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» 2010 |
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In 2009, I saw more deer in
a single season than I ever have before. I counted 75 deer,
a record that I hope to top this year given the large number of
fawns that were born last spring. I'm anticipating that
we'll still have the Liberty Hill lease, and I hear that we might
add a couple of new hunters to the group this year.
My biggest goal for the
season is to take a 9-point buck or better. I've gotten a
lot of 8 pointers over the years, but have never gotten a
whitetail bigger than that. I'd love to change that this
season.
As always, we'll start the
year off hunting predators and crows from January through early
March. We'll do some shed hunting, we'll build new stands
and feeders, and will start looking for new areas to hunt.
We'll try for the turkeys
in April, work the land over the summer, and be ready to go back
at it hard in September when deer season comes back around.
Thanks for following along
with me in my hunting journals.
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Whitetail Buck |
4 |
2 |
Whitetail Doe |
9 |
2 |
Turkey (Gobbler/Jake) |
5 |
2 |
Turkey (Hen) |
5 |
- |
Wild Boar |
0 |
0 |
Coyote |
0 |
0 |
Fox |
0 |
0 |
Bobcat |
0 |
0 |
Squirrel |
- |
0 |
Dove |
- |
0 |
Crows |
- |
1 |
Ducks / Geese |
8 |
2 |
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Notes: Clicking on any picture will show you a full size image of that picture.
Click here for a "cast of
characters" for my hunting journals, or
here for a map of the lease |
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Although I had not originally planned to
hunt today, I couldn't help but take one last opportunity to get
into the woods for the closing day of deer season. I decided
to hunt from a stand that I had not yet used this year, so I chose
a ladder stand that sits on one of the little side roads that
border Singleton Creek road as you approach our lease.
This particular stand looks out over a
hilly field surrounded by recently-thinned pines. The view
is beautiful, and the surroundings look as if they would more
likely hold elk than whitetail deer. Today, however,
they held nothing but squirrels and doves, as that was all I saw
during the time that I was in the stand. It was raining
fairly heavily when I left the tree and went back to get my truck,
but I didn't mind. The walk back to the truck was a sad one,
as it always is when deer season comes to a close.
Back at the sign-in board, I saw that a
lot of guys were still in the woods. Needing to get home to
Micki and Paul, however, I did not wait around to say goodbye this
time. Instead, I took my tag off of the board, returned to
the Jeep, and made the long drive home in a reflective silence.
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Micki suggested that since I had a few
days off around Christmas I should use one of them to go hunting
again. I took her up on the offer and headed back down to
the lease this afternoon. I thought long and hard about
where I might hunt, and finally decided to go to the big field
that we used to call the "staging area". It's surrounded by
pines, and since the wind was heavy today I thought that the deer
might be using the pines to protect themselves from it.
The day was grey and overcast, cool but
not cold, and was a great day to sit in the stand. Although
I again saw nothing, it was great to be in the woods again.
This may be my last hunt of the year, as I am out of days off from
work. I may try to get in a short afternoon hunt on New
Year's Day, but I'll wait a bit to see how things are looking
before I make that decision.
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A couple of years ago I spent my Tuesday
evenings hanging out with other Christian men at a place in Indian
Land, South Carolina named "The
Barn". Although I really enjoyed my time there, the
weekly hour-long drive got to be a little too much for me, so I
had to take a little break from going there. Recently, the
head guy from The Barn, Kevin Casner, responded to one of my
Facebook hunting posts to say that he had been spending some time
in the woods this year too, but had not gotten a deer yet. I
invited him to come down to the lease with me, and we made
arrangements to meet this afternoon for a short hunt.
It was raining pretty hard, but I told
Kevin to count on me going hunting regardless of the weather.
He was there waiting for me at the little mall in Lancaster, SC
when I arrived at 1:30pm, and after putting his gear into my
truck, we headed on down the road to the lease. We spent a
good bit of time catching up with each other on the ride.
Kevin mentioned that he had not gotten a deer yet at all, so I was
really hoping that we'd get him his first one today.
Upon arriving at the lease, I saw that
we pretty much had our choice of stands, so I elected to put Kevin
in #19#, where I shot my 11 pointer on opening day of this season.
I walked down past him to #20#. We stayed in our stand until
dark, but saw no deer at all. I did check my cameras and
find that two nice bucks were frequenting the area. One of
them has a really wide rack, but is still quite young, and will
become a monster in the coming years.
Although neither of us saw anything
today, I'm pleased to report that Kevin went hunting again on the
following day at another piece of property that he has access to,
and he got not one but two deer that morning.
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William Paul Jeffries, our first child,
was born on November 26th, 2010. He was almost three weeks
past his due date, but he was born a healthy, happy baby.
After taking a break from hunting to get
ready for his birth, I got back in the woods this afternoon for a
half-day hunt. I chose the same blind where I shot my last
doe, and found many tracks in the road on the way to the stand.
It was a beautiful afternoon for hunting, but unfortunately I saw
no deer at all. I left the stand at dark and headed home to
Micki and Paul.
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Although our child was due today, Micki
told me that he wasn't coming yet and that she needed some time
alone at the house to get some work done. That being my clue
to go hunting, I left the house around mid-afternoon and got down
to the lease by about 4:00pm. Jimmy and Matt were sitting at
the sign-in board when I got there. The woods, they told me,
were full of hunters and they were trying to decide where to go.
The spot that I wanted - old Stand #1 -
was available, so I tagged in for it and passed a few minutes with
the fellows. Joey, another club member, was on the way down
with his family, and most of them would be hunting on the same
road that my stand was on. Jimmy suggested that I wait for
them, then park my Jeep at the head of the road and get a ride up
to my stand with them. That sounded like a good idea to me,
and it wasn't long before the Culps showed up and we were on our
way into the woods.
I haven't hunted Stand 1 yet this year,
but it's always been a favorite of mine. It's a tall box
blind/ladder stand that overlooks a large section of thinned
pines, and I've killed many deer from it over the years.
Today as I climbed into the stand I noticed that the ladder didn't
feel as solid as it usually did. Climbing into the box, I
saw that the top lag bolt had pulled away from the tree, and only
the bottom bolt was holding it in place. I tied one of my
ropes around the tree and the back of the stand, giving the stand
an added measure of security until someone can get in there and
really fix it.
The first two hours were quiet, but just
as darkness started to arrive I saw a spike buck come out about 30
yards in front of the stand. He made a wide circle around
the tripod feeder that sits about 60 yards from the stand, then
stayed there eating until full dark. When darkness finally
did arrive, I had to grunt at him several times with my Buck Roar
caller to get him to leave.
Coming out of the woods, a good many
hunters were at the sign-in board. Most of the guy saw deer
tonight, but no one got one.
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Today was my last planned hunt before
the birth of our child. After this, it's not likely that
I'll get back into the woods until sometime after he arrives.
I decided to go for a half-day only today, choosing to spend the
morning running a few errands and taking care of some things
around the house.
Randy Jordan, my taxidermist, had called
me yesterday saying that he had two deer heads ready for me, so I
stopped at his shop on the way to my lease to pick them up.
He was just putting the final touches on both heads when I
arrived, and I spent a half hour or so watching him work on the
mounts. Both of them came out very nicely.
From there I drove on down to the lease
and was not surprised to see that no one else was around. I
had my pick of stands, and after giving it careful consideration I
decided to go back to Stand 43 one more time. I tagged in
and headed over that way, arriving at the place where I wanted to
park my Jeep at around 3:00pm. I walked slowly down from
there to the stand, taking note of the many deer tracks that I
passed on my way in.
I sat quietly in the stand for several
hours. At around 5:30, the sun began to become a problem, as
it often does with this stand. This spot is better in the
mornings from that standpoint, and I spent an uncomfortable half
hour or so waiting for it to move behind the trees. I
occasionally snuck glances at the field, and at 6:10 I saw the
unmistakable white ears of a deer standing just outside of the
woodline.
I looked through my binoculars, and
though the sun was still an issue I could see that it was a nice
sized doe. I slowly raised my rifle, but could see nothing
through the scope. I prayed that the deer would stay around
for 5 more minutes, as that should have been all that I needed
before the sun stopped being a problem.
I kept watching the deer, and kept
trying to see her in the scope. I was finally able to lean
way back, pulling most of my rifle inside the blind, until I could
just see the deer in my scope. She was in a good position
for the shot, so I slipped off the safety and fired. It took
a good 30 seconds for me to recover from the shot due to the
sunlight and the smoke from my cartridge; and there was no deer in
sight when I could finally see into the field.
Still, I felt good about the shot, and
so left the blind and walked back up to my truck. Driving
down to the field, I stopped at the blind to pick up my gear, and
then parked down where the deer had been standing. I could
see bright red tissue from 20 yards away, so I knew that the hit
had been good. There was plenty of blood where the bullet
hit the deer, but it took me several minutes to actually figure
out which direction she ran in.
I found a few blood spots on the edge of
the woods, and then found two places where the pine needles were
badly scuffed from where she had fallen. Within minutes, I
found the deer. She was about 40 yards from where I had shot
her, and after a short drag and some pictures, we were on our way
to the processor.
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I went back to Stand 43 this morning.
After making a quiet approach under the moonlight, I got settled
into the stand and began my wait for deer. The morning was
largely quiet, but at 8:45 I saw movement way down in the corner
of the field that I was watching. An eight point buck
stepped into view, spent a few minutes in the field, and then
moved back toward the woodline. He looked my way a couple of
times, and though I was well hidden, he soon bolted from the
field.
I saw no other deer that morning, and
leaving the stand at around 11:15 I went over to the sign-in board
and sat in my truck while eating lunch. After that, I drove
out to the cutover and walked down to Stand 50, which is a tripod
way out in the middle of the open area. It was still a bit
thick, so I decided not to hunt there that, but go find somewhere
else instead. Back at the sign-in board, I spent a few
moments trying to decide where to go.
After giving it some thought, I tagged
in for Stand 13 (old #2), on the first road, thinking that I would
drive up there and if there was a lot of sign I would stay,
otherwise I'd find somewhere else to go.
I parked my Jeep by the little field
that this box blind overlooks, and was excited to see a great many
tracks in the area. That settled the question of where I
would hunt, so I hid the truck way up on the old logging road,
then walked back down and got into the stand. I saw nothing
all afternoon, but as evening approached there came an
identifiable moment when the "feel" of things changed.
I'm about to see a deer, I
thought, and almost immediately a yearling doe stepped into view
down in the field. She was soon joined by a larger doe,
which I decided that I would take given a shot opportunity.
I watched them for a few minutes before the old grey doe turned
broadside. I threw my rifle into position and took the shot,
but did not feel like it had been a good one.
The yearling stayed in the field as the
grey doe left, and soon another deer came into the area.
This one was another yearling. I watched the two young deer
feed for a few minutes, but as it was starting to get dark I
yipped like a coyote to try to scare them away. They ignored
me, so I barked loudly, like a dog that had seen them. They
still ignored me, so I finally got out of the stand and stood up.
They barely looked at me, but when I stepped out into the logging
road they finally got the idea and took off running.
I got my truck and went down to the
field, but failed to find any blood. I spent the next hour
looking around the woods and briars, but found not a single sign
that the deer had been hit, which ultimately confirmed my initial
feeling that the shot had been bad. Back at the sign-in
board, I found a whole crew of guys waiting for me.
Phil had shot a small eight pointer - a
young deer that we normally would not take, but this one had a
broken shoulder and was in bad shape. In talking to Jimmy,
he said that he had seen the big grey doe that I had shot at the
day before, and that it had a big tumor on it's face. I had
not seen that, but the deer never did give me a look at its head.
He said that I wouldn't have eaten her anyway, had I gotten her,
which made me feel better about the miss.
On the way home, as I was coming down
Woods Road, which is just down from our house, a doe crossed in
front of me with a big-bodied eight pointer following closely
behind, nose down. The rut is on.
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Micki had some errands that she wanted
to run this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to go down to the
lease as soon as I got off of work. I got to the sign-in
board at around 5:15pm and was surprised to see that no one else
was hunting. I had been thinking about going out to the
cutover, but did not want to have to track a deer down in that
thick stuff without help, so I went back to my stand from last
night.
Although I made a very quiet approach to
the stand, there must not have been any deer in the area. I
did not see a thing all afternoon.
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I started this morning off at Stand #20
(old #7), on the far end of the first lease road. On the way
to the lease, even though it was still very dark I couldn't help
but notice how much the leaves along SC-97 have turned. The
colors were beautiful even in the dim light, and with a bit of
rain in the area I was looking forward to spending the morning in
the stand.
I sat quietly until 11:30, but saw
nothing at all. I decided to go to Little Al's in Heath
Springs for lunch, and after making the short drive there and back
I parked at the sign-in board to eat. Jimmy, Matt, and Billy
all showed up while I was eating lunch. After we chatted a
bit, we all split up and headed for our stands. I
decided on the "blue top tower", which is an old cedar stand on
one of the back roads of the lease.
I put a bag of corn out, separating it
into two piles 50 and 75 yards from the stand, then, after
dropping my gear off at the tower, I drove a couple of hundred
yards down the road and parked my truck. Walking back to the
tower I passed several sets of deer tracks, including one set from
a really heavy buck.
Once in the stand, I noticed a few wasps
flying around, so I climbed down, walked back to the Jeep, and got
a can of wasp spray. Once I was back in the stand, I spent
the next half-hour fighting wasps, trying to spray them as they
flew in and out of the blind. I finally located the nest,
which was up under the roof of the stand (outside of the box
itself), hidden in a flap of the blue tarp that covers the roof.
I gave it a good soaking, using up the rest of my spray.
Even after doing that, the wasps
continued to pester me, so I finally climbed down, leaving my gear
in the stand. I drove a couple of miles over to the
Riverdeck store and bought a couple more bottles of wasp spray.
Returning to the stand, I saw that the heavy buck had crossed the
road while I was gone; a fresh set of his tracks was on top of my
tire tracks.
When I got back to the stand, from the
ground I could see dozens of wasps swarming around and in it.
I climbed halfway up the ladder and tried to spray them, but it
was a losing battle. The dilemma was that all of my stuff -
rifle, backpack, binoculars, iPad, etc were all up in the stand.
I made a mad rush up the ladder, grabbed everything as quickly as
I could, and got back down without getting stung.
From there it was back to the sign-in
board where I picked a new stand, going this time to a box just up
the road from the blue top tower. On the way to that stand,
I stopped and picked up all of the corn that I had put out, moving
it to a field near my new stand. Unfortunately, after all of
that work nothing showed up.
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After seeing nothing at my second Family
Stand hunt, I decided to move a couple of hundred yards up the
road today and go to a tower stand that is in between there and
the Salt Lick Stand. The work that the loggers did over the
summer really opened up the view from this stand, and you can now
look out over about 20 acres of thinned woods.
Just at dark I saw two does come in
toward the stand from directly in front of me. They were
very aware of the blind, and were staring at it carefully. I
finally lost sight of them in the brush, but saw them again as
they moved off to my left. I raised my rifle to try to get a
shot at the biggest doe, but she saw the movement and they both
took off back into the woods.
It was good to see deer, even if only
for a moment.
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I'm trying to get as much rest as
possible in preparation for the birth of our child, so I'm
sleeping in most Saturday mornings and am only doing afternoon
hunts.
When I pulled off of the interstate onto
SC-97, the first thing that I saw was a thick cloud of black smoke
coming from the vicinity of the gas station that we often stop at
to get a drink before driving the last half-hour on out to the
lease. It turned out to be a pickup truck on fire in the
parking lot of the station. I watched it burn for a few
minutes, finally getting back on the road after the fire
department arrived and put out the fire.
Today I went back to the Family Stand, but saw not a
single deer. Think it's time to move to another stand.
When I got out of the woods I saw that most of the club was
hunting today. Several of the guys had seen deer, but no one
shot anything.
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The busiest part of my season is winding
down, as we are now three weeks away from the due date for our
baby. Although I'll do a bit more hunting after he arrives,
this may be my last all-day hunt for the season.
I wanted to move to a different part of
the lease for this hunt, since I've been focusing on the first
road for most of the year without seeing many deer. I went
to #9# for the morning hunt (which is now #23#, I believe).
The only thing that I saw all morning was a beautiful red fox, but
unfortunately it's not fox season yet. This stand is very
productive for both fox and coyotes, so as soon as fox opens I'm
going to come back and try to bag that red. He'd make a
great mount.
After the morning hunt, I checked the
board and saw that Lee, one of our new members, had shot an eight
point buck this morning. From the measurements that he had
written down, it looked like his antlers were similar in size to
the 11 pointer that I shot on opening day.
Next, I went back out on the lease and
drove around a bit, wanting to get an idea as to where I should
hunt in the evening. The salt lick road looked really
productive, with a lot of new grass coming up and plenty of deer
tracks. Looking at each of the four stands that are on that
road, I decided that the "family stand" looked like it would be
the most productive.
When my scouting was done, I went over
to the first road to change my camera cards. The
loggers had pulled out for good, so I went and checked the swamp
road, which turns off of the first road. It is now quite a
smooth drive all the way to the bottom of the hill, which will
really open this area back up for hunting. The ruts in the
road were previously almost two feet deep in places, making it
difficult to access that part of the lease.
Checking my camera cards, on one of them
I was quite surprised to find a picture of a deer with an orange
collar around its neck. Curious as to what that was about, I
sent an email to my game warden friend Todd, and also called the
DNR office to see if they were doing any studies in our area.
The guy from the DNR asked me if I could send the picture to him,
which I quickly did. He sent it on to Charles Ruth, who is
in charge of deer management in South Carolina. Before long
he had emailed me back saying that it looked like it was probably
someone's pet deer that had either escaped or had been turned
loose. Todd also replied to my note, making a similar guess.
After driving to Heath Springs to get a
piece of chicken for lunch, I headed back to the lease and got in
the family stand. The wind was quite heavy, with gusts that
had my tree rocking back and forth, but it felt quite good.
Most of the afternoon was quiet, but at about 6:45pm I saw a deer
emerge way up at the top of the hill, about 250 yards away or
more. Before long, another emerged. They both looked
like does, but as the distance was quite far I decided to pass on
the shot. However, when one of the does turned I saw that
she had some unique coloration on her ears. My first thought
was that I was seeing my black-eared doe from last year.
I was pretty sure it was her, so I
grabbed my rifle, reestimated the distance to be around 250 yards,
then quickly took the shot. It was quite a long shot, but
the doe dropped in her tracks, dead from a neck shot.
Pleased with myself for making that long shot in moderate wind, I
climbed down, got the Jeep, and went and retrieved my deer.
Turns out that it was not my doe from last year, but I
believe it was her offspring. The ears were not quite as
dark as the one that I was watching last season, but were very
similarly colored. It was a 1.5 year old doe, weighing in at
82 pounds. Not a monster, but exactly the kind of doe the
biologists told us to start shooting.
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Today was another long afternoon in the
stand without a deer sighting. I went to #20# again, since
Arnold had put some corn there for me the night before.
I did have one deer blow at me from very close to the blind; it
came quietly up behind me and snorted from within 20 yards of the
stand. I turned, but never got a look at the deer.
I stayed there until full dark, but
nothing moved at all. Although I've already gotten two great
bucks, this certainly isn't my year to be seeing deer.
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After shooting the big buck last night,
I left the cape and skull with Kyle at
Hickory Hills Deer Processing. As a side note, let me
put in a little plug for Kyle here. I've used a good many
different processors in the Lancaster area, and Hickory Hills is
easily the best of the lot. You can order beef products for
them online, but their deer processing is where they really shine.
Getting back to the hunt, after getting
a bit of rest this morning I headed down to Kyle's to pick up my
head and hide so that I could take them down to Randy Jordan's
taxidermy shop. I noticed that Kyle has a new product this
year - venison hot dogs. I've gotten them made previously at
Mungo's down in Heath Springs and they have been wonderful, but
after sampling one of Kyle's, I am hooked. He changed my
order for me, adding some hot dogs into my list of items to get
made from last night's deer.
Anyway, I went from Hickory Hills down
to Fort Lawn to drop off the deer at Randy's. We chatted a
bit, and then it was off to the woods. Today I wanted to sit
in a stand that was in a nice shady spot so that I wouldn't have
to deal with any heat. I chose #20#, which sits at the end
of the first lease road. After parking my Jeep and lugging
my gear to the stand, I found that there was no chair in it.
I debated leaving my backpack at the stand while going back to our
weighing area to get a chair, but decided that with a nice pair of
binoculars and an iPad in there, it wasn't worth the risk.
So, back to the Jeep I went. I
picked up a collapsible chair from the weigh-in area, then went
back to the stand. It was pretty early in the day still, and
I didn't expect anything to be moving, so I settled in and watched
"Iron Man 2" on the iPad, enjoying the relaxation time in the
blind with a cool breeze in my face. When the movie was
over, it was getting on into the afternoon, so I sat up and began
to do some serious scanning of the woods with my binoculars.
Although I saw no deer, I was glad to
have had a very restful day in the stand. Several other guys
were at the sign-in board when I left the woods, including Arnold,
Joey, and another new member nicknamed "Bear". No one had
had any luck today, but we all agreed that it had been a good day
to be afield.
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October! The morning was quite
cool, and when I got to the sign in board club member Joey was
there with a guest, a fellow named James. We greeted each
other, and then I headed back to #6#. I had decided that
this would be my last hunt in that stand. Although there are
good bucks in the area, I've given up hope that they will show up
in broad daylight.
I again saw a bunch of turkeys, but no
deer. Heading back to the sign in board, I ran into Joey and
his friend. They hadn't had any luck either this morning.
I had a few hours to kill before getting back into the stand, so I
drove over to Heath Springs to get some chicken at Little Al's for
lunch, then went back to the lease. This time I decided to
hunt in #3#, which is on the same road as #6# but presents a
different scenario.
The woods are tighter here, with the
view being a 100 yard long section of logging road. It was
also a little cooler in this stand, but I still had to take my
shirt off and hang it in the window behind me to prevent the sun
from burning me. I sat quietly in the stand all afternoon,
dozing occasionally, but seeing no deer.
As darkness started to fall, I saw a
deer step out of the woods about 35 yards in front of the stand.
I saw antlers, but at first thought it was a young buck because
the light was getting bad. Looking through my binoculars, I
was astonished to see a really tall rack and a big bodied deer.
I grabbed my rifle, wincing as the stand creaked beneath me.
The deer didn't flinch, and I got the rifle in position, adjusted
the zoom on the scope, and took the shot.
The deer leapt into the air and then
crashed into the woods. I quickly gathered my gear and
climbed down to the ground. Once there, I got my flashlight
and my marking tape and walked over to where the deer had been.
I was shocked at the size of the tracks in the road where he had
been standing. Truly this was a big deer. I found
blood, which I marked with a piece of reflective tape.
Considering my situation, I decided to
race down to the sign in board and leave a note saying that I may
need help with the tracking. I figured it was best to get
folks in the woods with me in case I needed them. James and
Joey were there; James had killed his first deer, an 80 pound doe.
Together we went back up to the stand and got on the trail of the
buck.
We spread out, and within minutes James
yelled that he had found the deer. It was a massive 8
pointer, with a really tall rack and very heavy antlers. He
was big bodied, weighing in at 160 pounds. We dragged him to
the truck, and I thanked the fellows for their help. This is
my most massive whitetail to date.
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With the day off from work today, I went
down to the lease for a morning hunt. Today is my
grandmother's 98th birthday, and we'll be celebrating with her
tonight so I'll only be hunting for a half day. We've had a
lot of rain lately, and the road to my stand is very muddy, so I
parked my Jeep a little closer to the stand than I normally would;
I was parked about 200 yards away from the stand at the bottom of
the hill that the stand sits on.
I made my way quietly to #6#, as usual,
and got settled in for the long wait. The morning was
extremely quiet, with no deer at all showing up down toward the
corn. At 10:00, I looked to my left, back toward my Jeep,
just in time to see a big doe emerge from the woods. She
looked down the road, saw my Jeep, and froze.
I tried to get my rifle turned around
(it was resting on the window of the blind facing the other
direction), but she snorted and ran, recognizing that the Jeep was
something that should not be there. That was a shame; she
was a big doe and would have been good eating.
I saw nothing else all morning.
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Stayed up too late again on Friday and
couldn't make it for the morning hunt. Left home at noon to
spend the second half of the day in the blind at #6#. This
time I was a little smarter; I had been trying to think of some
way to put some reflective material on the roof of the blind to
keep it from getting so hot. My friend Pete suggested that I
use my tent cover, so I did exactly that today.
The cover kept the temperature in the
blind down to the low 90s, whereas before it had been well over
one hundred degrees in there. I still hunted bare footed and
shirtless, but at least in a little bit more comfort. Once
again I saw no deer.
Fortunately, it's supposed to get a lot
cooler now, so hopefully this will be the last miserable hunt of
the year. I keep going back to this stand because there are
still two really nice bucks coming into that area, but I'll move
on after another couple of hunts there.
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I stayed up too late on Friday night to
get enough sleep for an early morning hunt, so I left home around
noon and headed down to the lease. It was another hot,
miserable day in the blind at #6#. I had plenty of deer on
the camera, but none in the stand. I was actually hunting in
bare feet and with no shirt on, just to give you an idea of how
hot it was. We'll try again next weekend.
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Although I got to the lease earlier than
usual, there were already four guys there at the sign-in board
when I pulled up. We said our good mornings and talked about
where each of us was going to hunt, and before long we parted ways
and headed into the woods.
I went to #6#, where my trail cameras
are showing me that at least two shootable bucks are in the area.
I sat in the stand until 10:30 or so, seeing only turkeys, but it
started to get pretty hot in the blind so I decided to get out and
go check my cameras to see what was on them. My plan was to
move to #3# for the evening, but I did want to see what was on the
cameras first.
I checked the camera at #6# and found
over 800 pictures on it. Most showed the same bent-horned
eight pointer that I had been seeing, but I also had a deer that
looked to be an 11 or 12 pointer, and another really tall eight
pointer that had shown up in broad daylight yesterday. The
camera also showed that a group of does had been feeding in the
area every day at around 1:00pm.
The camera at #3# didn't have anything
impressive on it, but seeing the two bucks at #6# as well as all
of the does made me decide to go back there for the afternoon
hunt. Needing to get a cold drink before getting back into
the woods, I drove over to the grill for a Diet Sundrop, then
headed back up into the woods. On the way in I passed club
member Phil, who said that he was going to be hunting fairly close
to me over at #5#. We wished each other good luck, then I
got back in the stand.
The afternoon passed slowly, and I was
extremely hot and miserable. At 5:00pm, I had really had
about all I could take in my blind; it's in direct sunlight and it
was way too hot to be in there, but I kept remembering the bucks
on the camera and I knew that I would stay put and stick with it
until the end.
At 5:00pm, I saw a buck step out into
the trail about 100 yards down from me. Finally, I
thought. Having hunted several times already without seeing
a deer, it was a huge relief to even see one at this
point. I looked at him quickly with my binoculars and
thought him to be an eight pointer. I figured that he was
the bent-horned one that I had been seeing, but regardless, I
could tell that he was a decent deer. I raised my rifle, got
him in the scope, and fired. The buck stumbled, then ran
into the woods at top speed.
I started hiking back to my truck, as I
walked down the hill I could see Phil, way off in the distance
heading my way. I waved my hat at him and continued on to my
Jeep. We met up there, and he said that he had heard the
shot and decided to see if I needed any help. Together we
went back to where the deer had been standing. We found big
tracks in the road, including heavy scuff marks and a bit of
blood. Heading into the woods, we found no more blood at
all, but lots of scuff marks where the deer had run. We
split up, and Phil soon jumped the deer; he was bedded in some
really thick dogfennel down in the swamp. We headed back up
the hill and decided to give him a bit of time; 45 minutes later
we were back on the trail.
We found some blood pooled where he had
been laying, and got on the trail. We jumped him again a
half hour and some 500 yards later, then heard him run and soon
stop. Our choices were not great at that point... It was
starting to get a bit dark, and it was way too hot to leave him
overnight. Also, I have to work tomorrow and can't get out
of it. We decided to go ahead and push him, hoping to tire
him out.
We jumped him three more times over the
next quarter of a mile, then, as I was heading down into a creek
bed to see if he had crossed it, I saw him sitting in the bed not
15 yards away, staring at me. I finished the job with a
round to the shoulder.
We were way way down in the swamp, and
we dragged him as far as we could before going to get help from
Arnold who had a Polaris UTV with him. We finally got the
deer out of the woods long after dark. The first shot was in
the right place on his shoulder had he been perfectly broadside,
but apparently he was turned a bit more than I thought when I made
the shot. It exited in front of the opposite shoulder,
breaking it but not getting the vitals. Really glad to have
been able to retrieve him!! He weighed in at 145 pounds; not
a big deer to be an eleven pointer!
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I went to the lease today with no intention of actually shooting a deer. Instead, I wanted to sit in one of our blinds just to see what things might look like for the opening day of rifle deer season on Wednesday. I had over a thousand pictures on the camera at #6#, so that is where I chose to go. Unfortunately, I again saw nothing, making this a very slow start to the deer season.
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Early this morning I made my way down the road to where I had left my climbing stand. I got in it quietly and stayed put until almost 11:00, but saw nothing all morning. After the hunt I went and checked my camera at
#3# where I found there to be a lot of deer activity. Seeing that, I moved the climber over there for the evening hunt.
Although I really liked where I had put the climber for the evening, I didn't see a thing, even though I stayed there until full dark.
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I'm going to be hunting that ten pointer
pretty hard for the next couple of weeks, so this afternoon I took
my climbing stand down to the lease and hung it in a tree near
where I had the popup blind. Although I'll be more exposed
in the climber, it also won't be nearly as hot, so the deer will
have less of a chance of winding me due to heavy sweating in the
blind.
After hanging the stand I checked my
trail camera. The ten pointer hadn't shown back up,
but there was an 8 pointer there last night with a bent antler.
I decided that he was worth taking if he showed up. I drove
my truck down the hill out of sight of the stand, then walked back
to the tree and climbed up it.
I was quite comfortable in the stand all
afternoon, but saw no deer. I heard one walking in the woods
to my left, but it never emerged into view. When the hunt
was over, I left the stand in place, and am planning on returning
to it on Monday morning.
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It's been a long summer, but opening day
has finally arrived. There have been a lot of things that
have gone on since my last entry. The members of the club
all got together for a cook-out a few weeks ago, and the new
members got a chance to meet those of us who have been in the club
for many years. We've also done a lot of work on the lease,
including renumbering all of the stands. That'll take some
getting used to. The loggers have also been busy, and the
lease looks a lot different than it used to.
For opening day, I've been watching a
really wide 8 pointer all summer at stand #16 (old #3), and I
wanted to get a look at him today. I put my pop-up blind in
place a week or so ago, and by 6:30 this morning I was in the
stand and ready to hunt. The woods were quiet, but I did
hear one grunt at around 7:30. Another deer came in behind
me and winded me, and two big gobblers showed up at the corn.
Nothing else happened all morning.
By around 11:00, I was ready to get out
of the blind and move around a bit. I checked my trail
camera at #16, but there were only does and turkeys on it.
Moving down to stand #18 (old #6), I checked the camera there and
found that a really nice ten pointer had been frequenting that
area. I promptly took down my popup blind and moved it over
to that area.
My old friend Arnold is back in the club
this year, and a week back we had put up a new feeder for him over
in the big cutover. He had asked me to go change the timer
on it, backing it down to 5 seconds instead of 20 for spreading
corn. The deer haven't found the feeder yet, so there's no
sense in wasting corn. I took care of that, then headed over
to get some lunch.
I got back in the popup blind after
getting a quick lunch at the Riverdeck grill and stayed there for
the rest of the day. Several different times I got winded by
deer; it was just too hot to be in the blind, and I was sweating
heavily most of the day. I left at dark without having seen
any deer at all today.
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I've been trying to get down to the
lease to do a bit of work for the last four weekends, but rain and
household chores have knocked me out of it every Saturday.
Today I finally did get the chance to take a brief trip down.
I haven't been getting as much rest as I'd like, and I ended up
sleeping until 9:45am this morning, which is extremely late for
me.
I was out of the house by 10:30.
Made a quick stop at the farm supply store in Clover to get four
bags of corn - three for the lease and one for my backyard feeder
- then went over to Wal-Mart to get a battery for my tripod
feeder. By 11:15 I was finally on the way down to the lease
itself, and by 12:30 I was parked at the sign in board.
Things didn't look much different.
The loggers have finally pulled out, leaving us with several new
roads and a bunch of thinned-out woods. We're also supposed
to be adding a half-dozen new members to the club this year, which
will bring our dues down by $500. Nice.
I drove on over to the big section of
the lease first. My plan was to put out my trail cameras --
the question, though, was where? The immediate surprise was
how much work the loggers had done. They came all the way up
to #9#, which, considering they started over near #1#, seems like
a bit more than the 200 acres we were told they were going to
thin.
I drove around the big lease for a good
little while, stopping occasionally to trim back some trees that
were starting to grow over the road, or move fallen logs out of
the way. Ultimately I could not really find a good spot to
put a camera, so I decided it was time to go on over to the first
road and get the feeder put out.
During turkey season (see 4/10 entry) I
found an old logging road that seemed to get no foot travel, and
had decided that it would be a great place to put a deer stand.
This was where I wanted to put my feeder today.
The gate at the first road was open and
the tractor was gone from the trailer that we store it in.
That meant that Jimmy was probably around, so I kept my eye out
for him as I headed up the road. I soon found him
bush-hogging the grass on our logging road. I told him where
I intended to put my feeder, and he and Matt were good enough to
bush-hog the old road for me, giving me an easy path to get to my
new stand location. When they were done, I was able to drive
my Jeep all the way back to the feeder spot, which will really
help this summer as I keep the feeder filled with corn.
After we got the feeder filled, I hung a
trail camera, thanked Jimmy and Matt for their help, then headed
on out toward home. I put one more camera up near #3# on the
way out. Hopefully I'll have some time to come back down in
a couple of weeks and check the cameras to see if anything is
showing up at the stands.
On a side note, a new feature for next
season that I'm working on for Wingshooters will be "Live
Hunts". I couldn't resist picking up an iPad a month or so
ago, and it turns out that I've got a solid internet connection on
the lease with it. Live Hunts will contain up-to-the-minute
notes about my hunts as they happen, and will hopefully even
include pictures.
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Pete and I were both able to get off
from work at around 3:00pm, so, driving separately, we headed for
the lease. I stopped at Nichol's Store to pick up some
pellets for my Traeger grill, and was quite disappointed with the
service that I received. After paying for my pellets, no one
showed up at the warehouse in back of the store to give me my
order. I walked back to the counter, leaving my truck parked
way back at the loading dock. They paged someone
again, and I headed back down to the warehouse.
Once there, the guy came out carrying a
single bag of mesquite pellets. He asked me what I had
ordered, so I told him that I had bought both grapevine and
mesquite. "Grapevine?" he asked. "They don't make
grapevine. I've been here 6 months and have never seen
that."
"It's in a purplish bag," I said.
"I bought some here not more than a month ago."
"We don't carry them."
Ok. Grab the bag of mesquite, head
back to the counter and get a refund for the grapevine.
The guy was pretty rude in his attitude, not just his words, and I
think that about does it for me for Nichol's for awhile. I
can get pellets in Kings Mountain too, and they are a bit closer
to my house anyway. The whole experience, from buying
a drink to debating about the pellets was just off-putting, and
they're never the friendliest folks there anyway. And,
of course, when I got home I found that they had refunded me for
the cheaper hickory pellets instead of the more expensive
grapevine.
Anyway, Pete and I met up at the sign in
board, then both went back to the spots where we hunted on
Saturday. Neither of us saw any turkeys, though Pete did get
his first look at a coyote as one crossed the road down to his
left.
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Pete joined me again today. We
started the day again on the first lease road. Parking the
truck at #3#, I hunted from there to the end of the road while
Pete took the area from #1# up the road and down toward the swamp.
I walked all the way to #6#, but never heard or saw anything.
Heading back to meet up with Pete at our agreed-upon time, I did
stumble across a seldom traveled road that ran atop a ridge
leading down into the swamp between #5# and #6#. I
bookmarked the trail on my GPS, thinking that this would be a
great place to put a blind for the next deer season.
We ended up hunting at several spots,
putting out decoys and settling into brush piles. Toward the
end of the day, Pete found tracks where a gobbler had been
strutting near #9#, and he decided to set up there for the last
hunt of the day. We checked the road down between there and
#10# and found more gobbler tracks scattered throughout the area.
Parking the truck in between the two
stands, we bid each other good luck and walked to our chosen
spots. Using my brush clippers, I made myself a very nice
little blind on the edge of the logging road across from a small
field. My blind was quite comfortable and well hidden, and I
knew that I would come back to hunt this spot again.
Around late afternoon, a hen emerged
from the edge of the field that I was watched and began to feed.
She stayed in the field for two solid hours, but she was the only
turkey I saw. I did also see four rabbits in the field at
one time. Pete saw a hen over where he was hunting too, but
no gobblers.
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Ted and I both had the day off today,
but we also both had plans in the afternoon which limited us to a
half day hunt. Since we would be headed in different
directions this afternoon, we drove separately and agreed to meet
at the little gas station where I-77 and SC-97 meet. I was
running about 10 minutes late, and called Ted when I pulled onto
the interstate. Ted's usually right on time, so I was
surprised to hear that he was actually just a half-mile or so
behind me. We soon caught up with each other.
I'm writing this journal a bit late, and
I didn't make notes about this hunt, but if I recall, I sent Ted
to the Orange Gate where I shot my birds a week ago. He saw
nothing there this morning.
I made three different stands, yelping
and clucking loudly at each one, and at each stand I called in a
different hen turkey. I heard one or two gobbles, but
nothing close.
We made a few hunts in different places
on the lease, but never saw anything else.
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Looking back at my journal entries, I
was surprised to see just how long it's been since Pete went
hunting with me. The last time we were in the woods together
was October of last year, back on the day that we saw that monster
buck in the swamp. It was good to see him get back in the
woods today, and what a day it turned out to be.
I dropped Pete off at the first orange
gate, where Ted had started his morning two days ago, and I went
back to the field at the second gate. I got situated in the
same clump of brush that I was in on opening day, got comfortable,
then sat still and listened. The woods were quiet this
morning; once, I heard a gobble in the distance, but it was quite
different than last time.
As the sun peaked through the trees, I
heard a turkey fly down behind me, very close. I made some
soft yelps and was answered with a loud series of the same.
Soon a young hen walked into the field, looking left and right
trying to find the other hen that she thought she had heard.
At one point she was only a yard away from my foot as she moved
through the field. Eventually she left.
I called a bit more, and, hearing
nothing, decided to move around a bit. As I started to
gather my gear, I saw two turkeys come into view 200 yards down
the road from me. I dropped back into my seat, got my mask
and gloves back on, and stopped moving. They came down the
road very quickly, never giving me the chance to get into a really
good position. I could tell that they were males from the
way that they were moving, but couldn't see that they were Jakes
until they got closer.
They strutted around the field a little
bit, gobbling once or twice. I could have taken either of
them at just about any time, but they were young birds and I
wanted a gobbler. Before long they heard the hen down in the
valley, and they went off after her. When they were gone, I
got up and went to get Pete. Time to hit the big section of
the lease.
We went up the first lease road to #3#,
parked there, and planned to walk up to #4# and #5#, where we
would sit quietly for a few hours. When we had all our gear
in hand, I did a couple of yelps just to see if anything would
answer. One did. We got a gobble, fairly far
off, in the valley across from the stand. I yelped again and
the response was a good bit closer.
We hit the woods quickly and quietly,
moving through the thick brush to get closer to the bird. We
made our way down the gulley into the swamp. As we hit the
bottom, I hissed "Deer!", and we quickly stopped as two young
bucks came down the opposite hill. I had thought that they
had seen us, but they actually turned in our direction, coming
down the hill then heading back up the gulley wall in front of us.
They stopped on top of the hill, ten feet above us and fifteen
yards away.
This will be one of my most memorable
moments in the woods for the rest of my life. The deer stood
there above us and we stood below. "This is incredible," I
whispered to Pete. The deer stood there for long seconds,
looking around, not knowing we were right there. Finally
they left, and we both grinned at the encounter. Absolutely
amazed, we felt like we were on Spirit of the Wild or
something, where Ted often walks up on deer like that.
We gathered our senses, called, got a
response, and tried to cut the distance between us and the bird.
We finally came to a good place to sit up. We got settled 30
yards apart, and tried to bring the gobbler in. He came
about halfway to us, but ultimately left the area. A third
deer came in to my left, but Pete didn't get a look at that one,
and it fled when it got wind of us in the brush.
We finally moved back up to the main
road and went to sit and wait for a bird to come by. I
showed Pete where the turkeys were using the road in front of #4#
very heavily, showed him where I thought he should sit, and then
he put out his decoy and I walked another couple of hundred yards
up the road to #5#.
It was quiet for a long, long time, but
then I heard a gobble in the woods behind me, probably answering a
calling series that I had done not long before. I called the
bird again, and it gobbled again. Sometimes near, sometimes
far, I thought the bird might be moving back and forth in the road
behind me. When it gobbled from a distance again I decided
that it may have seen Pete's decoy, so I quit calling and let the
bird move toward him, or so I thought.
Before long, amidst a good bit of
gobbling, I heard the blast of Pete's shotgun. The funny
thing was I had thought that the last gobble that I heard was
close to me again, not down his way. Regardless, I gathered
my gear and hiked back down to where Pete was. From a
hundred yards away I saw his bird lying dead in the road. He
got a 17 pound gobbler with a 9 inch beard - his first turkey.
After pictures, we took the bird to Randy's to get it mounted.
After talking the situation over with
Pete, I realized that there were actually two birds gobbling, not
one as I had thought. His came in from his left, not from up
my way. The one I had been calling likely had been very
close to me after all.
When we got back to the lease, we hunted
in several spots, calling sometimes, sometimes sitting quietly,
but we saw nothing else all afternoon.
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Ted and I don't get to spend many
opening days in the woods together these days, but this morning he
was able to join me for the first day of the South Carolina turkey
season. I hit I-77 South at about 5:00am, and when I did I
gave Ted a call thinking that he'd probably already be fifteen
miles ahead of me waiting to meet up. Turns out he was about
a half mile behind me, and we were soon side by side on the
interstate as we headed down to the lease.
I put Ted at the first orange gate,
where I had seen some tracks a couple of weeks back, then went to
my own orange gate where I got the pictures shown in the March
20th journal entry. With a full half hour before it was
really time to get in the woods, I parked my Jeep, rolled down my
windows, and sat quietly in the truck, waiting to enter the woods.
As I sat there, I heard two gobbles across the main road to my
left. They obviously weren't on our property, but it sure
was good just to hear them!
I got out of the Jeep, got my gear
together, then began a silent walk down the road to the field
pictured in the trail camera shots below. Turkeys near and
far were gobbling with such regularity that I couldn't help but be
excited. I found a thick brushpile on the edge of the field
that I could just wedge my turkey seat into. I got into
position and found it to be quite a comfortable little natural
blind. The limbs of downed trees made a perfect gun rest, and
I could cover most of the field with very little movement.
In the distance, to my right, I could
hear Ted owl hooting and yelping, and I could hear turkeys
answering him in return. I got out my friction call and did
some very soft tree calls, and was immediately rewarded with a
gobble in the woods not 40 yards to my left. I repeated the
call and got the same answer.
I heard the turkey pitch out of the tree
and land in the valley to my left. I called a
few more times, always answered with a gobble. It was time
to shut up, which I did. Ted called to my right, and again I
heard answering gobbles from several birds. My birds were
making quiet noises to my left, so I repositioned myself to face
the direction that I thought they would appear in.
It didn't take long. Three birds
showed up on the edge of my field, headed straight for me. I
was well hidden, and they had no indication of my presence.
I slipped the safety off of my shotgun. The next time they
gobbled, I raised my gun and fired. Two of the birds went
down with one shot, and the third flew off into the safety of the
woods. I sat shaking, watching the birds flop on the ground.
One lifted his head, but a second shot anchored him to the ground.
It actually took two more finishing
shots, one per bird, to dispatch them. I should have brought
my Judge revolver to do the job, but the 12-gauge Mossberg 930 did
the trick. I went and picked Ted up, telling him that since
I was legally done for the day I would film his hunts on the video
camera for the rest of the morning.
We hunted at a couple of places on the
main road, but had no luck there. At 10:30, we went over to
get some ice for my birds, not wanting them to spoil, then headed
over to the first lease road to give that a shot. As we were
driving up the road past #3#, we saw to gobblers in the road 200
yards ahead of us. I quickly reversed gear and backed down
the hill, out of sight of them. We parked, got our gear,
then snuck through the woods to close the distance between us and
the birds.
We tried calling to them, but they
weren't interested. Ted belly-crawled to the road, then
crossed it. I did the same, covering him with the camera.
The birds were gone. Thinking they might circle around, we
got in the woods across from #3#, then did some calling.
Interestingly, a gobbler answered down in the opposite direction.
We called him a bit to get him worked up, then shut up. He
did too, but he never appeared.
We hunted a couple of more spots out in
the orange gate area, but had no more luck.
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My birthday is coming up in another
week, and Micki gave me a Taurus "Judge" revolver as an early
present. The Judge is a unique weapon; it fires both .45
Long Colt cartridges and .410 shotgun shells. Due to the
enormous popularity of The Judge, .45s are hard to come by right
now, but I did pick up a couple of boxes of .410s down in Gaffney
this morning. Shells in hand, it was time to go shoot the
thing.
I had gone to Gaffney to look for a new
pair of Carhartt overalls after the battery in my father-in-law's
boat leaked on my old ones back when I put up the wood duck boxes
and ate holes all through the legs of them. Having found a
couple of new pairs at
Cherokee Outfitters, I headed across the upstate from Gaffney
to my lease. A long drive, but a beautiful one.
Once there, I took a few shots at
a Diet Sundrop bottle with the Judge, then checked my trail camera at
the Orange Gate stand and found pictures of some strutting jakes
and a large group of hens. They're just jakes, but I think
this is where I'll be starting my morning on opening day. I
found some larger turkey tracks in the area, showing me that the
bigger gobblers were also around.
After checking the Orange Gate, I headed
over to the big main section of the lease to take a look at my
camera at the Salt Lick. On the main lease road, I found
club member Phil's truck parked, so I spent a few minutes looking
around trying to find him. I finally caught up with him
about a half mile down the road; he was shed hunting but had not
found anything of interest. We talked a bit, then I went on
over to the Salt Lick.
There were some more jakes on camera at
the Salt Lick, but the best news was that my black eared doe from
last year is still around. I got several good pictures of
her, all from the rear, and you can really see the distinct
markings on her ears. I'd really like to get this doe next
year; she'd make a great mount!
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Several years ago I built a pair of wood
duck boxes with the intention of installing them on my
father-in-law's pond in an effort to increase the duck population.
I've dreaded the job of installing them, and it turns out that it
was a job well worth dreading. My intention was to
head to Lowe's this morning, get a couple of 4x4 posts and some
long spikes to sink into the soft ground of the pond.
When I got in my truck to leave, all I got was the dry click of
the starter.
Frustrated by that, I piddled around the
house, taking care of a few chores in need of doing. Around
1:00pm, I decided to try again, and this time I was able to get
the truck started using a jump-box that I had purchased late
last year. I drove over to Auto Zone, where they tested my
battery, but it was showing that it was in good shape. From
there I went to Lowe's and got my wood, (I actually had to go to
two different Lowe's stores - the first one did not have the
spikes that I needed), then back to the house where I quickly
attached predator guards to the 4x4s.
It was right around 4:00pm when I was
done with this job, and, looking at the position of the sun, I
decided I might be able to get to Gerald's house and get the boxes
up before dark. I grabbed my .223, threw some tools in the
truck, and made the 30 minute drive down to Sharon, SC.
Quickly loading Gerald's little boat with my gear, I crossed the
lake, dreading the job ahead of me.
I had chosen a little corner of
the lake that offered a great location for a duck nesting box.
Wearing hip waders, I stepped in the water and began hammering the
first spike into the soft mud at the bottom of the pond. The
job went quickly, and before long I had the first post installed.
Things got harder from there, as there was no anchor for the boat
and no line to tie it to a tree with.
Fortunately, Gerald's boat is very
stable, and I was able to stand on the platform, and get the first
box in place. It was a tough job holding the boat in place,
holding the drill, and holding the box, but I got it done.
It was even almost level; close enough, anyway.
The second box was a bit harder, as the
spike would not go very deep no matter where I tried to put it.
With duck boxes, you should keep them out of sight of each other,
so I was limited in my choices of spots for the second box.
Ultimately I got the spike about 16 inches into the ground, but I
would have preferred a bit more. I may have to move the
second box in the next year or so. This box was made a
bit differently from the first, and it was harder to get it
installed, but the job was finished before dark.
Having a little bit of time left, I
maneuvered the boat into a spot between some trees that are out in
the pond, loaded my rifle, and began to watch for beavers. I
had to choose a location where the bank in front of me was high
and safe from a shot skipping off of the water, but spots like
that were plentiful. I watched for about a half hour, but
saw no beavers.
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Ted and I both had the day off of work
today, so we used it as a chance to get together and do some shed
hunting. I got to the lease about an hour before Ted did, so
I parked at the dirt pit where he could easily find me, then I
made my way down into the swamp. I searched hard, covering
ground slowly and carefully, but found nothing.
About an hour into my walk, I found a
place that was torn up with buck sign, and knowing Ted should be
at the lease by now, I stopped and tried calling him on my cell
phone. I couldn't get through, so I unslung my .223 and
popped off a couple of rounds into a dirt mound, letting Ted know
where I was. I did this every few minutes, but never heard
an answering shot or the honk of his truck horn.
So, marking my location on my GPS, I
headed back out of the swamp. A quarter of a mile later Ted
and I were in shouting distance of each other. We met up and
headed back to where I had been. We searched the area hard,
but found nothing except the leg bone of a fawn deer.
From there we moved over to #11#,
cutting down into the hardwoods and making a wide loop.
There wasn't much sign at all in these woods, so we curved back to
the road, got in our trucks, and moved on. I wanted to
try the big swamp where I had put my feeder a couple of years
earlier, down on the edge of where the logging was done, so we
parked down there and headed into the woods.
The original plan was to follow the
swamp almost all the way to the road, going in on one side of the
valley and returning on the other. However, as we got in, we
instead branched off to the right into an area that I had never
been before. Deep in the woods we found a beautiful slab of
exposed granite with a creek trickling off of it. Sign was
plentiful, but sheds were not.
Looking at my GPS, I saw that we could
make our way over to #16#, meet up with the road, then make the
long hike back to where we had parked. This was easier done
on the GPS screen than it was in real life. The land was
covered with deep gulleys and ravines, the brush was thick, and we
were constantly moving in an uphill direction. I found one
very old squirrel chewed shed that was in such bad shape that it
wasn't worth keeping.
We continued on, eventually making it to
the road near #14#. We'd had enough for one day, and
we still needed to sight in Ted's .22-250, so we went out into the
cutover to try to get that accomplished. Ted took a
few shots with it, but the wind was gusting too much to continue.
The day was wearing on into evening, and Ted needed to get on back
home. We parted, and I went over to the Salt Lick stand to
check my trail camera.
From there I started to head home
myself, but at the last minute decided to drive over to the
"staging area", our largest field, and take a quick look at it.
While standing there in the field I saw several deer trails
leading into the young growth of pines that surround the field, so
I took a quick walk out onto one of them. Deer sign was
everywhere, and I made a quick, wide loop making one last push to
find a shed. I found nothing, but decided that this is
definitely the place to focus on next time I get down there.
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Randy Jordan, my taxidermist of choice,
called me on Thursday to let me know that my last African trophy
was finished. Out of all of the animals that I shot in
Africa, the warthog was more of a trophy class than any other
animal. He's a once-in-a-lifetime beast, and he is finally
on my office wall.
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We've had bad weather for three
Saturdays in a row, so when the forecast for today was for a
spring-like day I knew that I'd be heading down to the lease.
I've been waiting for a good day to do some shed hunting, and this
was the first chance I've gotten in almost a month.
I got to the lease by mid-morning, then
parked the truck at #6#. My plan was to head down into the
swamp across from the stand, then make as big a loop as possible.
I took a backpack, some brush clippers, a rifle, and my GPS along
with me. The brush clippers make moving through the thick
tangles of the swamp a heck of a lot easier, and I never go into
the woods without a gun of some sort. Never know what you'll
encounter.
I made my way down the hill, slipping
and sliding on the wet pine needles a few times. The hill
that leads down into the swamp is really tall, and it took me
quite a bit of time just to get to the bottom. As I
approached the bottom of the hill, I made note of a large pine
tree across from me with a splash of blue paint on it. This
would be the landmark for where I would head back up out of the
swamp.
From there I
began a long push through the swamp. I found a great many
spots where bucks had been rubbing their antlers on the trees, and
within the first hour I had located this old nub of an antler:
I kept the little nub, even though there
wasn't much left of it and it had obviously been there for quite
some time. I continued on, walking for a long long way
until I came to a valley that I recognized. I was over near
#15#, at the base of the hill where I had shot last year's first 8
point buck. I looked a the hill in awe, wondering how I
had managed to drag that buck up to the top of it by myself.
After a bit of rest and a drink of
water, I headed back across the swamp, making my way to the tree
that I had noticed on the way in. When I got there some time
later I paused, looked down, and saw a fresh shed lying on the
ground near the base of it. I picked it up, feeling an incredible
sense of accomplishment and joy. To have looked so hard for
one of these and to have finally found a nice one really made my
whole day.
I searched the area very thoroughly
looking for the matching antler, but it was nowhere to be seen.
After exiting the swamp, I did two more very small pushes through
other thickets, but found thing of interest anywhere else on the
lease.
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I've been working some long hours over
the last couple of weeks, and today I took the afternoon off to
get some rest. Leaving work around noon, I decided to spend
the afternoon down on my lease. The weather forecast
was for snow and sleet, and I was hoping that the predators might
be moving a bit before the storm hit.
I got down to the lease just a little
after 1:00pm. Starting at #1#, I walked way down into the
swamp and from there worked my way up toward #2#. I
found lots of deer tracks and rubs, and even found a little bucket
feeder that someone had recently filled with Deer Chow. The
was way down deep in the swamp, and when I saw a fresh boot print
(probably club member Phil's), I decided that it was time to try
somewhere else. I made the long walk down the road
back to the Jeep, then headed over to the main lease.
From there I headed over to the salt
lick stand to check my trail camera. It's been a month since
I pulled any pictures off of this particular camera, and I was
curious to see what was on there. There were deer, fox, and
a lot of raccoons, but the most interesting thing was that the
only daylight pictures of deer were from 2 minutes before I
actually drove into the field to check the camera.
Leaving my truck parked in the field, I
walked through the thick stuff from the salt lick all the way down
to #22#. On the edge of one deep gulley I came across
the spine and leg bone of a long-dead deer, and remembered that I
had actually taken this same path through the woods before.
I made my way back up to the road, then hiked to the Jeep and
decided to predator hunt until dark.
I had time to make two 30 minute stands,
so I hunted #11# and then #9#. Nothing responded at
either stand, and with the temperature dropping and night falling
I decided that it was time to head on home.
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I was back on the water at about 6:15am
this morning after picking up a freshly charged battery for the
boat from Gerald's house. I dropped off a pound of
Courtney's BBQ for him, then headed out onto the lake.
Making my way across the water, I moved one of my goose decoys to
a better spot, then was seated in my blind about 10 minutes before
legal shooting started.
A pair of beavers splashed the water in
the creek above me, and then all went silent. Shortly after
sunrise, I heard a mallard quacking on the far end of the lake, so
I let loose with a hail call. I heard no response, and all
was quiet again for quite some time. A half hour later, I
heard excited quacking, then heard the mallard come off the water.
Looking above me, I saw the duck coming
overhead, and my first shot was made from a horrible angle and was
a clean miss. I spun around, got a better shot window, and
squeezed off another shell. I saw the duck twist in the air,
but wasn't sure if it was a good hit or not. A few seconds
later, way up in the thicket behind me, I thought I heard
something crash through the brush, followed by the sound of my
shot pellets landing on the hill behind me.
I left the blind and went up into the
thicket, doing a big sweep of the thick brush trying to find any
sign of the duck. I spent a half hour looking, but found
nothing. Knowing I'd try once more before leaving for the
day, I went back down to the blind and hunted for another hour.
A couple of times I swore I could hear wood ducks way on the far
end of the pond, so I grabbed my chair out of the blind and walked
along the shore for about 50 yards, finally setting the chair in a
brush pile on the edge of the lake where I could get a better look
at the big water.
I sat there for a half hour, but saw and
heard nothing. I decided to go back to the blind, cutting up
across the hill and into the thicket again in hopes of finding the
duck I had shot at earlier. Amazingly, I walked straight up
the hill and found her immediately, a beautiful hen mallard to go
with the drake from last night.
I hunted for another half hour or so,
but finally gave up and headed over to Randy Jordan's taxidermy
shop to drop off my birds. Since these are my first mallards
and were both in great shape I decided to mount them. Randy
promised to extract the meat for me and save it in his freezer,
and we choose a really nice position to mount the birds in.
Before I left, Randy showed me my
warthog, the last of my African trophies. It's about halfway
done, and he thinks he'll finish it up within the next week or so.
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Knowing that I'd be going duck hunting
tomorrow morning, I decided I could make it easier on myself if I
went down to Gerald's house and put my decoy out tonight rather
than in the morning. With that in mind, I went over to the
Carolina Sportsman store and picked up a couple of Canada goose
decoys, then drove on down to Gerald's.
There were already three geese and a
pair of mallards on the pond when I got there, so once I got in
the boat I skirted the edge of the pond, trying my best not to
flush the birds that were on the water. The mallards did
spook, but they flew in the direction of my blind, landing
somewhere back up on the creek way above it.
I got the decoys placed the way I wanted
them, then settled into the blind to hunt for a bit. The
geese did come in to my calling, but I decided not to shoot,
preferring to get a wood duck or a mallard tonight. At
one point I saw Todd, the game warden, drive by in his truck.
I waved at him from the blind, which is just visible from the
road, then went back to hunting.
Duck hunting ends at sunset, which was
5:43pm tonight. At about 5:30, I caught motion in the water
back up on the creek above the blind. Looking through my
binoculars, I could see the two mallards were splashing about up
that way. With only a few minutes of legal shooting left, I
grabbed a handful of shells and exited the blind, creeping up into
the thicket behind me.
I made my way along the edge of the
lake, keeping out of sight of the ducks. When I thought I
was close enough, I moved in and saw the birds at the same moment
that they saw me. They flushed, flying high into the sky.
My first shot was at the hen and was a clean miss.
Preferring to have a male to mount, I switched over to the drake
and hauled him down with a 3" magnum load of #2 steel shot.
I turned back to the hen, now heading out across the pond, and
tried a last shot, but the distance was too great.
I checked the time and saw that I had
done all of this with 5 minutes of legal shooting time to spare.
Knowing the hunt was over, I packed up the boat, retrieved the
drake, and headed back across the lake. The battery in the
boat died just as I started head back across the pond, so I had a
bit of paddling to do to get back to the landing.
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It's duck season, and my father-in-law
has a beautiful place to hunt them just 20 minutes or so from my
house. I arrived at his land just before sunrise, got my
gear loaded in the boat, and headed across the lake to my duck
blind. On the way across, I saw the v-shaped wake of a large
beaver swimming in front of me, so I grabbed my shotgun and got
some shells into it.
I fired at the beaver, but he saw me
just before I squeezed the trigger, and my shot hit the water
where he had been seconds before. I saw another one just
after I got my decoys out and got into my blind, but it was the
same situation. He disappeared right before I shot.
I hunted ducks most of the morning
without seeing anything. At around 8:30am, however, I heard
a couple of canada geese hit the water way across the lake from
me. I started calling them, and they called back. We
called back and forth to each other for more than an hour, but
they were content to stay on their side of the pond.
Eventually, after a particularly
plaintive series of calls from me, they flew up off of the pond
and headed my way. I stood up and got ready for the shot.
They rose quickly into the sky above me, and my #2s pierced the
air behind them as I pulled off three clean misses. They
were soon out of sight, and I saw nothing else for the rest of the
day.
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Went back down to the lease this morning
for a predator hunt after picking up my kudu mount at Randy
Jordan's place last night. I started off in #1#, but after a
good hour of calling had seen nothing. I moved over to the
cliff area to hunt, where I know that there is a red fox den, but
again nothing came in to the call.
As I was hunting the cliffs, I saw Jimmy
drive by in his truck, so I packed up my gear and headed over to
the sign in board where I found him waiting for me. He said
that Phil, another member of the club, was supposed to come down
today too. I suggested that we go try to call up a coyote in
the cutover while we waited to hear from him. Jimmy was
agreeable, so we drove down into the lease.
I put out the decoy and caller, but as I
sat hunting I was sure that I could hear someone else calling over
on the other side of the cutover. I looked carefully around
with my binoculars and eventually saw a truck parked way down on
the far side of the valley from where Jimmy and I were.
Looking closely, we decided that it was Mike Sistare's truck, so
we called him up to see if he was having any luck.
Mike came over to where Jimmy and I were
hunting and we all decided to give the crows a go. Mike and
I both started playing crow sounds on our callers, and before long
we had a group of big ones come in. I pulled down the lead
bird, and the other guys missed their birds. We chased the
crows all over the lease for most of the rest of the afternoon.
Everybody eventually got at least one bird.
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Since there was too much ice to hunt
ducks, I went down to Liberty Hill at around lunchtime today to do
some predator hunting. I stopped at Nichol's Store on the
way down and looked at their Traeger grills. I think I'm
gonna have to pick one of those up this spring.
Once I got to the lease, I started out
at by doing a little bit of crow hunting at #2#, then #34# and
#17#. The only crow that came in to my calling was at #2#,
and I missed him three times.
After that I did some predator hunting
at several stands, but nothing came in to those calls either.
The most interesting thing was seeing
that Jimmy has already started working on moving stands around.
Stand #9, one of the most popular stands on the lease, has been
moved 50 yards down the road and out of a tree that had previously
been struck by lightning. The new location is not
quite as good as it used to be, but the tree it was in was in such
bad shape that we couldn't leave it where it was.
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I haven't hunted ducks in a few years,
but this year I'm planning on getting back into it. To
that end, I went down to my father-in-law Gerald's land today to
see what shape my duck blind is in. I made a long hike
around the lake from his house to the blind, put some new burlap
on it, brushed it in with some cedar trees, and got it back into a
semblance of readiness.
I had hoped to hunt ducks tomorrow
morning, but the pond has too much ice on it to get the boat out,
so I gave up on that idea and decided to go predator hunting at
Liberty Hill instead.
I was also supposed to meet the game
warden this afternoon to get a beaver permit; those fellows are
tearing up the woods around Gerald's pond, but we missed each
other. I'll try again on that soon.
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Well, another season is ahead of us.
My deer rifle is clean and locked away in my safe. It's time
to break out the .223 and try to down a few foxes and coyotes,
and, if I'm really lucky, a bobcat. We're starting to get a
handle on this predator hunting stuff, and the last time I went I
called in three foxes at one time.
I know some of the areas on the lease
that are holding coyotes right now, so if I can learn how to call
them in we might get lucky and get one of them this season.
We'll get back in the woods in a week or
so, but now it's time to recover from the previous season and
start getting ready for the next one.
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