Poachers

     Those of you that follow my blog know I’ve mentioned the lack of the usual big buck sightings and pictures last fall. Well it turns out there was a reason for that…poachers. There have been numerous reports of the poachers spotlighting and shooting deer along the stretch of roads that ran for many miles along the base of the mountain most of last fall. The same vehicle had been seen many times and final someone got the full license plate number. This was given to the Virginia Conservation Officers that patrol our area and they made an arrest the end of December. Turned out to be two 18 year olds and after a little pressure from the officers one of them apparently sang like canary. According to the one that sang they had been doing it three to four nights a week since early fall. The officers found numerous 10, 9, and 8 point racks in their possession with the many coming from the area we hunt in. The officers confiscated the vehicle, their guns, and other related items.
     This made us feel a little better that we hadn’t become bad hunters since the season before it was just the bucks were being killed before the season even started. While poaching has always been and will continue to be a problem but I don’t think the area has had that many bucks illegally take from it before in such a short period of time. Like I’ve noted before even where there is a lot of big bucks there aren’t very many.
     On the bright side. I did get some pics of a group of small bucks that make it through the hunting season. One look like a pretty nice 8 point that should be a nice one next year.