Not a bad day trip. The Mass. crew I hunt with (South shore run and gun) made our yearly pilgrimage to Martha’s Vineyard. 1 day, 14 guys, 2 bucks, 5 doe. Nothing over 120 lbs (they area all small over there) but all good eating. Now the real work begins... cutting Monday.
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Interesting! I didn't know that deer were even hunted there. And I've never hunted with such a large group either.
Tell us a little more about the hunting please? Rifles or is this an area where rifles are prohibited?
Congrats on a nice pile of venison!
Regards, Guy
Mass is split up into hunting “zones” much like other states. Out in wester MA there is rifle hunting. But where I am, there is no rifle, everything is just to close together. The majority of the season where I am (south of Boston) is all archery followed by only 2 weeks of shotgun and then 2 weeks of muzzle loader, then the season is over. This was the first Saturday of the shotgun season. We went to a state park on Martha’s Vineyard that is broken up by fire roads. Basically 2000’ by 2000’ squares with dirt roads in between. Inside of the squares is some of the thickest scrub oak you will ever see. Some area so think you try to walk through get stuck and have to back out and go around. For example I fell the other day and put my arms out to catch some branches and didn’t hit the ground. You can’t have ANYTHING hanging, compass, walkie-talkie, calls it will all get ripped off. Even a sling becomes a pain cut it just gets hung up. With it being at thick as it is, the only way to hunt it is to do drives. So we split the crew in 2, one group sits on one end of one of one of the squares and use ladders to get up into some of the larger trees if available, to try and see over the scrub oak, while the other half evenly spread out across the other side of the square and try to keep the deer in front of them and push to the sitters. The tricky part is trying to keep your spacing between one another and the pushing line straight. I wish I had a picture of what this scrub oak looks like, but I didn’t take any. It’s basically like walking through a million thick bushes all intertwined. One of the new to the group guys the other day jokingly described the deer runs like tunnels they likely came across in Vietnam. A person has to duck if not crawl through them, if you are Lucky enough to find one on your path to the sitters.
So that’s basically it. We drive or push the deer because we have enough guys where it’s hard for the deer to get in between the pushing line (although they frequently do, and could be 25 yards from you, making a tun of noise running between you and the person next to you, and neither of you would see a thing).
The best part about the trip was the ferry ride back. It’s not peak vacation season, so most of the people on Martha’s Vineyard are locals and live there year round, and not rich vacationers going to their multi million dollar summer home. The island is so over run with lime disease, everyone was coming over to the truck, taking pictures, and thanking us for thinning the heard, which happens every year, but it is by no means typical for Massachusetts. To put things into perspective for the locals, at the deer check station, the biologist told us that about 50% of the ticks they test, test positive for lime. There are no coyotes on the island so hunters are the only deer predator, and the state wants them gone so bad, there are unlimited doe tags for sale for $5 each.
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Thanks, I sort of figured rifles wouldn't be allowed there. And yes, I understand about thick brush/trees... Out here in the Cascades, it's the "vine maple" and ya, it can be so doggone thick!!!
Thanks for the explanation.
I enjoy learning about how others hunt, different places around the country and even in other parts of the world!
Regards, Guy
That is awesome buddy!!! Thanks for sharing it.
Looks like a good time with good friends for sure. The thing fond memories are made of!!
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