By Bruce Ingram   Virginia’s spring gobbler enthusiasts have two weekends in their sights right now with the Youth and Apprentice Weekend on April 2 and 3 and the season opener kicking off on Saturday, April 9. Katie Martin, the deer, bear, and turkey biologist for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR), gives insight on what kind of action we can expect. “The best news … [Read more...]

Wildlife biologists with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) have compiled preliminary figures for the 2021-22 hunting season.  Bear, deer and fall turkey harvests all decreased from the previous season.  According to Dr. Gray Anderson, Wildlife Division Chief, “These decreases could be related to weather and food conditions during the fall. The weather was unusually warm and dry … [Read more...]

  Looks like there are lots of healthy deer out there, but there is now one less. This big buck was taken in Louisa County by Ethan Hall with a bow. The ten-pointer with a 24-inch spread was harvested in the Holy Grove area. A really nice deer. … [Read more...]

  Hunting is a very safe sport if you’re on the ground. More people die from stepping on hornets’ nests and getting stung than they do getting shot from another hunter – on the ground. Up in the air is a different story. People fall out of trees from 12 to 16 feet high and the results are never good. Many are crippled for life and a number of people die from falling out of tree stands. You … [Read more...]

    By Sherman Shifflett   Opening day of any hunting season is always exciting, and the 2021 spring turkey hunting season was no different. Lloyd Runnett and his son, Robert, both bagged big birds on Saturday, April 10, 2021. I have known the Runnett's since I arrived in Louisa in 1968, and they have always treated me like part of the family. I deer hunt with them, but … [Read more...]

The last time my son Jimmie was in town, he helped us clean up our downstairs storage room and removed a lot of clutter. He saw a pair of his old fishing waders in the storage room, hip boots, so he took them back to Atlanta. Last week, my grandson James talked Jimmie into an early morning duck hunt in a swamp somewhere in Fulton County. Jimmie remembered his waders, and tossed them in the truck. … [Read more...]

The good old days of checking in a deer or a bear at a Game Checking Station are over. From now on, Virginia will go exclusively to electronic checking, and that’s a shame. Says the Wildlife Division: “Since 2004, DWR has offered some form of electronic harvest reporting, and beginning in 2019, electronic harvest reporting options were available for all game species for which reporting is … [Read more...]

The glory days are over. No more will there be the numbers of deer killed as there were about 10 years ago. That’s when the Game Department declared war of the doe population in order to keep the overall deer herd numbers under control. Also, about that time, coyotes moved into Virginia in force. They did a number on birthing deer as did bears. Both animals have acute senses of smell and can … [Read more...]