My first impression of the camp was "what have
I gotten myself into". The base camp was an old general store
that had been converted to a hunting lodge. The smell of the
place was terrible, like raw meat. The lodge was very dirty,
with hunting gear strewn everywhere, beds placed rag-tag
throughout the entranceway, and a bunch of drunk hunters eating
fish in the kitchen. At the time I took this hunt, I liked
beer. But a hunting camp is not the place for it, or liquor
either.
There were a half-dozen hunters, loud and
drunk, sitting in the kitchen eating when we arrived. The guide
was asleep on the couch when we got there. One of my first
questions was "what animals are legal shooting?" His answer was
"any deer you see", and "only male pigs". Wake-up was supposed
to be at 4:30. At 4:00am, the guide's son stomped through the
cabin shouting "Time to get rugged". The guide himself went
home for the night.
The morning hunt consisted of the guide
driving us into the woods, pointing out the locations of the
stands he wanted us on, and telling us to meet back at the truck
at around 10:30am. My stand was a very comfortable elevated box
blind in the woods. I saw only small deer out of this stand.
My two partners saw nothing. When asked why I didn't shoot the
deer, I told the guide that I didn't want a spike; I was after a
quality deer that would make both good eating and a nice trophy.
After the morning hunt, we drove to town for
lunch. The transmission in the hunting vehicle (a two-wheel
drive Ford van) went out on the way in, so we had to get a ride
back to the camp. We did not get back into the woods until
4:00pm (the sun sets at 6:00 this time of year). We drove right
by several of the guide's other clients on their stands on the
way in. They weren't impressed.
For the evening hunt, we were on stands 5 - 7
miles deep into the swamp. I did see 13 pigs, but they were all
young, only around 30 pounds each. The guide was two hours late
picking me and my buddies up on our respective stands, leaving
us to wait in the pitch black swamp, listening to the alligators
belch and the pigs grunt. Not that that wasn't fun in and of
itself...
This hunt is definitely not
recommended. The hunting area itself is great, but the guide
has no concept of conservation. He will tell you that any deer
is legal shooting, when he should be concentrating on harvesting
only quality bucks and an equal number of does, leaving the
peaheads to grow. If you want to hunt this area, I
recommend (blindly, having never hunted with them) either
Bostick or Boggy plantations.
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