Deer Scents Now Illegal in Virginia?

                                                                                         Photo copyright James B. Boyd

The Virginia hunting community has been in an uproar over the past few days due to a new law that allegedly passed concerning use of deer scents in Virginia. A lot of people have blamed liberalism, money-hungry lawmakers, and the fact that the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries "just doesn't care about what we want!" The law passed regardless of a majority vote by citizens during the public input period that the scents remain legal to use. Why do they even ask what we think if they're just going to go against us anyway? I'll tell you why. And I'll tell you why in just three letters: CWD.

CWD also affects elk. Photo copyright Gary Gulash.

Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, is an incurable, dangerously contagious, and 100% fatal disease
in cervids. Cervids includes mule deer, whitetailed deer, moose and elk. The disease is spread through bodily secretions like saliva, urine, feces and gland oils. It is caused by prions, which today are not fully understood by scientists and so far, are resistant to all forms of medicines. The CWD disease remains live in the environment for years after being shed from the animal, thus remaining infective to any other cervid that comes in contact with it.

There have been seven confirmed cases of CWD in Virginia, the first being a doe killed by a hunter in 2009. Since then, over 7,600 samples have been taken from hunter-killed deer, roadkill deer, and captive deer that die.

Captive deer farm

Seven cases? Virginia is actually doing pretty well when we put it into perspective. What do I mean by "perspective?" States like Colorado and Wyoming have become so overwhelmed with the disease that they have practically given up trying to eradicate it from the wild population because it's virtually impossible. Why would we want to have the same problem in our great state? We just re-introduced elk into our state, why would we want to put that population at risk, too?

Removing lymph nodes from a deer for CWD testing

Deer infected with CWD will show no visible signs of sickness in the early stages, and it is only detectable in deceased animals. Samples are taken from the brain and lymph nodes and tested for the presence of the disease. So how can all of these captive deer farms that mass produce deer urine and scents be so sure that there is no CWD? According to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, a great deal of these companies have not been compliant with their CWD testing. Basically, it's scaring the crap out of our natural resource managers.

Buck suffering from CWD.

Just last year, Virginia took a huge hit to our deer population via Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD). It got us a little worried. We talked about it. A lot of us even started brainstorming ways to try to help the populations in the coming years to possibly try to help the herds recover and grow. EHD isn't even contagious...it's transmitted by a fly and is completely out of human control. Now that the DGIF is taking intiative to prevent the outbreak of a contagious disease that is completely preventable by human hands, we're all upset and in an uproar. Take a step back and think about it, folks!

We aren't alone. Other states like Alaska and Vermont have signed a similar law into action in their states, and both were for the sole purpose of preventing CWD.

So what's in the fine print?

The proposed change was for a law in the Administrative Code of Virginia, law 4VAC15-90-293: Chronic Wasting Disease Deer Carcass Movement Restrictions. The proposed amendment states, "No person shall, for the purposes of taking or intending to take, attracting, or scouting, any wild animal in Virginia, possess or use any substance or material that contains or purports to contain any excretion collected from a cervid, including feces, urine, blood, gland oil, or other bodily fluid."

This means ANY NATURAL SUBSTANCE THAT WAS OBTAINED FROM ANY LIVE CERVID. You CAN still use artificial cover scents, artificial scents, synthetic urines, or fox and coon urine. The law only prohibits use of cervid excretions. This includes but is not limited to gland oils, tarsal glands, doe urine, and buck urine. It also includes the rub-on sticks like VS-1 that uses the natural vaginal secretions of live does. It's a little fuzzy, but this may also include urine collected from a deer that you killed yourself.

Will stores continue to sell these items? Absolutely. They want to make money off of you, even if you're going to use the products illegally. They are not liable for what you do with the product once you leave the store (just like buying deer corn and minerals in November), so they couldn't care less. It all comes down to you, the hunter, to understand WHY this law was passed, WHY the deer could potentially experience an incurable outbreak due to using these scents, and be wise to the environment and the laws. Yes, the new law sucks and puts a hindrance on our hunting traditions, but we can't always think about what we want when it comes to hunting; sometimes we need to think about what's best for the wildlife and what is the best way for us to make sure that good hunting is available for future generations!

Love this blog? Be sure to visit the Virginia Hunting Forum, Virginia's leading hunting and fishing community on the net! Join in on great discussions there and share your favorite scents and attractants for deer hunting!

The hidden trophy within the Wild Gobbler!

A successful turkey hunt is far and few between for many hunters, so we like to collect and keep as many parts of the bird as we can to cherish the memories of the hunt. Many hunters don't know that after the beards, spurs, fans, and meat, there is another trophy hidden deep within a wild gobbler. Turkey Jewels!

A friend of mine posted about this last year, and since I got my very first gobbler yesterday, I decided to go on my own treasure hunt. As a turkey grows and eats, he picks up small stones and swallows them. These stones settle into the turkey's gizzard, where they aid in digestion by grinding up all other digestible food that the turkey eats from day to day. Because they are constantly grinding, the stones are worn down smooth and some of them can be quite pretty. Some birds may have fine stones, others bulky stones, some dark stones, some light and patterned stones. If you're lucky, you can even find precious metals! It can be a little dirty, but quite frankly, if you can field dress a turkey without hurling, you can do this! 

Here's how to find your Turkey Jewels!

1. After field dressing your bird, locate the gizzard
and cut it free from the rest of the innards.



 2. Split the gizzard open with a sharp knife.

3. Spill all of the contents into a bucket.

Rinse the gizzard with a hose to get everything out!

4. Cover the contents with a good amount of water and rigorously SWISH IT ALL AROUND! The Jewels will settle to the bottom of the bucket while the seeds and other vegetation float.

5. Pour the water off. 

6. Repeat a few times until the water stays clear and you can see your Jewels!

7. Empty your Jewels onto a clean surface.

At this point, you can pick out your favorites to save, or just save all of them!

I've started this tradition for myself with my first gobbler, and I'll save the Jewels from all my future gobblers. I'm going to bottle all my gobblers' Jewels from each year into separate containers (I'm using a re-purposed Cracker Barrel syrup bottle!). You can then add water or mineral oil into the bottle to create a great conversation piece. This is a great tradition to start with kids, or even for the seasoned hunter. Good luck turkey hunters!

 

Love this blog? Be sure to visit the Virginia Hunting Forum, Virginia's leading hunting and fishing community on the net! Join in on great discussions there and share your Spring Gobbler success!

The Ugly Truth

The hunting community is constantly faced with many obstacles. Lawmakers want to alter our gun rights and hunting privileges. Poaching puts a bad reputation on the rest of us. Unethical practices give the general public a bad perception of what we really are. But one thing remains constant to those of us who love the outdoors and the wildlife - we hunt as an alternate and often-misunderstood way of survival. Not to mention the peace that can be obtained when we trade a fast-paced society for the quiet alone time in the woods.

Let's go back to third grade science class. All living things on this planet must consume from another source to survive. Lions must consume from the herds of the African plains. Hawks and eagles must consume from the forest floor. Field mice must consume from the trees and bushes. Vultures must consume from lives already taken. Even plants - yes, plants - must compete with each other and consume from the soil. Nothing survives on "air." So when we hunters get pummeled with the horrid names, the threats, the backlash, and scrutiny from anti-hunters, we have to keep our composure and defend what we do, and why we do it. No living human is innocent when it comes down to consuming food. So here are some reasons why the "innocents" should get off their high horses and respect what we do:

Vegetarians

Yes, even vegetarians play a role in the harvest and loss of wild game across the continent. When large areas of land are cleared to prepare a new soil bed for a new farmer's business in producing broccoli, lettuce, asparagus, soybeans or any other type of vegetable, unimaginable amounts of acreage are taken away from the wildlife. Squirrels and birds lose their trees full of nests. Field mice and snakes lose their habitats in the broomstraw and clover fields. In non-organic farming, thousands upon thousands of pounds of poisons are sprayed into the earth to kill thriving insect colonies, deter the growth of unwanted plants, and repel local wildlife from entering their once-native habitat. Many farmers even seek and allow hunters to come onto their properties and hunt animals like deer and groundhogs to keep them from consuming YOUR vegetables.

Domestic Meat Consumers

The mass-produced domestic meat market has been under fire from many animal welfare organizations for some time. Although the USDA regulates the domestic meat market, there aren't very many regulations on the welfare of the animals that are intended for slaughter. For the most part, these animals are mass-produced, meaning those farmers want to produce as much livestock as possible, in as little time as possible, spending the least amount of money as possible. Put all those factors together, and you get a pretty miserable life for the bovine, swine, or poultry destined for the butcher. The animals are fed hundreds of pounds of unnatural grains throughout their lives and many companies still use growth hormones. They are usually kept in unnatural and unhealthy environments, mistreated, and crowded into extremely confined areas. They are then killed via bolt gun or have their jugulars cut to bleed out, and are then hoisted to be butchered and packaged nice and pretty for your local chain grocer. This fast-paced environment usually involves butchers that don't think twice about the lives they're taking. The exception to this industry that I have personally found is the small-scale local farm that produces grass-fed-and-finished pastured beef, pork, and poultry (including eggs and dairy), and even those that raise their personal stock for their personal use.

Hunters and Wild Game

A deer leaves a thicket of oak trees, full from gorging on the acorns that have fallen to the forest floor. It meanders along a sloping hillside, the rays from the rising sun slowly thawing the frost from the trees. He finds a dry patch of clean leaves, lies down, and breathes in clean, fresh air while he chews his cud for a few hours. Nature is raising this animal the way it was supposed to be raised: free-range, with all the nutrients it needs coming from its natural habitat. When a hunter makes the decision to take a life, it is not as simple as it seems. A certain deer may be chosen specifically to better the genetics of the herd, or it may be the only deer a hunter has seen all season and fresh game is needed in an empty freezer. We truly feel remorse, and a sense of sadness. Once the deer is harvested, many hunters send thanks in prayer, they respect the animal even after death, and they feel a weight lifted because they know that they have fresh, healthy, natural-sourced and sustainable food for their families. And this does not apply only to deer; North America provides a large variety of meats like rabbit, elk, mule deer, bear, doves, mountain lion, pronghorn, ducks and geese, quail, grouse, squirrel, raccoon, turkey, pheasants, opossum, moose, mountain goats, feral hogs and even free-range exotics such as fallow, axis, dall, and ibex.


We hunters get to process our own meats with no chemicals and no growth hormones, and we get to cut them in any style we want, whether it be whole roasts, steaks, or small chops. We make our own sausage, snack sticks and jerky. Simply put: we like to know where our meat comes from! We truly have the benefit, both health-wise and choice-wise, over normal grocery shopping in the meat department!

SO, YOUR HEART IS BLEEDING for the animals that we hunters consume. Let's take a look at the positive impact hunters have on wildlife versus the nonexistent impact anti-hunters have while rioting against us on social media. Thanks to President Theodore Roosevelt, when a hunter or sportsman purchases firearms, ammunition, and hunting licenses (yes, we PAY to hunt!), all that money goes to conservation agencies to protect habitat, wetlands, and forests from money-hungry land builders. It goes toward the local Department of Natural Resources in your state to set harvest limits on animals, create laws to promote good sportsmanship, and pays our wildlife officers to ensure that we all follow those laws.

In 1900, the White-tailed Deer population was at 500,000. Today, it is at 32,000,000.

In 1901 ducks were far and few between. Today, they are estimated to be at 44,000,000.

In 1907, the Rocky Mountain Elk population was at 41,000. Today it is over 1,000,000.

In 1900, the Wild Turkey Population was at 100,000. Today, it is at 7,000,000.

And just 50 years ago, the Pronghorn population was at 12,000. Today...1,100,000.

Yes, all of those pitiful thousands turned into healthy MILLIONS thanks to responsible conservation practices and contributions by hunters and sportsmen. So the next time you see a happy herd of deer, a swimming flock of wood ducks, or a playful pair of foxes, be sure to thank a hunter!

 

Love this blog? Be sure to visit the Virginia Hunting Forum, Virginia's leading hunting and fishing community on the net! Join in on great discussions there and share your favorite wild game recipes!

2014's Hottest Topic: EHD

EHD: Flying Death

The main Virginia firearms deer season has come to a close. Ever since the beginning of archery season in October 2014, though,  the hottest topic among both online and in-person discussions in the hunting community kept swaying to the same conclusions - the whitetail population decline due to a suspected outbreak of EHD. So, I've scoured and researched several resources and compiled some facts about this deadly disease to separate the rumors from the facts that you may hear throughout the hunting camp.

Culicoides variipennis

• EHD is transmitted most often by biting midges (Culicoides variipennis), but can also be transmitted via gnats or mosquitos. It is not contagious, or spread from deer-to-deer through mucosal contact. When the female midge bites a deer for blood, the virus is then transmitted. The flies will feed on blood meals up until the first frost in autumn, which kills off the species.
• The first cases of the disease that got the name "EHD" were reported in 1955 in New Jersey, killing about 700 whitetails. However, similar observations in whitetails date back to the 1890s.
• EHD stands for Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease. "Epizootic" is an analogy to the word "epidemic" in humans, except the word "zoo" means "animals;" therefore, it is an epidemic of the animal type. "Hemorrhagic" means "clotting of blood."
  
  
  
• Deer that are bitten by an infected fly start to show symptoms in as little as 7 days. In acute forms of the disease, the deer can become unconscious and die within 8-36 hours. Deer that survive will be sick for several weeks before recovering (yes, they CAN recover!).
• EHD affects many ruminants, including farmed whitetails, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, sheep, and cattle.
  
  
  
  
• Bluetongue disease and EHD are used interchangeably but are in fact two different diseases that impact ruminants. However, both diseases can cause the tongue to turn blue. In the case of EHD, oxygen levels in the blood drop, giving the tongue a bluish hue. In fact, the two diseases are so similar, that biologic testing of the deer is needed to decipher which disease the deer is suffering from.
  
  

  

  Infected buck seeking refuge from hyperthermia

• EHD gives the deer an immense fever. The deer often suffers from an extremely elevated body temperature, so they seek water to lie down in to cool themselves. This is why so many dead deer were found in or near water sources this past season.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• EHD causes inflammation and interruptions in the growth of hoof tissue, which leads to the cracked/broken look of hooves of deer that survive the disease.
  
  
  
• EHD causes a decreased appetite, weight loss, excessive salivation, reduced fear of humans, increased heart rate, and (as mentioned previously) a high fever.
  
  
  
• There is no scientific evidence that humans can contract the disease from the midge, deer, or by eating venison of infected deer. So, enjoy your harvests!
  
  
  
  Currently, there is no way for humans to intervene. EHD is truly "nature's way" of keeping its populations in check and giving full meaning to "survival of the fittest." The best thing we can do is maintain our hunting properties and continue to provide the best nutrition and habitat to our surviving whitetails.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Love this blog? Be sure to visit the Virginia Hunting Forum, Virginia's leading hunting and fishing community on the net! Join in on great discussions there and share your 2014 success!

Tribute to a Duck Dog

A fellow member and outdoorsman on the Virginia Hunting Forum recently lost his best friend. He shared his memories with us, and being the family that we are, it seems that the entire forum cried with him. We wanted to share his tribute to his pal Dutch because it truly measures just how much we hunters adore our dogs and strive for that connection that is inevitable when it comes to our four-legged partners at home and in the field. Thank you for sharing with us, Andy. Our hearts are heavy and breaking for your loss. Many a tear has been shed on keyboards across the state today...

A Tribute to Dutch

SEPTEMBER of 2014 wasn't like the Septembers previous. I was hired on as a professional fire fighter in August with the City of Hampton and the fire academy kept me away from home and the birds five full days a week. So for a change I was a true weekend warrior (but I finally have a real job and the ability to support my family, now a wife and two boys strong). Like many things, the academy will pass and I will have more than enough time for other pursuits outside of my very important career, combined with enough financial free-board to actually do it. For all that, I am more than willing to give up a season.

We got to dove hunt like usual, just not the five and six days a week usual. It was hot those first two Saturdays and my red dog was no longer a puppy at the age of 8, but you wouldn't have known it. Dutch actually got better and better every fall. His temperament and behavior in the blind and on the hunt was absolutely perfect. A model citizen. I wish I could have kept him exactly as he was this past September forever. I would have never wanted for another animal in my life.

By the time late October rolled around, we started to notice something wasn't quite right with Dutch. He wasn't eating like normal. Ever since he was a puppy he would chomp down his food so fast he would make himself sick. We had to buy special bowls to slow his consumption down. Now, we were trying to bribe him with gravy and trimmings just to make him eat. His bowel movements got irregular. At first, we didn't think anything of it. Probably just too much venison trimmings from a deer I shot during archery season... he would be fine in a week. He improved a bit and we stopped worrying. He had lost some weight, which didn't seem like a bad thing. He went to the vet for his rabies shot and the vet didn't seem concerned at all with it.

By Thanksgiving, we knew it was something more serious. Dutch appeared to be going blind. He had no energy to retrieve any longer, despite still having the desire. He was running into things. He was having trouble getting up and stairs were almost an impossible chore. I entertained the thought of hunting him over the Thanksgiving holiday on an easy walk in hunt, but while his ears went up at the word ‘Birds’, his body wouldn't let him do it… and neither would my wife. He was up at 3am to see me off, but wasn't even whining and throwing a fit like the times I left with my coat and a gun case all the years passed. He simply sighed, and seemed to accept that he had seen his day. It nearly broke my heart.

Dutch had a form of epilepsy which gave him occasional seizures when he was younger. He had been on a highly toxic drug called Phenobarbital to control those seizures. We took him off of it cautiously a few years ago, and he hadn't had any episodes since (that we knew of), but we thought it might be a reaction to the rabies shot, since it was a round of vaccines that triggered the disorder to begin with. Phenobarb is very hard on the liver, and while he wasn't showing any symptoms of liver or kidney failure or distress we didn't rule that possibility out. We also feared it could be a tumor or worse, cancer.

It came to head the next week. He stopped eating altogether. He started leaking stool and we knew it was something very serious. Unable to take a day off work due to the academy schedule (you miss a training day at this point you fail, you fail and you get fired), I got Kristi to take him to the vet on the morning of December 5, 2014. I snuck back to my vehicle to check my phone during a break in the day and called her and it was just as we feared. Cancer. It was aggressive and in his bone marrow. The vet was surprised he was still alive at all and said two weeks tops if we were lucky. Lucky?

The selfish side of me (historically the dominant side) wanted to keep him alive and hope it would just go away. But the adult side that had finally set in over the course of this wonderful dog’s life knew what I had to do. I couldn't let that wonderful dog suffer, and I refused to let him die without me by his side. Only having weekends we set ‘the appointment’ for the next morning at 11:30. My brothers at the fire station instantly knew something was wrong, maybe my eyes were puffy, maybe it was my posture or that I was oddly quiet. I brushed it off while my heart broke inside. I rode home with tears in my eyes.

Dutch was curled up in the laundry room by the back entrance door where he usually was, waiting for me to get home like always. I tried not to make a big deal of it when I came home. I stopped and petted him like I have ten thousand times before and let him in the house.

We laid out some old linen on the living room floor and picked up some plain cheeseburgers in hope he might have a nice comfortable evening. He didn't feel up to eating, and unable to stand up any longer I knew he might not make it through the night. Deep down, I prayed that he wouldn't… I didn't think I could handle carrying him into the vet’s office the next day… dreading every second of the morning that passed… waiting for the inevitable. Everybody deserves to die at home with their family, especially this dog. And it still hadn't hit me yet.

I pulled out some old duck hunting DVDs that kept my going through my incarceration in military school and the long hot off-season. Dutch and I used to watch them several times a week… he chewing a bone or us playing mini-fetch with his half-gutted plush duck toy in the living room.

I smiled thinking about that little tiny mallard duck with his squeaker ripped out by puppy teeth, and that one simple memory opened a flood gate of times spend with that dog I hadn't relived in a long time.

________________________________

I WAS 22 years old; a dangerous age. Fresh out of college at The Citadel and working in a local high-end firearms shop catering to the well heeled sportsmen that passed through the low country of South Carolina. My mind was full of dreams about being the next Will Primos and working in the hunting industry. Being on TV, paid to travel and hunt. Maybe going to Africa and becoming that rare American PH. I had a lifetime of opportunity ahead of me, and absolutely zero clue about the real world, how it works or how to get where I wanted to go

It was November of 2005; I met a gentleman named David Solana from Savannah, Georgia. He was looking for a 20 gauge Browning Superposed to match the 12 gauge his father has left him. Oddly enough within a few hours of phone calls and internet searching, I found him one within his budget and made the arrangements for the sale. We got to talking back and forth and I made mention that I was starting to look for a retriever of my own now that I was out of school, and was considering either a Boykin or a Golden.

David smiled and said “Hey, no kidding! Our two Goldens are going to have a litter right around Christmas. I’d love for you to have one!”

He emailed me pictures and credentials and offered me a price that was just ridiculously low and I went ahead and wrote him a check.

His two goldens, Dixie and Cotton, whelped a litter of 13 (7 females and 6 males) on Dec. 31, 2005. I was the first in line with pick of the litter on a male puppy and on February 22, I made the trip to Savannah to pick out my new partner. Twelve puppies is a hot mess if you have never seen that many at once. The pick of the litter female had been sold at the DU banquet the night before for A LOT of money, and there were 6 males to choose from.

It’s not easy to say no to a puppy. They all will run up and love all over you. You have to spend some time with them. I had a couple frozen duck wings and one or two showed almost no interest at all, so that narrowed the field a bit. Three of them were very much into the wing and fought over it and then would carry it off and try to eat it. One of those puppies however, would always carry whatever he had back to me. Even after I had been there for a couple hours, this little guy who they called ‘Bullet’ after the Lynard Skynard song, would amble over every ten minutes wagging his tail just to say, “Hey Boss… just checking in… call me if you need me.”

I knew then that was the one.

The Solana’s lived on a marsh island just off the Savannah River named Dutch Island. So it seemed logical that the dog be named ‘Dutch’.

I have to admit, I cried a couple times on the ride back to Charleston. Dutch rode on my lap the whole way home. He whimpered a few times, but mostly just curled up and slept. I vividly remember tears running down my cheeks, tears of happiness, excitement and anticipation for the years of hunts we would share together.

As we rode up the coastal highway, I rubbed his head and made him a promise, “We are going to have some good adventures together you and me red dog.”

He was a pretty good puppy. He didn't tear up anything too awful. One pair of shoes, the strap on a gun case, a dust jacket off a book. He was hell on plush toys that had squeakers inside and ate up every single dog bed I ever bought him… right through adult-hood. At 9 weeks, he gave me ‘the look’. Anyone who has ever trained a dog knows what ‘the look’ is… it’s that time when the dog decides he is ready to learn, when he stops fighting the leash, understands his name, and in two weeks time, sit, heel, kennel and come are easy to teach.

Dutch was a natural retriever. He just had it. He had a lot of drive to please and while he was never a super-star (due to the shortcomings of his owner) he always did what I expected him to do. 

He was a ‘Water Dog’ trained puppy. I didn't have a ton of money and never will, so we did the best we could together. We trained every day, rain or shine. When he was 8 months old, I scraped together $650 and sent him to Chris Bishop at Goose Pond Kennels in Johnsonville, SC to be force-fetched and polished up where my training was lacking. It was a long 6 weeks, but it cemented the drive in that dog and he was better than I had hoped.

We shot birds that first winter of 05-06 in the low country and I got to experience Arkansas for the first time that year also. We went back home to Virginia and killed a few birds there as well. I moved back to Virginia in early 2007 and went to work for Bass Pro in Hampton, knowing that in two years they would be opening a big store in Richmond I wanted to get to know the company to start in management at the new place. Maybe I would finally get a real job. Working four 10 hour days and commuting 80 miles each way for a while gave me three days off to hunt, and we took advantage of it.

Dutch in his pup-tent

I bought my War Eagle about the same time I got Dutch. We hunted the Paumunky River a bit, but the Mattaponi is where we made our mark. In the days before internet scouting and the ‘Duck Dynasty Wanna-Be’s’ (also known as Hoodies for the hooded sweat-shirts they seem to prefer to wear while hunting to go with all the barrel stickers on their guns) we had the river and the marshes almost all to ourselves. Limits came fairly easy and seldom was there ever a time we didn't at least kill a few. Most mornings we would hunt alone, just the two of us. Our favorite method was to ignore the blind altogether and climb up in the marsh… me in a layout blind and Dutch in his pup-tent. The birds would land right in our laps, the shots were easy and so were the retrieves. Dutch and I felt like all-stars.

Dad would come sometimes and I had a girlfriend who was also into duck hunting that would come occasionally. My two best friends Kyle and Kevin were largely weekend warriors, and starting out families of their own, their time was limited, but we all got to shoot quite a few birds together. Dutch was always there, and for the first 5 years of his life picked up over 100 doves and nearly 100 ducks and geese combined each season. For a Virginia boy whose family owns a combined two acres in neighborhoods and has never made more than $45,000 a year, that’s a right high number of birds.

Girlfriends came and went. I moved in and moved out and moved around like most young bachelors do. Dutch was always my constant. I avoided (not entirely by choice) ever getting a ‘real job’ and worked full-time ‘subsistence’ jobs clinging to my dreams of getting to hunt and write for a living… despite having absolutely no clue how to go about it, nor the connections to get there. I suppose I was living in a fantasy world that consumed most of the best years of my young life. That dog and I lived it up.

I lived over a 4 car garage in Chesapeake for a couple years in my mid-late 20s. Having parted ways with Bass Pro and never looking back at corporate retail again, I went back to work in a small shop doing mostly archery work and firearms sales, while starting to pursue my captain’s license to run a charter boat on the side. Up until I became a father, those were some of the happiest days of my life. Hardly any responsibility, nobody to answer to, just a very basic schedule to keep. It was just a big open space, one bathroom, closet, sink, cabinets and microwave. Most of my cooking was on propane stove outside or the grill. It had a big fenced in yard and a place for my boat. Close to work, it was perfect for the two of us.

The only downside was the place wasn't insulated very well (at all). It had a pellet stove for heat that worked about half the time, and still didn't warm the place up any. It would go out halfway through the night and the pellets would pile up and pour out the sides. That winter was one of the coldest of the last 15 years, and you would have to pee a hole through the ice in the toilet in the morning. Why the pipes never burst is beyond me. Dutch was my main source of heat. He would actually try and crawl in the sleeping bag with me. He was never a very ‘cuddly’ dog, but always had to be touching you… sitting on your feet or up against your leg. If you have ever had a golden, you know exactly what I mean.

When I met my wife, I don’t think she was really wild about Dutch at first, if only because the dog was higher on the ‘importance list’ than she was (for a couple years I even told her as much). But like everyone else, she fell in love with Dutch. The first night we spent together, Dutch actually slept at her feet instead of mine. I was insulted, but took it as a sign that she was worth keeping around.

While he was pretty good as a puppy, he would break bad from time to time as an adult dog. He was a true ninja when it came to stealing food. This dog, normally clumsy and loud and aloof, turned into an apex predator when it came to taking a steak or a cookie off the kitchen counter. He would be in the other room, and you would turn around and it would be gone. You would go to investigate that most likely suspect, only to find him asleep, upside down against the wall... tail wagging when you walked in. It wasn't until I found some crumbs on his nose and subsequently caught him in the act that I stopped questioning my own sanity.

Dutch chewed up my navigational chart three days before I took my exam for my captain’s license. Right out of the blue. There were six other charts rolled up next to that one. Books, toys, bones, shoes… nope he chewed up THAT CHART. It’s impossible to beat a dog with a wet 3x5’ piece of paper but I sure tried my best… not that it mattered… a cross look was enough to make him tuck his tail.

Two weeks before my wife and I got married, Dutch got a sweet tooth and somehow got into the zippered bag where all the custom wrapped and printed Hersey kisses were that we planned to use in the gift bags at our ceremony. I really thought Kristi was going to kill him. 

It’s hilarious looking back on the times he was a stereotypical dog.

                                                   ________________________________

I WAS hunting out of Dad’s boat one morning on the Mattaponi. Like usual it was just Dutch and I and we had killed a limit of teal and mallards. I had a doctor’s appointment at 9:30 so at 8 we picked up our last bird and rolled out. I had just cleared the point of the marsh, probably 8 miles from the ramp when the motor died. I pulled until I was soaked in sweat, it just wasn't going to restart… a solenoid or something electrical had gone out. Dutch and I were stranded.

I called my Dad, who basically had ZERO sympathy and offered no help. Granted looking back I couldn't really expect the man to just drop everything and send a fleet of boats to come get me, but he had contacts and friends and damnit it was 20 degrees, blowing 15-20 and I had two granola bars and a bottle of water. Sorry kid keep in touch and let me know when you make it back. Deuces.

I had the tide incoming for about an hour and wind laid down just enough that I could make decent headway. Dutch stood behind me as I took a knee on the bow with paddle in hand. He wagged his tail in a show of encouragement and I got with it. I probably made two miles in an hour, but when I lost the tide the wind picked up and it started blowing my back down river. I threw the anchor and sat there and cussed my Dad for probably two hours. Not that it was his fault, but it took my mind off being cold.

Not seriously concerned for my life, but still cold, marooned and mad as a wet hen, I decided throw the anchor to wait out the tide and maybe, just maybe, another duck hunter would come by and tow me back. I curled up on the cold floor of that aluminum boat and Dutch tucked himself right up alongside me and kept me warm. He was probably about 3 at the time, and while I cared about him more than anything, it put it in perspective just how much we cared about each other.

Right at sundown as the tide finally began to swing back incoming, my best friend Kevin rounded the bend in our buddy Omar’s boat and towed me the last few miles back. I had paddled, or thrown the anchor and drug myself about 5 ½ miles from the marsh. And I was still mad at my Dad… for weeks!


                                                 ________________________________

FRIDAY evening we went through our old favorites; Duckmen 4 –Straight Powder, Take ‘Em 5 and 6. All the shooting and calling on TV seemed to perk him up at first, but when he tried to lie down and sleep I knew it was just a distraction. He turned his head away from his old favorite whopper junior with cheese (plain) and I knew then we made the right decision as hard as it was to admit it.

I turned down the volume on the TV so Dutch could rest. Everyone else went to bed, but not to sleep. I laid there on the couch next to my best friend as we had done countless evenings over the last 8 years together, watching ducks pour out of the North Dakota heavens on mute, still dreaming about the two of us doing such things in a world where people reached out to hunt with us and landowners actually said yes to grown up boys with handsome dogs and big ambitions.

At 12:30am, Dutch picked his head up slowly and looked over at me, his eyes foggy, almost sad and sunk deep in his now white face. His ears raised a little and it looked like he was trying to stand up and come over to me. I sat down on the floor and rubbed his head and scratched his ears. His tail managed to thump the floor softly a few times and I knew that there was no place he would rather be. Ducks be damned, he lived his life just to see me happy.

He laid his chin on my hand as my other hand softly stroked his fuzzy red head and his breathing got shallow. My eyes full of tears, I told him it was ok.

“Its ok pal. We had a lot of great adventures together didn’t we? I told you we would. And we will again buddy. It’s alright. You’re a good boy. I am really gonna miss you red dog.”

That was all he needed to hear. One last time that he was doing right by the man he lived his life for.

He took a deep breath and I tried to do the same, tears pouring out of my eyes... I tried not to sob, for I knew it would make him upset. His breathing got shorter and shorter and I almost drifted off to sleep with him, dreaming about that 7 week old ball of fur in my lap on the way back from Savannah; the promise of all the times we were to share, all those hot afternoon swims in the settlement ponds on Palm Cove Drive, having to walk the edge of the pond to check for gators before we started long retrieve practice on Daniel Island, the cold walks to the elementary school in Ocean View to play fetch, the wind sprint drills after baseballs in the field behind our house in Suffolk, putting up with the torment of a new baby who thinks the dog is a pony, all the hot afternoons by the sunflowers picking up doves… mouths full of feathers, getting stranded on the river, having to take the decking out of the boat to get his tent up out of the rising tide, picking up and dragging field killed geese, sleeping on his owner’s warm duck coat on the ride back home with a limit of ducks still fresh in his nose.

He sighed slowly and then my friend went to wait for me by that duck filled marsh in heaven. He died doing the thing that was most important to him… being with me… the thing he loved the most. 

Barely able to keep it together, I laid his head on the floor and went in to tell my wife that it was over. He had spared me the pain of the chore I was to do the next morning, something I will always be grateful for. I picked up my dog, wrapped in the linens and laid him on the sun room floor next to my waders and blind bag… exactly where he would have been waiting for me the morning of a hunt.

________________________________

Dutch and his first wood duck drake

HURT but numb, I started making arrangements the next morning. Contacting custom decoy carvers to have a decoy urn made for his remains. A drake wood duck… the first wild duck he ever retrieved, what seemed like just a few months ago now. We should have had five or six more seasons together… and like I did so many times the day before, I cried. That decoy will be with me on every hunt, just like the memory of my first dog… the dog every other dog will always be judged by.

We canceled the appointment at the vet, spared that green mile by grace, but brought his body over so his remains could be cremated. The trip over was silent and tear filled as my wife and I held hands and drove ten under the speed limit just to have a few more moments with our dog. A funeral procession. I looked down in my empty lap for that little ball of red fur, and kept hoping I would feel those wet jowls and cold nose on my shoulder from the back seat as I drove, or hear that tail thumping as it wagged against the rear driver side door. It wasn't until I opened the back gate to let my friend out for the last time that it really sunk in he wasn't going to jump out on his own, tail wagging and ready to go.

Trembling, I reached down and unbuckled his collar and it finally all let go. I cried like I have never before in my life. My hands full of his cold, dark red fur, I sobbed for all the adventures we were still supposed to have together. For the chance to retrieve my youngest son William’s first bird the same way he did for our oldest, Jesse. For the chance to finally make it to Canada with me and hunt the prairies and blackened skies full of mallards, sprigs, specklebellys and snows and endless acres of hunter friendly land.

But he was already there; ears up and tail wagging… waiting for me to get home.

"If tears could build a stairway,
and memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to heaven
and bring you home again."

In loving memory, from Andy and the rest of the Virginia Hunting Forum.

DUTCH

December 31, 2005 - December 6, 2014

Thanksgiving - The Native American Way

Chief Mark Custalow and Governor Terry McAuliffe

I had the opportunity today to witness a tradition that is 337 years strong. Members of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes ventured to the center of Richmond, VA to present wild game to Governor Terry McAuliffe in lieu of paying taxes. Chief Mark Custalow represented the Mattaponi Tribe, and chief Kevin Brown represented the Pamunkey Tribe.

The ceremony drew a rather large crowd. The Governor opened the ceremony with very kind words about both tribes. He announced his well-known plans to pursue all legislation that increases full recognition of Virginia's Native American tribes. He then got down to a personal level to speak about his own hunting adventures with his son. We are fortunate to have a Governor that is very outdoor-oriented and supports our hunting traditions full-spectrum!


Disclaimer: You'll have to excuse the poor photography. I got there a little late, I'm only 5'1", and I was behind some of the tallest people that crowded the front lines. I literally held the camera as high as my little arms would go to snap pics over top of peoples' heads!

.

The first to present was Chief Mark Custalow. They presented the First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe with a beautiful pair of earrings made by a tribe member. They then gifted the Governor with a dancing stick made by the tribe.

To end their segment of the ceremony, they presented a beautiful 6-point buck to the Governor.

Afterwards, Chief Kevin Brown and his tribe presented the Governor with a beautiful necklace and their hefty 7-point buck:

Mattaponi Dancer

The ceremony was ended with a drum song and dance by the Mattaponi people. The Governor announced that both bucks would be donated to Hunters for the Hungry, an organization that donates venison to families in need. This is especially significant during the holiday season!

Here are some additional photos I took at the ceremony:

Mattaponi Tribe member J.V. Custalow

The bucks that were presented to Gov. McAuliffe

Children that attended the ceremony to learn about the tradition. The attendance
of these children is very important to the future of this tradition.

Mattaponi Chief Custalow recording an interview

Pamunkey buck.

Mattaponi buck.

 Click here to see a video of the ceremony from WTVR!

Love this blog? Be sure to visit the Virginia Hunting Forum, Virginia's leading hunting and fishing community on the net! Join in on great discussions there and share your very own hunting traditions!