Ten-year-old Amber Brewer sits with her eight-point buck that she shot Monday on the first day of buck firearms season in West Virginia.
MANNINGTON, W.Va. — With Monday the start of the buck firearms hunting season, local West Virginia Division of Natural Resources officers said some hunters were disappointed with the warm weather.
Randall K. Kocsis and Jeremiah Clark, natural resources police officers for the state of West Virginia Division of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Section (WVDNR LES), were in Marion County on Monday patrolling the woods and making sure hunters were being safe and obeying the law.
Kocsis said they encountered hunters in the about 60-degree Fahrenheit weather, saying several sportsmen left their hunting areas because of the conditions. He said some hunters left their posts because of the wind knocking branches off trees.
“Some believed it was no longer safe to stay in the woods,” Kocsis said.
Clark said weather affects deer movement. He said the warmer the weather, the more likely a deer will stay where it is. He said the colder the weather, the more likely the deer will be up and moving around.
The officers said several hunters told them because of the wind, they couldn’t hear deer coming.
Although the weather wasn’t ideal for hunting, it didn’t stop hunters from heading into the woods looking for their first buck of the season. At a DNR check-in point at Fair Traders in Mannington, Mike Peters, wildlife biologist with the DNR, said there was a steady stream of hunters coming to have their freshly shot deer legally checked in and tagged.
“It was just a good morning to be outside,” he said. “This is probably one of the busiest seasons I’ve had…
