JD Jones, if you didn’t know, is one of the greats that paved the way for handgun hunters today. JD submitted this article for publishing in Handgun Hunting Afield.
CAVE MOUNTAIN 2015
J D Jones
This makes the third trip to Cave Mountain Ranch and I hope there will be many more. This is kindalike visiting home. Home comforts, great scenery; especially in the morning fog this year combined with hosts no longer hosts—friends.
This year I made up my mind to hunt all three days either with gun and camera or just camera if I shot out early. First morning was pretty foggy. I like it. I spent eight years at Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant on rotating shifts. If there was anywhere in the US that had more fog I wasn’t aware of it. Often it was necessary to have someone on foot ahead of the powder vans (and other vehicles) with a large reflector on their back guiding the vans that had to keep going. On numerous occasions when driving to work onmidnights I propped the drivers door open with my foot and shined a flashlight on the center line to keep track of where I was. One very memorable morning I was walking to the parking lot in a dense fog and heard a very odd “tinkling???” sound and stopped. I could feel the cold on my face as the fog became lighter and settled to the ground—frozen. When the top layer got lower than my head it looked like a snow blanket with everything sticking out of it covered with frozen fog ice crystals sparkling in bright sunlight. That was about 1968 and I still think it one of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen. So I like fog.
At Cave Mountain you can see it solid in the valleys with mountain tops in view and very scenic. I’ve always been a sucker for a good view.
As usual for the last three years I chose my 14” Diamond profile barrel 309 JDJ Contender. It wears a 2-8 Leupold I usually keep on about 5X. Looking over the bullet supply I found a box of 150 grain WW Silvertips. At this stage in life I realized I had never shot anything with a Silvertip. I loaded a few to about 2600 FPS and checked point of impact against the 160 Hornadys I had been using. Wow—about 10” difference at 100. It always pays to check.
A week or so before we arrived a hunter got a buck that scored 208. He had obviously survived a few hunting seasons before his luck ran out. The usual buck starts life in the ranch and gets to play life or death at age three and a half when they are turned into the hunting area. The longer they live the bigger they get. Only a dozen are so are allowed to be harvested in year so plenty get to enjoy the West Virginia mountains in the winter.
The blinds are comfortable so hunting is a luxury. In one spot a shot could be presented at up to about 250 yards. Jane and I hunted it one day and saw little in the morning. That afternoon things picked up with several shooters being spotted but no shot presented. The biggest guy came late. No doubt he was a shooter. For 15—20 minutes he fooled around at about 165 yards withoutpresenting a sure quick kill shot. When he finally did it was at last shooting light and he was about 20 yards from the edge of the drop off called a mountainside. Frankly I wouldn’t want to walk down it in daylight much less in the dark looking for a deer. So I didn’t shoot. Knowing when not to shoot is at least as important as knowing when to shoot. Dick says he would have found him and I believe him. I think you should expect to get a shot at at least a 140+ class deer although there are smaller deer there. What you shoot is up to you—no one tells you when to pull the trigger.
We saw several deer I would guess at least 160 and a few well over that. Jane and I enjoy watching them and had enough to look at to keep it interesting. We barely got into the blind the first morning when Lou woke everyone up with a shot. It turned to to be the one we saw coming in the day before. The taxidermist scored it a t 187.
On the last morning I was tempted by a couple but decided to keep the suspense factor alive and didn’t shoot. The first afternoon we watched a quite large buck and another that was not as big together. I felt I would have a tough time deciding which to shoot—the biggest “perfect” 10 or the slightly smaller weirder one with him. Not shooting saved that decision. On the last morning on the way back from the long range blind we drove around the top of the mountain to get to the lodge. Jane was in back of the topless jeep andshortly after leaving the blind three shooters posed momentarily skylined while we looked them over with binoculars. Nah-lets go. I was on the downside of the mountain looking down wondering if we went over if anyone would try to recover the bodies or just throw some dirt on us where we landed when Jane announced—THERE; in a tone of voice she seemed very definite about. As I looked around uphill the buck which I instantly thought was the weirder one of the first day two together decided to haul it out of there. While trying to get into a shooting position Jane handed me the beanbag I use to position the gun on in the blind so it won’t get knocked about whichgave me a bit of elevation I needed just as the object of our attention broadsided and hesitated long enough for me to hit him through both shoulders and of course the good stuff between them before exiting. He came up on his back legs and took a few running steps with front legs dangling and went down for good out of sight. Quick, interesting shot and all over in a few seconds. A lot more fun than sniping one out of a blind.
I was pretty sure he was the first day buck but comparing photos show he wasn’t the deer I though he was. He is a little weird, in all a 13 pointer of decent mass. How big? I don’t know and don’t really care. Big enough. We didn’t measure him. Sure is good eatin!