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Established 1890 - Blackstone, Virginia, USA |
Published: Thursday, August 7th, 2008 |
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Early Intensity
The concentration on Stuart Gunn's face lets everyone know how serious the
Nottoway Cougars are about their upcoming football season. Gunn is shown during
the recent Nottoway Football Clinic. Nottoway will kick-off its
season Friday, August 29th at home against Cumberland at 7:30 p.m. |
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Good Hands!
Bobby Crenshaw makes a picture-perfect catch during the annual Nottoway High
School football clinic. The Cougars started regular practice on Monday, August
4th. |
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Nottoway Volleyball Camp
draws over 100 participants |
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Nottoway High School’s Volleyball Camp saw its largest group of campers to date
with over 100 participating last week. The ninth annual event concluded
Thursday, July 31 with “ice cream and smiles,” according to Lady Cougar Coach
Travis Andrews.
“We were elbow-to-elbow in both gyms at the Nottoway
complex,” revealed Andrews. “Our goal is to introduce the game to newcomers,
improve basic skills, prepare them for the upcoming try-outs and regular
season--and to always have fun.”
Coach Ethan Abruzzo of Buckingham brought several members of
his team along with Assistant Coach Tiffany Carter. Marvin Meadows of Prince
Edward brought a large crowd of Eagles----all dressed in purple.
Past and present coaches from Nottoway also |
helped out at the
Volleyball Camp, including Middle School coach Julie Bodnar and new JV coach
Lindsey Turpin. Former player and coach Johanna Hickman assisted, along with
former players Charla Hughes (now playing at Chowan), Julia Walker (attending
Longwood in the Fall), Molly Williams (attending Radford) and former
golfer/manager Matthew Houchins who will be attending the University of Virginia
in the Fall.
“I really appreciate all help from the volleyball staff,”
added coach Andrews. “Things go a lot smoother when you have a bunch of great
people involved.”
As for the Lady Cougars, try-outs were to get underway this
past Monday, August 4. Nottoway graduated six volleyball seniors but Andrews
remains “optimistic on a promising season.” |
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The Sportsman's Corner . . .
by C. D. James
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HUNTING SEASONS NOT FAR AWAY |
HUNTING SEASONS
NOT FAR AWAY
I know it is hard to believe, but it won’t be long before
hunters will be out after doves, and then one hunting season follows another
until we all just about have our fill when January rolls around.
Doves are already gathering. A local “farmer” recently set
his strips of wheat on fire, and when I drove past his place the other day, I
saw a flock of about a dozen doves fly-up out of the burned stubble. It would
appear that the plots were burned off a little early, but maybe the owner wanted
to make sure that doves found plenty to eat at his place and wouldn’t go flying
off to look elsewhere.
I expect he has more wheat, which he will provide for the
birds when the hunting season opens. Nearby are strips of sunflowers. I don’t
think he planted those for song birds. I suspect there will be lots of good
shooting at his place.
It has gotten to the point in this area that if you want to
have good shooting, you have to provide food for whatever you plan to hunt.
There are still some fields of corn being cut, but not nearly as many as there
were when this area had lots of dairy farmers. A corn field harvested for
ensilage is probably the best place you could find to hunt doves.
My experience has been that if doves find an adequate source of food in one
place, they won’t leave until it is gone. It seems that the secret to having
good shooting is to attract the birds early on and keep them there.
My plots of dove Proso millet haven’t gotten enough rain, so
the heads are not filling out with seed. Even if I run the bushhog over parts of
the field, I know I won’t be able to compete with those strips of wheat and
sunflowers.
Deer always eat all of the heads off the wheat I plant, so I
don’t have any to scatter for doves. The same thing happened to my sunflowers.
As soon as the plants began to form a head, deer nipped them off.
On a parcel of land within half-a-mile, a neighbor has a nice
stand of sunflowers. How come?
I think I need one of those cannons that fire every now and
then to scare birds out of fields. The scarecrow I put up in my field was a
joke. Deer-nipped off plants within a foot of it, even though I splashed it with
perfume. The deer on our place don’t seem to be afraid of human scent until
hunting season.
And speaking of scents, none of them have ever seemed to work
for me. I killed a lot of deer with a shotgun, many of them almost too close,
and I never used any scent to block my own or to attract a deer.
I have to believe that all of those scents offered to hunters
do more for the folks who make them than they do for hunters.
Maybe if I could buy a scent that smells like a sunflower, I
might lure an entire herd to me. Maybe I can borrow a big sunflower from a
neighbor and rub it on my hunting jacket.
Deer are not playing fair. Every Spring I plant food for
them, but they are not supposed to eat it until during the Fall hunting season
when I can sit up a tree and get a shot at them.
Things could be worse. If deer were the hunters and we were
the hunted, I suspect many of us would be mounted and hung on the wall. |
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