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Deer Hounds in the Deep South
I grew up in south MS and my father was a hunter. Years ago we used hounds to run deer. It was the way to hunt in the old South,…accepted, legal and exiciting for the hunter and from memory, quite stimulating for the deer too. The strategy was to select a section of timber bound by logging roads and “stand it off”, placing hunters far enough apart and strategically where they didn’t pose a risk to each other. When the hunters were in position, which could take 30-40 minutes, then the dog man would release a set of hounds. Ok, ok,…hounds might be a generous description of the canines we used. Some hounds, some ‘yard dogs’, some strays we picked up,…all they had to do was bark and run the deer.
One particular hunt remains etched in my memory. I was the dog man. After releasing the dogs I fought my way through saw briers and pine tree tops in a logged out area. My dogs jumped a deer and took off hammering him over the hills and hollows. I continued on walking and with the sun high in the sky I got hot wearing a layer of insulated clothes. When I got too hot to walk, I decided to take off a layer and sat down on a big pine stump to strip down. When I got my pants and insulated underwear off I looked up to see a small buck running straight at me. Standing there in only my Hanes Whitey Tighties, I reached back and picked up my Winchester .30-.30 to take a shot. When I picked him up in the sights he stopped behind a 2 foot diameter pine tree and I lost sight of him. As I leaned to the right to see him he stuck his head around the tree and looked straight at me as if to say “What???” At that point he didn’t hesitate long, deciding those bright white legs just weren’t his cup of tea, wheeled and headed back into a thicket. I fired a shot, but cleanly missed. Afterwards, I lost it laughing out loud, trying to imagine what that deer thought he had seen.
( Average: 4.00 out of 5)
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This post was submitted by Carey A. Buckles.
4 Comments
Fantastic! I think everyone could hear me laugh out loud across the office. I can totally picture the look on the deer’s face. I’m imagining some pixar magic with his eyes wide open and his jaw hitting the forest floor.
I’m very surprised to find you carried a .30-30 on a dog hunt. In SC it was (and is) only legal to use shotguns with slugs or buckshot during dog drives, but common sense also prevails as most of the stands are only about 150 yards apart. Any centerfire rifle, even a .30-30, has a killing range well beyond that distance.
The dog man with a centerfire is almost always within kill range of a stander, even if he shoots from the ground level instead of in a tree stand.
I trust none of your dog hunt stories entail some one being shot, but I was very surprised.
However, the story is a great one!! Long live the Tight-Whites! (You needed to practice your shooting in different circumstances, obviously….)
Good points. Hunting safety is a vital part of success. We hunted huge tracts of land and standers were often hundreds of yards apart through very thick timber in hilly country. I have no memory of even a close call. Many people did use shotguns, which proved to be effective, but most used rifles. 44 mag, 30/30, 30-06, 270, etc. Imagine circling 500 acres of timber with maybe 10 standers max and one dog man in the middle. Sometimes it took 2 hrs to cross a section of timber.
I have another hilarious post about an uncle,….
Ok, that puts it into perspective. Our dog drives were rarely on any parcel that size, usually anywhere from 20-100 acres max, and I’ve been on many hunt with 25-30 standers.
Nowdays, I still hunt almost exclusively from tree stands and shoot a .270.
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