This is particularly true of Vilas County with more lakesthan any other county. Vilas County has produced more arrowkilled deer than any other county since the Necedah Refugewas opened to rifle hunters and thus taking that honor fromJuneau County. A good proportion of the deer killed with thebow and arrow in Vilas County are killed on drives, and thisarticle will be about driving as practiced by bow hunters inVilas County plus plenty of observations on how the writerthinks it should be done.
The first deer killed in Wisconsin by modern archery waskilled on a drive in Vilas County. This was in the rifle seasonin December 1930, six years before the archers were given aseason before the rifle season. We were a party of five in-cluding our Chippewa guide, John Devine. John had fished,hunted, and trapped this area for more than 50 years and hisforebears before him. He did most of the driving by himself,and I have since marveled that he got any deer through to us.The woods were full of "red coats" with rifles. One or moreof them usually messed up our drive by just being in themiddle of it. We had to pick the tough spots, usually in theswamps. If we could circle and find the positions he wanted usto guard—perhaps one was some obscure runway by a certainwindfallen tree near a draw (what is a draw, anyway?)—thenwe were confident that this was the time when the bow wouldcome into its own and we could hold our heads high when thenext sarcastic red coat quizzed us on just what we thought wewere doing in the woods with those things. Too often wecouldn't find the runway, or the tree—not even the draw. Awhispered consultation: "Was the draw to the right or left ofthe hill?" It was so plain on the map John had drawn in thesnow. "To the right, Roy, I'm sure, but where is the hill?" Iwas supposed to know for I was an old timer; I even have acabin up here and had rifle hunted two seasons with John.
