ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 5, 1996 TAG: 9612050013
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: OUTDOORS
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
Follow-ups to what we said:
On the Monday Outdoors page, we stated that bowhunting season had reopened, but it may be asking a bit too much to expect an archer to have success. After all, bowhunting is tough enough in the early season, and the late season follows a month when black-powder and modern guns have been booming in the woods.
Tough?
Not for Quigg Lawrance.
On Tuesday, Lawrance killed a 15-point buck in Roanoke County that he expects to place high in state competition.
``It was a Christmas gift from Bob Brownlow,'' said Lawrance, who is pastor of the Church of The Holy Spirit.
Brownlow had done the scouting and picked the stand and invited Lawrance, his pastor, for a quick, late-afternoon hunt.
``He called me and said, `Come on and go,''' said Lawrance.
Lawrance grabbed his gear and showed up wearing white Nikes and a red cap.
``It's all I had time to get. Everything was wrong,'' he said.
Everything but the stand Brownlow had picked for Lawrance on high ground above a creek.
A few minutes after 5 p.m., Lawrance spotted a couple of yearling deer running off the ridge. They jumped the creek and came by his stand. Too small, he decided.
Then he spotted a large doe following the yearlings. When she jumped the creek and stopped to sniff a buck scrape, Lawrance drew an arrow on her. Just as he was about to release it, he heard a couple of grunts from up the ridge.
``I look up and there is `Big Daddy,''' said Lawrance. ``I said, `It's a buck. I didn't know they were still rutting.'''
The buck came rapidly off the ridge, wagging its head and grunting every step, then it paused behind some brush. At full draw, Lawrance said his arms were beginning to ache and tremble, but he was fearful if he relaxed his draw the buck would spot him.
``My arm is killing me. I say , `Just suck it up.' Then he steps out of the thicket and moves into the clearing.''
When he released the arrow, Lawrance said he didn't realize how big the buck was. Most any buck would be small in comparison with the 18-point, 305-pound deer he killed this fall in Canada. But Lawrance believes this one will be good enough to place in the top two or three in state competition.
GET IT RIGHT, TURKEY: We had the wrong date for the opening of the late turkey season listed in Monday's ``Outdoors You Go.'' The season opens Monday, Dec.9. What did open this past Monday was bear hunting for houndsmen. Upcoming are the Dec.9 reopening of the duck season; the Dec.16 reopening of the late muzzleloading deer season; and the Dec.18 opening of the second split of the woodcock season. It pays to bone up on the game law digest, and that advice also goes for outdoor editors.
SAVING BUCKS: Jim Caudill agrees with Matt Knox, state deer biologist, that bucks with modest antlers should be passed up under the ``Let them go, let them grow'' theory. When that occurs, the quality of the deer herd improves and the sport ``becomes about hunting instead of about killing,'' Knox was quoted in the Nov.28 Outdoors column.
The theory should be carried a step further, suggested Caudill, a landowner who lives in the Wytheville area. Hunters also need to hold their fire on immature button bucks, which are being shot for does. A half-dozen baby bucks were killed on Caudill's property this season, he said.
``When you shoot something that weighs 40 pounds and you don't know what it is, you are hurting the buck population as much as if you were shooting at five- and six-pointers,'' Caudill said.
BRAGGING SIZE: Ryan Daniels, a youngster from New Jersey, landed a 33-pound, 13-ounce striped bass at Smith Mountain Lake, one of the best catches of the season.
Jerry Kerbs and Bill Vinion of Radford have been wrestling huge flathead catfish from Claytor Lake. Their top catches include a fish weighing 35 pounds, 3 ounces and one weighing 28 pounds, 7 ounces.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB