| Lines of trucks with camo-clad men, women and children with a touch of blaze orange have been flowing into Calhoun over he weekend in preparation for the annual assault on the deer population.
A Roane County hunter has already been injured, snarled and dangling from his tree stand, to be rescued by the Spencer-Roane VFD.
It's deer camp time with firearm season starting today.
Much of the last century, Calhoun men would load up in a car and drive through a deep snow or blizzard to the higher mountains of West Virginia to hunt deer. Few existed in Sunny Cal.
Some had old flat-bed International or Ford trucks on which they built wooden shacks, some resembling extended outhouses with stove pipes sticking from the roof - poor man's campers.
In the 1950s, hunters would be in the woods from daylight to dark all week, without spotting a single deer. Sighting tracks before the season was a preoccupation. When a hunter did sight one, it was almost as gratifying as killing the animal, with bragging rights 'till next season.
By the early 60s the deer kill rose to a hundred or so in the county.
Now they're thicker than house cats, except when the guns start banging.
The traffic through Hur yesterday was large, expensive trucks with trailers carrying three or four ATVs with all sorts of hunting and camping paraphernalia.
Out-of-state drivers, unaccustomed to narrow, un-lined roads have little experience in squeaking by on-coming traffic, making for lots of close calls.
The shelves of local stores are void of bread, milk, beer and ammo.
At dawns light, the hunt begins.
The DNR is predicting a good deer kill, with lots of big bucks.
OFFICIAL GAME CHECKING STATIONS:
Cha-Tis, Grantsville 354-6803
Five Forks General Store 354-6926
Parson's One Stop, Pleasant Hill 354-6941
Holbert's Store, Big Bend 354-6476
Nellys General Store, Minnora 655-7671
Speedy Mart, Arnoldsburg 655-8990
Pit Stop, Mt. Zion 354-7601
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