipeline ROW. My old 12 ga. single shot loaded with 00 buck ... waiting for a pack of soaking wet hounds to drive a deer my way ... and hoping it would be slipping along rather than hauling tail. MAn it was some thick stuff! In 7 - 8 years of that style of hunting, I never saw a single deer. Only deer that I killed before I was age 19 was a bow kill (spike) when I was 14. My dad hunted this way too ffrom 1954 to 1972 and never even got a shot. Were not many deer around anyway down that way back in the '60's. A big season for the whole bunch that hunted together was 4-5. But we had a ball.

Moved to Alabama in 1974 and that all changed. Got me 4 red ticked "English Coon Hounds that had taken upo running deer rather than tree coons. Man they could push a deer! Gave up running dogs in 1977. Loved my hounds. Enjoyed the bawl of the run. Killed a few deer along the waY. But it took thousands of acres to keep away from inteferring with other hunters in the general area and feeding 4 hungry hounds + vet bills ! I gave all but one of my beloved hounds to a good buddy. My dad, brothers and I leased a 450 acre spot in 1978 and we never looked back. Short of owning my own hunting property, this has been the best way for me to go. Now I hunt with 14 others on 3050 acres of good habitat. Getting old, but still having fun. Season opened today .... and I am at work (sort-a) .

alleyyooper

Ya I remember and still to this day get more excided than I ever did at Christmas time.
I was 38 before I ever got a Woolrich plaid coat. Loved that coat, cause in Michigan during fire arm season it rains many times rather than snow till later in the season after thanks giving mostly, and that coat would shed some water.
Still have my 30 -30 I got for my birthday 1964 which is after deer season.
We normally did not do deer drives till thanks giving week end. And it was the young hunters with less experience who did the drives yelling and making all kinds of noise.
Didn't take me long to decide that type of hunting was not for me.





Al

MudderChuck

I really enjoy drive hunts. We don't drive Deer, but Hare, Pheasant, Hogs and Fox. Twenty-thirty hunters, twenty-thirty beaters, twenty-thirty dogs. If it is well organized and the dogs are good, it can be a blast. In the end you'd likely do better on your own, but in a group like that somebody is almost constantly getting something. You kind of share the other guys thrill.

One thing for sure, no matter how fit you are, your rear end is dragging at days end. I don't do it much in muddy fields anymore, I'm just too old, but when the ground freezes I'm game.

The same reason I gave up the hounds, I'm just too old to keep up anymore.

We'll drive hunt an area maybe every 3-5 years to give the game a chance to rebound. It is more for the shared experience than it is for a large game count at the end of the day. The bonfire, the Brats and Beer at the end of the hut, everybody worn out and muddy.

We do it old school, with a bugler controlling the hunt. The sound of the horns and the dogs howling scratches a deep itch, almost as good as sex.

flags

I remember not sleeping before deer season opened but I've never had to pin my license to my back. I've never understood why PA forces this? Are pockets and wallets too had to manage? Nearly every other place is good with you having your license in your pocket.

tndrbstr

I never have either, but it must have been, or still is, a pretty common practice in some places. Because I still see hunting vests for sale that have a pocket made into the backs of them just for that purpose.

It reminds me a practice that one might use on a kindergarten field trip.

Oldtimr

PA no longer requires the license to be displayed in the middle of the back, haven't for the last several years. I will tell you why they did, so landowners and other hunters could get the license numbers to report violators, then the number could be used to find the culprit. Many hunters are still putting the license on their back even though they don't have to, however unless you are a foot away, you can't read the numbers on the new computer generated licenses. Funny fact, when the PGC decided they would drop the requirement to display licenses because the main reason for it was not moot. It required legislation to remove the requirement from the law. There is one company that makes the license holders for tho old style PA hunting licenses, they make singles and doubles that drop down for doe licenses. They lobbied the general assembly not to remove the requirement from the law because they would go out of business. It took several years for the general assembly to finally pass the removal of the requirement to wear the license. Quite frankly it never bothered me. There were other states that required the display of the license as well, but when computer generated licenses came on the scene, they dropped the requirement as well.