Check out the giant buck killed at Harter Plantation in Fairfax last week during the 2nd annual Law Enforcement Hunt that was held there…

It doesn’t surprise me that such deer abound on that property since Danny and Becky Harrell started Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge on that plantation. And while they no longer have that chunk of property to hunt, the deer management plan that they instituted continues to grow big bucks on that tract.

You can read the entire story about the hunt at www.lowcountryus.net. under the “local sports” section of the site.

Jeff

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After much delay, I finally want to tell everyone about our new project… It is called “The Skinning Shed“, and it is the the Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge’s new blog. There I will be covering all of the latest happenings at the lodge as well as showing off all of our latest harvests, providing a weather and hunting forecast for the upcoming week and writing articles on how to best hunt the beautiful lowcountry of South Carolina.

I will be updating “The Skinning Shed” at least 3 times a week as well as continuing to post here at lowcountryhunting.com 3 times a week. And I have almost finished all of the remodeling on my mom’s house, so I am looking forward to having the time necessary to keep two great sites packed full of lowcountry hunting information.

I encourage everyone to please head on over to The Skinning Shed to take a look at our new blog as well as to check out our end-of-the-year hunting special that we are running. And if you are a fellow blogger, and your site’s link on our new blog (and this site’s), then know that I read and truly enjoy your writings! I would also appreciate it if you guys would add The Skinning Shed to your blogroll as well.

Thanks, Jeff

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Sorry for the lack of posts this week, folks. Things have been very busy around here as usual, and my friend and I are just finishing up all of the remodeling on my mom’s house so that she can move up next week. That, and of course, we have tried to hunt a few days while the rut is still going. Unfortunately we have not put anything big down on the ground.

However that was not the case last week at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge. We had several guests kill nice animals, and I am looking forward to sharing all of those new harvests on Monday along with details of my new project. I will also be back to full speed on my posting, so make sure and stay tuned!

And with finally getting caught up on things around here, something had to go wrong or it wouldn’t be life… this time it is sick kids. Will has been sick off and on all week, but his big brother Bo woke up last night with a very  high fever and a terrible cough, so they are at the doctor right now. But mama and dada had to keep him calm this morning until we could get an appointment, so what did we do? Well, we called “Big Hog” to entertain him.

Who is “Big Hog” you ask. He is a giant, black boar that answers on channel 2 of our walkie talkies – really mama. But what the boys don’t know, won’t hurt them. All they know is that when dada calls “Big Hog” on the special radios, the giant boar answers and tells them where he is at the moment, whether he is feeding or bedding and other hog details. Both of the boys really enjoy talking to him, and Bo really likes to hear him squeal when he shoots in to the radio! As a matter of fact, Bo told me this morning that he got him “right in the heart, so he is ready to be made in to meat”.

Demented I know, but what can you do when it is too cold to get outside to hunt, and you have to keep their interest in the outdoors up? Parents, you should try it. Remember, “Big Hog” is on channel 2. Have a great weekend, and see you on Monday!

Jeff

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Your looking at 166 inches of monster South Carolina buck antler! All I know is that it was killed in Chester County recently, but I will try to find out more ASAP..

Jeff

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We were talking about hog hunting the other night at the Lightsey Hunting Club for Ladies cookout when my friend Will told the story about how I once called in a giant boar with my snoring…

Well, it’s true! And interestingly enough, last night while I was cleaning out a box that held things from our move, I found a picture of that hog from my August 2001 hunt.

I had been up hunting for the entire opening week of deer season and had killed a spike for some meat to take home. However I thought I would hunt one more morning before going back to Florida, so I hit one of my favorite stands on our Garnett tract – the second barrel.

There I spent the morning looking at nothing since daylight, so I was about to go when I decided that I was just too tired to get on the road and kicked back in my stand for a quick catnap to recharge. I had been asleep about 45 minutes when the next thing I know, I am snoring so loudly that I can hear it in my sleep, causing me to jolt awake. And when the fog of slumber cleared my eyes, I noticed that a huge hog was standing about 60 yards in front of my stand just staring right up at me with a very puzzled look on his face. We had never seen a hog on this property before, so it took me a minute to even realize what it was. However I quickly tightened up, eased the gun to my shoulder and sent a round at his shoulder. He flinched, spun around and ran off. Then another smaller pig ran out in to the road, and I sent a round at him as well.

I then sat there for about 30 minutes to make sure he was down while also contemplating my new hog hunting technique of snoring them in, then eased up to the spot where I last saw him. When I got there, I could hear more hogs back in the bush, so I slowly walked in to the swampy area where I found a giant white hog standing next to my hog. I tried to shoot him too, however he ran off before I could get a shot at him. But that was OK since I had found my hog with no problem…

But as I got close, I saw his eyes move! I jerked the gun up to shoot him again, but it was too late. He was already up and running just as I shot, causing me to hit him in the ham. So knowing that he was still very much alive, I backed out of the swamp and went to meet two other of my friends that were up hunting to see if they couldn’t come and help me find the hog I had called in with my snoring. Sure enough, they were at my grand mothers packing up, so I grabbed the master hog hunter of the two and headed back to where I had lost him.

Once there, we spread out and searched the entire area where he had ran in to. However after 45 minutes, we still had not located him. I was just about to give up when I heard my friend Shane yell that he had found him… I was ecstatic over my huge boar with good cutters! And he weighed over 250 pounds, so it took us a while to get him out to the road where it took everything we had to get him loaded up and back to my grandmothers. There we took quite a few good close up pictures of his teeth, but this shot of him filling the back of the truck is the only one I have found so far.

To this day, snoring in a hog is still one of the strangest, craziest hunts I have ever had… except for the SWAT team almost killing me during a hog hunting/camping trip. But that is another story for another day!

Jeff

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It’s Wednesday, and I am off this morning, so I thought I would catch everyone up on what has been going on around here. For one, I celebrated Veteran’s Day yesterday by enjoying the freedoms that our military men and women valiantly died for. And how did I celebrate it, why I went to work to support my family… what every person should be able to do without having to worry about being blown up by a terrorist or carted off to jail because they supported the losing candidate in our elections last week. So a huge thanks to everyone in our military for keeping us free!

As for the hunting, I had several friends up last week, and they all spent a lot of time in a tree looking at deer. My friend Raymond’s grandson Josh shot a nice 7 point over on Cubbedge Hill’s Blount Place, then spent the rest of the week with me trying to get a monster at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge. Unfortunately it did not happen, but we came VERY close. First he passed a great 8 point at 40 yards with me running the camera. Then we had a giant at 80 yards, but it was right at dark, and I just couldn’t be sure how many points it had nor that he could put a good shot on it in the fading light. But that is real hunting my friends, and we had a great time trying!

Another of my buddies saw quite a few deer including a couple of good bucks that were just too far to shoot as well as a couple that were just across the property line. Again, a real hunter in real world hunting conditions! And I even made it out to the woods with Bo the other afternoon; But sure enough we didn’t see anything. However we had a fantastic time, and one of these days I am going to kill one with him by my side.

I also want to take a moment to thank my cousin Beth over at the Lightsey Hunting Club for Ladies as well as Robin and Ann. They had a nice cookout Saturday night over at their place, and Amy, our friends and I all stopped by for some awesome food and great company. We sat around the fire and talked big bucks until we couldn’t hold our eyes open any longer, then limped home for some much needed rest. Thanks to them again for having us over; we really enjoyed ourselves.

Please continue to check back here, and I will do my best to get some more big buck pictures and stories up as soon as I can. I am also looking forward to sharing a big, new project with everyone in the next few days!

But for now enjoy a picture I took the other day of one of our lowcountry friends that was warming himself on the pavement by the lodge…

Jeff

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Jeff Dennis is a freelance writer here in the lowcountry, and he has written a great article for the Community Times Dispatch about a Wounded Warrior deer hunt here in South Carolina. Please take a moment to check this wonderful story out..

Safari Club Wheelchair Hunt Growing

The Lowcountry Chapter of Safari Club International held its 4th annual Wheelchair and Wounded Warrior deer hunt Oct. 28 and 29. Nearly 20 veterans in the Wounded Warrior program, soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, came down from Camp LeJeune in North Carolina to participate.

Please click HERE to read the rest of the story. And you can also click HERE to read another of his fantastic articles for the Charleston Mercury about restoring and managing a Long Leaf Pine Forest, one of our lowcountry’s most imperiled ecosystems.

Jeff

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This past week at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge, I had the great fortune of guiding a couple of hunters looking to put their first deer down – Tony from West Virgina and his Father in law “Coot” from Columbia – along with their friend and veteran big buck killer Larry. They both had great hunts and well, just check out Tony (left pic) with his very first deer and first buck! Congratulations… We look forward to having both of you with us again next year, and thank you guys very much for the nice emails about how much you enjoyed hunting with us.

I also wanted to put Keith and his good 8 point up. He was down from New York about two weeks ago and had an awesome hunt where he shot this buck, a doe and a great hog! We are looking forward to having him back as well!

I tell you, you can’t always get somebody on a deer or hog, but it sure is nice when it happens. It is also nice to get the pleasure of hunting with such great guys. It really makes the “job” enjoyable.

As for the hunting right now, hopefully it picks up. We have killed a few more good bucks (pics coming), but the weather has been horrible for the last two days and hardly anybody has seen anything great. However the sun came out late this afternoon, and the rain has passed finally. Since I am headed to pick up our hunters, I will let you know tomorrow if it made a difference…

Jeff

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We have had some great groups of hunters at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge over the past few weeks, and one of them was the Nation Wild Turkey Federation’s Women In The Outdoors. Twelve ladies from the group showed up this past Friday night for a Halloween party to kick of their weekend with us, then hunted all day Saturday and Sunday morning.

We really enjoyed having them in camp, and they all said that they had a great time too – which is what it is all about. However they were definitely there to see deer, and many of them did including a few bucks chasing does and a couple of hogs. And one huntress, Dana, dropped a great 8 point, so congratulations to her. They were a really fun bunch of hunters, so make sure and check out their website www.womenintheoutdoors.org for information on their great organization as well as dates for future events.

As for me, I finally have a day off, so I am trying to get caught up on everything that I can including getting a few pictures up on this site and a few jobs out to my brides who have been anxiously awaiting their pictures. However, when you work 5am to 10pm many days, it is tough to get to anything other than sleep. And if I am not working, them I am trying to get in a stand myself.

Fortunately, I should get a few hunts in this week while a couple of my friends from Florida are up. As a matter of fact, one of them shot a nice 7 point this morning, so make sure and check back tomorrow for some more pictures of this week’s kills. Now go get in the woods!

Jeff

PS The two “ladies” on the left side of the group picture are guides Bubba and Henry.

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