We got her!

The giant sow that we have been seeing all week on the trailcam was patiently waiting for Bo and I yesterday when we went to check the trap out on the Jericho tract. That is her in the picture on the last post, and she weighed in at 250 pounds. Of course that was before Bo and I took the skinning knives to her.

Bo has been having so much fun going with me to check the trap everyday, and he has been very interested in how they look, feel and SMELL when I get them out. Most importantly he has not been squimish about me shooting them. So I thought that he was ready to see how meat/food is made…

“We’re going to skin the HOG?!” he asked excitedly when we got to the skinning rack.

“Yes son, that is how we turn the hog in to meat” I replied.

“Cool!!!” he exclaimed

Then we hoisted him up, and I went to work. Bo really thought pulling her hide off was neat, but wasn’t so sure when I opened the pig up and dropped the guts out.

“That’s GROSS, dada” he said loudly as the blood poured from her neck. “You now have boogs on your hand.”

What he meant was blood, but who could blame him for thinking that; Moments earlier it had been pouring out of her nose - therefore it must be boogs.

I finished up the cleaning, and it was time to wash the carcass down. Bo enthusiastically brought me the hose and helped me spray her down so that she was ready to be hung in the cooler. We then cleaned up and hurried home for dinner.

When we got there, he ran inside to tell mama about the hog we killed, “We got a big, MEAN hog in the trap, and we made her in to meat!”

He then blurted out, “And that big, mean hog went peepee and poopoo when dada shot her. But that is what happens when you die!”.

Amy almost fell off the couch with that comment. However after I told her how the hog’s bowels completely emptied themselves out while I was getting her out of the trap, she understood. Three year olds are already fascinated with the whole bathroom process, so to see the giant hog take a 2 foot long poop along with a gallon pee really made a lasting impression… He has now told the story at least 100 times, and that only happened yesterday!

That makes 3 sows this week in the trap that will not be filling our woods with their nasty, tick-infested offspring. I am truly ready for spring and turkey season, but I hate that I have to pull the trap now that I have them really coming in… I could really do some damage to the herd if I just had a few more weeks, and how I would love to get the cool looking boar pictured above. However you can’t have any corn down during turkey season, unless you want a visit from the game wardens - and they are really strict on it.

Oh well, I did manage to get a few of the worst offenders. And I will be ready on May 2 when I can put it back out. So hog trapping will be on hold until then, but hunting those big, ugly red-headed birds should make for some interesting reading, so don’t think for one minute that you shouldn’t check back EVERYDAY. And just because we can’t actually trap them doesn’t meant that I can’t do a few more posts on hog trapping and how to best catch them. So look for those posts too.

I am now headed out to work on getting that radiator in our Corolla. We managed to get the new tires on our van, but a lack of time has thrown off my original schedule. See you tomorrow!

Jeff

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Well it has been quite the last few days… I took the weekend off to spend some extra time in the woods with the family, and it was great. While Amy and Will went to Walmart, Bo and I took my cousins 1959 Toyota Landcruiser out to the Jericho tract to check the camera and reset the trap. We also spent a good bit of time looking for “indian rocks” (we found 3 nice bird points) and following the big, monster hog tracks to see where they went. Of course they went right in to the thick cypress bay were they spend their day, and Bo thought we should go in after them…

We then came back to find that Amy had managed to get our van home from the store even though one tire had busted a steel belt. So luckily they had not gotten stranded on the side of the road, but it looks like a new set of tires will be needed ASAP… Just a few hundred dollars that we really did not want to spend on our kids anyway. LOL

Sunday, we decided that the whole family should be in on the hog trap/trailcam checking fun, so we all loaded up in to the ancient jeep for the couple of mile ride. Sure enough, we found that the trap’s corn had not been touched, but the camera’s corn had been cleaned up. That would mean just one thing - that something would be in there on Monday. So we looked around for arrowheads for an hour (found one bird point), but did not stay too long since we had already hit the Blount Place. There Amy had found a broken, but really nice spear point.

We then headed back to the house where we spent the rest of the afternoon letting the kids ride around the yard in the used Jeep that my mom bought them at a garage sale. They absolutely love cruising around the yard in it, and they don’t seem to even care that it is HOT BARBIE PINK! (That just goes to show that boys aversion to that color is learned) But I think we are going to pick up a couple of cans of spray paint for a custom camo paint job this week… Then they will think it is REALLY COOL.

Monday then rolled around, and I knew one would be in the trap, so Bo and I ran out their yesterday afternoon, and sure enough there was a 100 pound sow napping in the cage. My Rugar .45 made that nap permanent, and Bo and I loaded her up in the trunk of my toyota corolla since the landcruiser was out of gas. We then ran her back to the house for a quick cleaning.

If you are keeping track, that is two sows now out of the herd! When they eat A LOT of corn at $6 a bushel, every one taken out helps. And by killing the sows, it really means that you are taking out a bunch of potential hogs later on. So while I love trapping/killing any hog, catching the sows actually does more good than taking a boar out.

I have also included a couple of new trailcam shots in this post. Nothing too crazy, just a shot of one of the bigger sows that I am hoping to catch, some hungry birds caught mid-flight, and two coons displaying dominance/submission over who gets the corn… you just never know what will turn up on that thing!

I am now headed out to get some tires on our van, then I have to put a radiator in my Toyota. And if I have time, I will check the trap again. So you see I have a busy day ahead of me, but I should be back tomorrow with another update on our trapping program… I just have one more week before I have to pull the corn up due to the turkey season laws, so I am trying hard to get a few more before then… Who needs Pork?

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Amy said that the kids needed to get out of the house for a while yesterday, so what better way to create some family fun than to go and check the hog trap on the Jericho tract. I doubted that anything would be in there for at least a few more days, but low and behold there was a 140 pound sow waiting when we arrived.

This was the perfect opportunity for the boys to see a big, mean hog - ALIVE! And they thought it was the coolest thing ever. I then dispatched the hog so that they could see its big teeth, gnarly feet and coarse coat up close. Bo also wanted to shoot it with HIS gun too.

We then spent some time looking for arrowheads until the rain came. After that it was time to head home for dinner… But of course that was difficult since Bo could not eat for talking about the big, mean hog!

Unfortunately it is pouring down rain today, so we are just hanging out inside. Hope everyone has a great weekend! And don’t forget to check back for a couple of new posts I am working on…

Jeff

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Since I needed to check the camera and trap on the Jericho tract, we loaded up the whole family and went out for a hike today as well. We managed to find several nice pieces of pottery along with one great bird point arrowhead.

As for the trap, it was sprung but there was nothing in it. Damn hogs will get their noses under the door if you give them long enough… Luckily the camera told the story of what had been there. Looks like two packs of hogs, some deer and a bunch of raccoons.

I reset the hog trap, but now I am going to have to get a coon trap too! At $6 a bushel of corn, I definitely will not be feeding these suckers for long. And check out the midday movement during the full moon - That deer is out at almost dead noon.

And I also learned something about Trophy Rock, the mineral lick. Don’t let it sit in water! It rained so much this past weekend that it puddled up in front of the camera, and the water just ate my brand new rock away. I will not do that again…

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I should have let everyone know that I would be in Florida for a few days and would not be posting until today… Well, anyway, I am back so I thought I would finally put up a few of the shots I took a two weeks ago during a quail hunt over at Pine Acres Plantation.

Pine Acres is owned by the Copeland family (that is Brady Copeland with his dog in the Mule), and they also provide hunts for the Buckmasters American Deer Foundation that I talked about in my last post.

And don’t forget, QDMA’s Quality Whitetial TV will be airing an episode tomorrow night showcasing the 2007 National youth hunt. It will be on the Outdoor Channel at 8:30pm - You don’t want to miss it!

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I wanted to apologize for being so down on Buckmasters in my last post about scrape hunting. I did not mean to throw Jackie and his crew under the bus over their hunting tip, nor any other of the hunt mags. Because I certianly understand that they are all in business to make money, and while Buckmasters is a for-profit organization as well, they do a fine job of representing whitetail hunters across our country. They also run the non-profit Buckmaster’s American Deer Foundation (BADF) that specifically provides hunts for disabled hunters, especially kids.

David Sullivan heads it up, and he does a great job of connecting these disabled hunters with the many clubs, plantations and commercial operations that donate time and hunting opportunities to them. Cubbedge Hill has been proud to be a part of it by taking young hunters for the last two years. The picture above is of myself, Ross and his dad, Bob in 2006 after they spent 5 days with us.

Ross was almost killed in a car crash a few years ago, and his dad said that going hunting again one day was one of the things that helped him through his recovery. He is shown sitting in a new hunting wheelchair complete with a vice-grip gun rest donated through the BADF. And unfortunately while Ross did not kill a monster with us, he and his dad had a great time hanging out in our lowcountry woods.

I hear a lot of talk about creating positive images of hunters, but it is through efforts of organizations like the BADF that ACTUALLY does it! If you are interested in helping this great group, you can contact them through their website or email me, and I will put you in touch with David.

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Some of you may subscribe to the Buckmasters Tip of the day, so you might have seen the tip this morning in your email that deals with scrape hunting.

Tip of the Week: Don’t Give Up On A Good Scrape

Most hunters like to hunt near fresh buck sign, and what could be better than a hot scrape? Unfortunately, hunting a scrape can be a real hit-or-miss proposition. After all, it’s a good possibility that the buck is checking/refreshing its scrapes at night. Rather than spending day after unproductive day on stand or (and more likely) spending one or two days and then giving up and moving somewhere else, get into the buck’s head.

Help the buck make that daylight mistake by juicing up the scrape and staying with it. Sprinkle in some buck urine and some hot doe pee as well. Make him think he’s really missing something throughout the day. Watch the scrape carefully to make sure the buck is still refreshing it. If he’s not, then it’s time to move.

Well, while most of their tips are usually pretty good, this one just totally irks me. After all of this time, don’t they know that more than one buck uses a scrape! This Buckmasters tip basically says that whatever buck you finally see while sitting over a scrape is going to be the ONE that made it and the only ONE that is going to check it. Therefore if you are after a big buck, they suggest changing stands if a young buck comes by since that is the only buck you are going to see there.

Maybe Jackie should do Buckmasters a favor and join the Quality Deer Management Association. Then his staff would have seen the article in the new issue of Quality Whitetails, the QDMA magazine, that talks about all of the studies that PROVE more than one buck uses a scrape.

Or, if they were really wanted to learn about hunting, the would read all of the Outdoor Bloggers Summit member’s blogs including this one. Then they would have seen this post where I show at least 4 different bucks using one scrape or this post where I documented 10 bucks using the same scrape in just a few days time.

I am sorry to rant this morning, but holding uninformed beliefs about deer and deer hunting is just one of those things that drives me crazy! I talk to a lot of hunters, and it never ceases to amaze me how many of them still hang on to the many wive’s tales that abound. Those same hunters then can’t believe that they did not see a deer this season, much less kill a monster.

And since I have highlighted one great article in Quality Whitetails, let me tell you what else you are missing in their magazine if you are not a member… Some of the other great articles in this month include how to use a chainsaw to create better habitat for deer, how a whitetail research round up is done, how to buy, calibrate and use a sprayer, and how to keep deer from overgrazing your food warm-season food plots. And in the last few issues, they have had great articles on deer diseases, coyote impact on deer herds and aging deer on the hoof. You can also check out the QDMA website for lots of great articles from past issues including some on harvest data collection, deer biology, herd management and hunter management.

I doubt that you will see anything like these articles in ANY of the other hunting magazines or websites out there. Chances are they will be rehashing what brand camo to wear or what sponsor of theirs you should be purchasing it from.

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While not a monster, this is the first buck to be captured on camera on the newest 900 acres that I will be managing. My cousin owns the property just down the road from the Cubbedge Hill’s Blount Place tract, and he has enlisted my services to take care of the hunting on it.

It is a  beautiful chunk of woods, to be referred to as the Jericho tract, consisting of a variety of stages of pine growth as well as quite a few cypress bays. It is also loaded with deer, turkey and hogs!

I put out the camera the other day, but no corn. I figured that I would come back with it, but at least the camera was ready to go. However when I took some corn out yesterday, I found that this buck had wandered by, stopping just long enough for a quick portrait. He was probably heading towards the hog trap up the road (got to get rid of some of them) that did have corn around it, and he will be a nice 2.5 year old once his new set of antlers come in this fall…

I am still working with Cubbedge Hill, and we are currently setting up this year’s program too. However I have had so many hunters contact me about leases and memberships that it only made since to add other properties as well. And as someone who just eats, sleeps and lives big bucks (and big gobblers and huge hogs), I am truly looking forward to having even MORE access to so many acres of prime Lowcountry hunting. It will not only allow me to continue helping deserving hunters find unbelievable spots to spend their time in the woods, but provide lots of trailcam photos, hunting reports and harvest stories for this site and other publications.

If you are interested in joining either of these programs, please contact me at jeff @ jeffhuntphotography.com.

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I apologize for not posting anything since Thursday, but it has been a busy last few days.

My mom arrived Friday morning for a visit, and we had great time with her until she left yesterday. Also, along with a couple of our QDMA Salkehatchie Branch board members, I attended the Savannah River Branch’s REACH banquet Thursday night at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Pooler.

Everyone had a great time talking about deer management, eating wonderful food and enjoying the raffles and auctions. Randy Bowden is pictured at the podium kicking the banquet off while QDMA founder Joe Hamilton is seen waving to the crowd when he was introduced. The other pictures show Dale the auctioneer getting everyone pumped up over all of the great items that were available while a young man and his mom show off the rifle he won in one of the big raffles.

Like I said, everyone had an amazing time, and the event raised a great deal of money for the QDMA organization as well as the local branch. That money will be used to fund many of the educational and research programs that QDMA supports .

I encourage everyone to check out the QDMA website to find out about all of the great work the organization does!

I also wanted to let everyone know that I have not forgotten about my worst hog hunting story. That is coming this week along with some great new quail hunting pictures. And I just put out the trailcam again, so I will have some of those ready by next Monday!

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It is not often that I find myself in agreement with anything the editorial page of the New York Times has to say, but this is one of them… We must stop Mountain Top Removal!

Right now there is a huge movement to try and educate people about this very destructive practice that basically looks to retrieve coal from under the ground of the Appalachian mountains by stripping all of the soil off the top of ridges to gain access to it. This not only completely destroys a great deal of habitat, but also causes pollution of nearby streams by the runoff.

And I know that in this day and age, we need alternatives to our overseas oil supply. However mining for coal by the Mountain Top Removal method should not be one of the ways we get them. Please consider joining The Stop Mountain Top Removal Organization to help put an end to this practice, or at the very least, amend the laws to minimize the damage to our environment.

Denny at the Backwoods Drifter is also spearheading this movement with his Stop MTR site along with the Outdoor Bloggers Summit. Please check out their sites to find out more about the practices as well as how you can be a part of the solution.

And I am heading to the QDMA Savannah River Branch’s REACH Banquet tonight, so I the post on my worst hog hunt ever will have to wait until the morning for me to finish it, so definitely check back… Plus I was hoping to get a quote from the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office to go with it. LOL

Hope that detail peaks your interest!

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