By Dennis Chastain

Special to The Courier

If memory serves me well, it was back in 1980 or thereabouts.

I had seen my first deer in the woods just the year before. When I was growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was a rare thing to see a deer in Pickens County, or anywhere else in the upcountry of South Carolina, for that matter. If someone actually killed a big deer, the story usually made the local newspaper. Without the benefit of having any hunters in my immediate family or my circle of friends, the little bit that I knew about deer hunting I had gleaned from reading hunting magazines.

I had been scouting the vast woodland tract of wildlife management land between where Devils Fork State Park is now and S.C. Highway 130, the road from Salem to

You must be logged in to view this content.