Thanksgiving Driven Deer Hunt - 2011

Deer standers happy in their work show off a big 9-point buck

Jeremy Dempsey came from Cummins to drive deer via horseback

Van Horton of Dale, and his trophy buck

The annual day after Thanksgiving man drive took place in cold weather, with clear skies and little wind. The ideal conditions helped to draw a record number of man drivers, ensuring that the woodland bushes of the Yemassee property would be thoroughly checked in order to flush any white-tailed deer to the standers. Only trophy bucks and does were on the menu, according to the huntmaster's safety talk before the hunt, with all participants required to wear hunter orange hats and vests. The drivers jumped the largest buck of the day not long into the first drive and began hooting and hollering a great deal - before a shotgun sounded off twice in the direction that the buck headed. Then I witnessed the buck coming out of a hedgerow and into an open field - quartering away from my position with his head up and under full power - making a clean escape into nearby woods. Even from my distant viewpoint, I could tell that this buck had grown a super rack of antlers. That first drive yielded a small 7-point buck and a spike buck, and then the standers were picked up and taken to a second area to hunt. A horse driver named Jeremy Dempsey was able to see a nice buck in a powerline not far from a line of standers, and he pushed the buck to them and shots rang out. Hunter Van Horton stopped the 9-point buck with a heavy-rack and really put an exclamation point on the entire holiday man drive effort. One doe was harvested on the second drive as well and then everyone gathered up back at the barn to share their stories about what they had seen in the woods.

A large crowd of hunters, all in safety orange

To view past blog entries about man drives click here.