December 24th

Dad and I went to War ridge for a Christmas eve doe hunt with Danny Helms, Don Spedien, and Ron Spangler. We set off 2 drives and hunted around the fields from 8am until 12noon. I saw 3 deer one that I jumped in a thicket while doing a drive that offered no real opportunity for a shot and 2 button bucks in a field. Don saw the same 2 buttons but nobody else saw any deer, some squrriels and a turkey but no deer. No shots were fired.

December 20th

Aleshia, Avery, and I went to Petersburg for an early Christmas. While up there I headed up to Jordan Run to Aleshia's grandpa's old home place to fish for native brookies. The water was about perfect, up some but not too high. The weather was extremely cold mid 30's with some high winds, which made for some cold fishing. I used white and pink trout magnets with a 4 foot ultralight. I ended up catching 20 fish 4 of which were 8+ inches with none being larger than 10 inches. I fished for around 2 hours. Had lots of bites and hooked several more that got off. I seemed to do a lot better below the low water bridge than above it.

December 17th

Dad & I hunted the fields around Claud Davidson's place above our farm for either sex deer with a muzzleloader. Dad saw 7 total deer, 5 of which were around Jeff's feeder at daylight. While he was sneaking up on them another deer snorted behind him near the pond and ruined his stalk. I hunted a loop all the way around Claude's property boundry. I jump 6 deer in the above Jeff's tree stand down on our place. I never could get a descent shot. I had hoped the deer would go up the hollow towards dad when jumped but it never happened. I continued to follow after them and rejumped those same deer 6 more times in an effort to push them towards Dad or get a shot. But it didn't work out they ended up going over towards Maddam's creek.

DECEMBER 6TH "Last Day WV Rifle Season"

With Dad in Ohio deer hunting with slugs, in the company of Roger and Joe,I headed out to hunt on a snowy Saturday afternoon. I left the house a 1pm and went to Rogers and started still hunting my way back towards our place. By 2:30 there was an inch of snow onto he ground and you could walk deer trails and four wheeler paths without making a sound. On the way in I saw 2 does and a spike in Roger's yard, I had been instructed not to shoot the spike since he was somewhat of a pet and I figured the 2 does must be about the same so I left them be. I hunted all the way to the top and headed back toward the fields on the madam's creek side. As I was walking through a green brier thicket I saw brown flash up in the right corner of my eye no more than 5 or 6 feet away.I wheeled around in the middle of the thicket and shot once. No time to think, just react. The deer fell over dead instantly. It was a tiny little button buck. Had I had time to look the deer over I would have let it pass, but it happened instantly. I had hit him high through the lungs and the bullet had taken out the bottom of the spine killing it at once. I was happy to have killed a deer and happy to have the meat but I felt awful about killing a small yearling especially a button buck. I absolutely hate to kill buttons. The way it happened is just the way it happened. That week in Ohio Joe and Dad killed does and Roger killed a 6 point buck. Joe killed his doe at ~ 206 yards with a slug gun and Joe also missed a big non-typical buck at > 200 yards. They had awful weather for much of the week.