They were just cogs in the machinery of the hunt. In fact, the deer killed weren’t the property of the men who shot them. But it wasn’t a complete loss for hunters to end the day with the same number of shells they started with. They took the hunting seriously and shooting a big buck was a thrill. The hunt was less about who killed a deer than it was about a group of men who enjoyed each other’s company while hunting together. He was just fortunate enough to draw the number of the stand that the deer ran by.
When one person killed a deer, he wasn’t robbing another person of a chance to shoot it. We drew stand numbers out of a hat so that a hunter’s stand was randomly assigned. It was a much more gentlemanly era of hunting. But some of the men in our hunting club just seemed to think that back standing was a bit shady or disreputable. Personally, I never saw anything wrong with a man standing on his own property shooting a deer that crossed onto it. That, however, wasn’t what seemed to bother the people I knew that frowned on the practice. But it’s hard to locate people who aren’t a part of your hunting party. Everybody on a deer drive is supposed to know where everybody else is so that no one gets shot accidentally. That practice was called “back standing” and some folks took a dim view of it. Instead of bristling at the thought of another man’s dogs on their property, most of them would stake out the property line and wait on the dogs to push deer onto their land from the adjoining property. Today, stalk hunters with property next to dog hunters stay out of the woods on days when their neighbors are hunting.īut there was a day when adjoining property owners anxiously awaited their neighbors’ drives. And it defines the changing way we define hunting. To mention deer drives to some people would be considered fighting words.
Opportunities to participate in that rich tradition are few and far between these days. I apologized for not getting in touch with him and asked him to keep me on the guest list for next year.
I realized that the last hunt was to be held today and I haven’t attended one this year. I ran across an email from a friend who has been kind enough to invite me to the deer drives that are held at one of the grand old West Alabama hunting clubs that still maintains that tradition.
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