Can you say, MONSTER? Mr. Lennie from from the West Virginia crew added to their total last night when he shot a 200+ pound 7 point over on

Pleasant Hill Plantation… Just check out those bases and main beams! 

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A fantastic bunch down from West Virginia have been having a great time this week with us at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge. They all saw deer and hogs, and several took care of business. Ron shot two nice bucks and Joel killed a nice sow with his bow. Joel also had several great bucks come close, but unfortunately not close enough for an arrow!

They may have also killed something else last night, and I will find that out shortly since it is 4:30am and I am headed out of the door to the lodge. Please check back, I will have more news and pictures this evening…

Jeff

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We are in late October, the rut is on and we just had a cold front move in. The deer have definitely been moving, and we are finally seeing some big bucks chasing does. The cold air is also helping to push the hogs to the corn as well.

Tonight, on Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge’s Boggy Branch property, we had 9 hunters out, and four killed animals including a 160 pound 8 point and a 145 pound sow by bow. I will try to get some pictures up of our hunters’ successes tomorrow. However just to show you what all is over there, check out all of the new trailcam shots from the last couple of days on that Boggy tract.

This past week we also killed quite a few deer and hogs, and one hunter shot a monster on Pleasant Hill Plantation on Sunday. However I was off, and so no pictures of him until I can get a copy of some others that were taken. Check back tomorrow, and I will have a more complete review of the week’s hunting as well as some new trailcam shots from my camera over on Pleasant Hill.

Jeff

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I had a few minutes yesterday to run out back of our Luray lodge and check one of the cameras… Unfortunately the battery had died a couple of days ago, but there were some nice shots of a some good bucks from the week before including the two fighting in the background of the shot with the young buck.

I am headed out today to set a couple more out, and since the deer are starting to really move good in this cool weather, we should have some

more to share in just a few days. We have also shot a couple of nice bucks in the last few days, so I will try to get them up as soon as I can.

Jeff

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A Special Place….Pleasant Hill Plantation

By Gillian Casstevens

As I joke with many about my neurotic obsessions and fears of the outdoors, I am reminded of the many riches my husband has given me. I am not talking about jewelry and material things (as some princesses would), but I am speaking of the gift of nature and its’ many beauties. Mike introduced me to these in the low country just a few miles south of Estill.

Mike was the manager of Pleasant Hill Plantation when I first met him. One of the first things I noticed and learned about Mike (other than his James Bond good looks), was this was a man who absolutely loved his job. The owner of Pleasant Hill, Dr. Harrison Peeples - fondly referred to as “Doc” - spent many hours telling Mike of his hopes and dreams for maintaining and enhancing the thousands of acres. Mike spent a lot of his time with Doc and his wife, “Miss Lib,” looking at their special place through their eyes, through their hopes, and envisioning their mental pictures of what it could be.
For Mike, it was much like being home. Often we would spend our Friday night date nights driving through the property, parking by the pond to enjoy the peace and tranquility of a spring night, or sitting quietly waiting and watching for feeding deer. On cool days (snake-safe days) we would load up Mike’s dog, Buck, and head out to walk in the woods as Buck would flush the deer out for our pleasure! Of course, “Tara Afta” was always a favorite place for me as I could just imagine a huge pre-civil war house sitting at the top of the row of majestic live oaks. It is a place you can sit and get lost in time.

Indeed, Mike taught me so much about nature and how it all works together. Things I never would have given thought to at all. Many nights I would ride with him to check on controlled burns or for him to check on beaver dams, deer feeders, gators in the pond, trespassers, you name it, we checked it! Mike was totally in sync with everything at Pleasant Hill. It would flourish in the spring under his landscaping skills year round, and it rested in the winter months only to lend its’ beauty to the many hunters who sat in a stand or went on a quail hunt.

Mike gave Pleasant Hill ten years of his life. During that time he never once took a vacation. The little weekend getaways we had were always filled with his worry of what might happen there while he was gone. He lived and breathed with the animals and forestry of that property. He treated that land with a respect I have seen in no other, that respect stemming from his kinship with Doc and his appreciation of nature found early in his childhood in North Carolina.

Doc fought bravely against his Alzheimer’s. Mike watched one of Hampton County’s most beloved physician and philanthropist decline rapidly and he stood firmly by his side to the end. Mike would take Doc for endless rides on the property and valued the time with this wise man. Doc died in May of 2006 and with his death many changes occurred in Mike. His zest was gone and replaced with a constant reminder of those visions Doc and Miss Lib had for such a “pleasant” place. Mike and I became engaged in June of 2006 and the first person he called after our girls was Miss Lib. I always thought he would propose to me at “Tara Afta,” but he took me to the park he helped build which was donated by the Peeples’ family and dedicated to Dr. Peeples prior to his death. I think it became apparent to all that Mike was making some big life- altering decisions and what was to come.

In my heart I knew Mike’s personal mission ended with Doc. Mike was proud of Pleasant Hill and truly lost his vision as Doc’s were laid to rest. After many weeks of his mental debating, Mike decided to leave the plantation. Although the decision was a huge one for him, I do not think it was hard for him to make. I think what was harder was watching the end of such a legacy.

Mike moved into town and it took some adjusting, but he finally was having fun again as he went to work for Wise Batten, Inc. and still gets to play outside all day and get paid for it! A few months after Mike’s departure, the home he lived in at Pleasant Hill burnt. A total loss and now there is no trace of what once stood as his home on that great big “pleasant” place.

I feel a deep sadness now when I drive by there as slow and sure, the images I have in my mind, flash quickly by. Mike’s two daughters basically grew up there and I can still see an 8-year old Faith flying by on a four wheeler with a huge smile plastered on her face. I am fortunate to have learned about nature and wildlife from Mike while visiting that glorious plantation. Doc and Miss Lib have truly left a beautiful legacy for their children and grandchildren while sharing such beauty with those lucky enough to visit that land.

The knowledge I gained through Mike is a gift I will always cherish, as much as Mike cherishes his time at Pleasant Hill. I must thank Doc and Miss Lib also as I fell in love not just with their plantation, but with their dedicated manager on one of those long drives amongst nature.

Rest in peace Doc and know your legacy lives on in more ways than one!

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The bucks seem like they are finally starting to move a little bit as our pre-rut cranks up. However I expect things to pick up even more as a cold snap moves in tomorrow and the moon changes from being full.

Check out this nice 8 point that Walt, down from New York, killed Wednesday afternoon along with an old doe. More pictures and updates as soon as I have more than a minute to get something up!

Jeff

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This is going to be quick. I got to sleep at midnight, it is now 4:30am and I am heading out of the door… I promise a full post tomorrow, but for now this shot of one of the hogs a guest killed this week will have to do.

Jeff

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I am a little irritated from this past weekend, so I am going to vent this morning… We had a couple of “hunters” up from South Florida for a three day hunt on our trophy tract where we kill all of our biggest bucks, and that is because the 3200 acres has been trophy managed for the past 15 years, making it a true big-buck paradise. However, it is still a free-range hunt, meaning that factors like the weather, hunter’s shooting ability and what stage of the rut we are in have a HUGE impact on killing a big buck there. In essence, it is NOT a guaranteed hunt.

Well, the company these guys work for bought them a hunt with the understanding that it was still a little early in the season for the best hunting, but since that was the only time they could come, they were willing to give it a shot. They showed up and immediately started talking about all of the places that they had hunted and how many big bucks they had shot - with almost all of them inside of a high-fence. They also bragged about how they only cut the horns off of 140 class deer since they had so many bigger ones in their trophy rooms… Blah, blah, blah!

I could tell right then and there that they were not going to fun to hunt with, considering that a 140 inch buck in the lowcountry is a MONSTER, as well as damn hard to kill under fair-chase conditions. But we did our best to put them in the right spots and put up with them. However, not only did we have some of the worst weather this week for deer hunting - windy and pouring rain, they did everything they could to make sure they didn’t kill a buck including leaving there stands shortly after daylight since they weren’t “seeing anything”. One guy even commented how the five scrapes that were withing 100 yards of his stand had not been hit since the rain that stopped just before daylight… which is, as far as I am concerned, exactly why he should have stayed in his stand and waited for a buck to get there after the bad weather passed.

And what made it even more irritating, was that about the same time these guys were getting down, two of our guides were checking a stand just down the road when they spotted a huge buck cruising around! It seemed that if they couldn’t walk around a pen and pick which deer they wanted, then we were not the place for them to be. So they headed home, and we headed out to top sow some seeds in our food plots behind the lodge so the heavy rain could beat them in to the dirt. And what do you think we ran in to about 8am? A monster cruising around. As a matter of fact, he was only 8 yards off of the road, and he tried to duck down to let us go by. Only Bubba’s good eyes spotted him.

That night we put several hunters in the woods. A couple of hog hunters saw deer but no hogs while another one saw hogs but couldn’t get a shot. The deer hunter in the stand where we ran into the monster shot a really nice 7 point, then had a 10 point come out a few minutes later that stood under the feeder until we arrived to pick him up. Our hunter could have paid extra and shot that deer too, but since he hunts with us all of the time, he chose to leave him for another day and another guest….  they were all real hunters, and that is real hunting.

Jeff

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Mike Dryden owns Lowcountry Taxidermy over in Beaufort, and he shot this great buck on one of the islands off of our coast last Friday afternoon. He said that the 8 point had only a couple of molars left in his mouth, so he was at least 6 years old. And I know that he doesn’t have a giant rack, but the deer that live on the islands do not get the nutrition that our deer around here get, so they generally do not get that big. I also know that some of the islands hold a slightly different subspecies of whitetail since they evolved separately than our mainland deer, and most of those are generally a smaller bodied/racked animal. However since Mike didn’t say which island his came off of I can’t say for sure if this is one of them.

Mike also sent me a great shot of a beautiful buck that he just finished mounting for some lucky lowcountry hunter. Check out the great spread on this 8 point as well as what a wonderful job he did on the buck’s facial details. I have seen quite a few deer that Mike has done, and I would definitely recommend him if you are looking to preserve one of your special kills. As a matter of fact, you can see some more of his work in another one of my posts a while back when I highlighted Bill Carter and his general store, Garbade’s, in Tarboro.

I also have to thank Mike for being a big part of our Quality Deer Management Association’s Salkehatchie Branch REACH Banquet in August. He donated a gift certificate for one one of his head mounts, and we used that as the prize in our “Guess the Rack’s Score” contest that we had there.

If you are interested in having Mike put his unbelievable skills to work preserving one of your big bucks, call him at 843-247-0625. You will not be dissapointed!

Jeff

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