According to the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated recreation, there are 326 thousand Virginia residents who go hunting every year. Austin Mitchell (‘20), is one of 326 thousand that participates in hunting activities. Hunting is his sport, his hobby, his social life, and sometimes even where he gets his dinner.

This lifestyle Mitchell takes very seriously. Mitchell spends as much time as he can hunting every season, walking out of the seasons with impressive accomplishments.

“Me alone, I kill four to five average a season, then there is hunt club in southern Fauquier; a bunch of guys get together to pay dues to pay lease and all hunt in this land and we rack a lot of deer in that time frame.”

This hunting club gets together every year. This entire group takes it very seriously and each individual been living this life since they were young. Austin’s entire family has a legacy of hunting, and so as soon as he was able to get out there, he did exactly so.

“I’ve been hunting since I was like six but didn’t start using a gun till I was 10 or so.”

“My entire family enjoyed hunting, my dad especially. He got me out there with him shooting the gun when I was really young. Then eventually I was shooting turkey then deer and it all came together from there.”

With all that in his back pocket, Austin is a very knowledgeable and credible hunter, he gave us his explanation of how he hunts, what he hunts, and the process after. To assist any interested people or people who may want to know more about the game of hunting.

“I wear camo and sit high up in a tree, with deer I use a rifle to hunt. I sometimes hunt dove and turkey also. So when we do actually get the deer or whatever, we kill we always cook and eat with whoever we hunted with or save it for later.”

Deer hunting season has various starting dates depending on circumstances you hunt in. Early archery season is October 7 through November 17th. Late Archery season is December 1 through January 6. Firearm hunting season begins October 1st and ends January 6. Rules are as followed The daily bag limit for deer shall be unlimited.  However, no more than three antlered deer may be killed in a license year. This may vary depending on each county, private properties do not apply directly.