Great deer story. Brings back memories about three disc ago. ): and a fat doe is not only good eating but population control that is sorely needed.
About 15 years ago I mentioned deer drives at Thanksgiving dinner to two cousins. After several hours of wine and memories of how effective they were one decided to set one up on one of my farms. He called every cousin and brother we could and ended up with a doe only afternoon hunt on opening day. My farm is a penusulia with three blocks of woods and 400 acres of fields in the middle. Each section of woods has a small creek or big ditch seperating it like three leaves on a clover.
First drive sent 30 plus deer out of one section of woods, the blockers in the fields killed nine. Second section of woods pushed over 50 deer out and the blockers killed 16. Then we were heading towards the third block of woods when one of the brighter cousins remarked gutting 24 deer was a lot of work. After five minutes discussion the hunt was ended and the work began. The sad thing is that the third block had all the missed deer from the first two drives in it and what ever deer had started there. I wished they had pushed that section as well to reduce the herd numbers. The farm was over run with deer that year.
We had a full freezer that year, in many homes. Several went crazy with deer jerky, deer sausage, dried deer meat. I even found a couple of those fellows made some very tasty stuff for me to try. Funny how the best tasting stuff came from fellows who won't share their recipes but will give you their special treats.
That's been long enough that maybe it's time to do it again. Deer drives were great family events when I was a boy. Maybe I'll try to make it a five year family reunion for hunters in my family. Every five year do one big family deer hunt and keep youngsters hunting like my Gradfathers did as a group effort instead of single hunters working alone.
