Well it was about that time of year, no not time to start shooting my bow (that should be done year around, if at all possible), it was time to head to Romney, WV. You may ask why I'm excited about this, well this has become a tradition, not one of mine but one I got invited to join. One of my best friends, Jay, and his family and friends always make a pilgrimage to the apple orchard of Romney for deer apples around the middle of September.
I will start by saying, in West Virginia it is legal to feed deer, this is different in every state and even different in different parts of states, so make sure to check your regulations throughly, but this is mainly a personal choice to feed or not to feed, given it is legal. Now after the Public Service Announcement, back to the story. This is normally an early morning adventure with a caravan of pick-ups with trailers in tow, heading out in search of apples, not that we don't know where we're going, but that just made it sound more majesty (haha). This may sounds like a yearly chore for some people, but this is our unofficial count down starter to bow season (this trip normally takes place within a month of bow season starting). The ride to get the apples consists of everything and anything you can imagine hearing around a campfire at deer camp. Roughly three-fourths of the way there is the only pit-stop, just enough time to refuel, unload all the coffee that was consumed on the ride, and then to fill up the coffee mugs, again. Only a little while later are we were all pulling into the orchard, lining the trucks up to get filled with crates of apples. While the trucks and trailer are getting loaded, half of the guys standing around looking and laugh at how much each others trucks are squatting due to the apples and the other half of us are inside the shop filling our order from home for eating and baking apples.Once everyone pays for their goodies and piles back into the trucks, the voyage back begins, albeit a much slow venture. Now is time to start eating the apples and discussing who's going to take the biggest deer, where everyone is going to be hunting opening morning, and what the rest of the day has in store.
As we close in on our destination back home, the caravan starts to break off one by one, then it's our turn. Now we're back at Jay's house, but with a load of apples that needs to be unloaded and bagged; that's where all the fun begins, not really, but it still an interesting time to say the least. After the apples are bagged and put away or loaded into my Jeep, it's time to head home and put out some apples in front of the trail camera. Just another way, another tradition to make the memories of hunting and the great outdoors special.
-Justin
P.S. - Jay and I are actually talking about making a trip up there later this month to get another load of apples, hopefully if that happens I'll remember my camera to take some pictures for everyone to see.
No comments:
Post a Comment