With deer season just around the corner here in the lowcountry, and with hog season open all year, total scent control is something that every hunter should be working on to achieve the results they want!

But have you read all of the scent control articles in the many hunting magazines, and yet you still continue to get busted before you can pull the trigger on the monster whitetail or giant boar of your dreams?

That’s because most of the outdoor writers’ greatly oversimplify the truly difficult, and monotonous task of becoming and more importantly staying scent free. Most of the them just tell you to bathe in scent free soap, wash your clothes in scent free detergent, spay down with some type of scent killing spray, wear rubber boots and scent-adsorbing clothing and you will be fine.

However while saying this is going to save your hunting, the writers then insist that you stay down wind. Well, were I hunt, that just doesn’t cut it. Not only does the wind change all of the time, but on the small tracts of land that most sportsmen get to hunt in South Carolina, you must work darn hard to put a great buck, big hog or even an fat doe in front of you. Because with deer rifle season running from August 15 to January 1 and two bucks a day allowed in most of the low country, the deer that survive even one or two years become masters of evasion. Also, while some may disagree, the feral hogs that are hunted year-round are just as tough! So while taking the normal outdoor writer’s casual approach to scent control will help, it still won’t keep you from burning out a couple of hundred acre track over so long of a period without some important additional steps being taken.

Probably most critical to my success is NOT wearing rubber boots. Most rubber boots, even the ones that say they are scent free, are not. Smell them. If you can smell them, the deer and hogs certainly can. And since your feet sweat in the rubber, the bacteria builds up on your feet, their leftovers causing odor to be left on the ground as well as sent air born as you walk.

I wear Rocky snake boots pretty much all year round since it rarely gets that cold. And even when it does, my feet breath with the help of some synthetic socks, so they don’t sweat or get cold. More importantly, with some additional steps, they don’t stink. I soak them in Atsko’s sport wash for an hour, scrub them out and rinse them in fresh water before letting them hang in the sun all day. Make sure to start this process early in the day so they don’t stay damp overnight and get moldy, or put them in front of a strong fan until dry.

Next I wash all of my hunting stuff, not just my clothes, in sport wash as well. That means my sling, calls, pull up rope, and bino buddy in addition to my hat, gloves and head net. I also wash my rain gear and anything else that I plan to put into my also washed scentlok backpack.

I then spray anything that can’t be washed down with Atsko’s no odor spray. While it doesn’t absorb odor like some of the newer carbon-based sprays, it actually kills the odor molecules and prevents bacteria from growing while still being safe enough to wash out your mouth. Which, by the way, actually works to kill bad breath, another culprit of many hunts gone bad. Just as importantly, No Odor kills ALL odors not just human odor; this includes gasoline and oil! This is vitally important since hunters are likely to pick up all kinds of smells on the way to the stand.

I then suggest that you store everything in scent-tight bins until your ready to hunt. Or if you can, do what I do and just leave them out on your screened porch or on your clothes line. But watch out because there is something irresistible about scent-free things to animals. They just feel compelled to mark it in some way! And of course shake them out before you put them on; I say this because I haven’t been the same since a spider with a foot-wide diameter crawled out of my pants leg one day!

Next I thoroughly clean my weapon of choice with slip2000, a remarkable scent-free synthetic oil that blows away traditional gun oils. Not only does it not stink but it can actually make your gun shoot faster and better by greatly reducing friction in the barrel over standard oils.

The day of the hunt I shower with Atsko’s no odor soap and apply some scent-free deodorant just prior to walking out the door. I then quickly drive to my hunting area where I finish dressing and then dust down with Knight and Hale’s Stealth Dust. It’s a clay based powder that absorbs human odors that you apply by lightly rubbing a sock filled with it all over your clothes and in and on your boots. It works like a champ, even when my clothes are soaked with sweat from hunting in the 100 degree heat, I just keep dusting down throughout the day to keep all odors from forming.

Then after getting totally packed up and ready for my walk to my stand, I give my boot bottoms a spray with no odor to make sure that I am not transferring any truck odors to the ground in my hunting area. And while walking to my stand, I also try not to touch anything I don’t have to as well as not making any sound in case deer are bedded near by or already headed my way.

Once at my stand and having quietly climbed up, I periodically spray down with no odor and then redust myself. I also chew some of the new gumoflage gum that is on the market. It tastes like your eating a pine cone but it does kill the stench of anything that you have eaten. It also has cloraphyll in it which is supposed to help kill your body’s odor from the inside out.

This step by step fanatical approach allows me to go undetected as I slip into and out of my hunting area year round, and to take some great bucks and hogs. This program has also helped many of my friends like Will pictured above with his nice 9 point. However this is not a one time thing… You must do this each and every time you enter the woods for the program to truly work. Otherwise you just burn out your area and there are no animals left to shoot, even if you do happen to show up scent free a few times.

Try it, and I think you will find that even when that wind changes paths, your quarry won’t.

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There are so many great things about hunting here in the lowcountry, one of which is the people that you meet. And I don’t know of too many more interesting or nicer souls around here than Bill Carter.

Bill, a big-buck expert, runs Garbade’s General Store in Tarboro, right off of 321. Lots of hunters stop there and pick up their license, shells, gas and a snack as they pass by as well as get an up-to-date hunting report. They also probably get caught up looking at all of the amazing mounts that he has in the store in addition to listening to his latest hunt. However once outside, they probably find it no easier to leave because of the many stands he has available to choose from.

I love stopping at Bill’s. He is truly a treasure trove of info on how to kill big deer as well as how to manage for them. And if you ever need anything that has to do with hunting, Bill’s got it. And if you need help killing that elusive buck on your lease, he may even offer to come to your place and show you how its done! LOL

Bill is also a firm believer in getting young people in the woods, and he really loves to set an example with his son, Josh. That is the two of them in the picture with their a couple of really nice lowcountry bucks (I copied the picture, so I apologize for the quality).

The lowcountry is truly lucky to have such an outdoorsman call this place home. If you get a chance on your way up 321, stop, pick up a stand and tell Bill that Jeff sent you.

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This morning’s post is more of Gillian’s great big buck photographs along with examples of how to manage for deer like those pictured. Also included in these shots is some behavior that many hunters will NEVER see - a whitetail buck breeding a doe.

Let me just say that the most important part of growing big bucks is passing up young bucks! However once you have gotten control over your trigger finger, the next thing you need is to keep those deer on your property as much as possible so that they can grow healthy and old. To do this, you must provide the right habitat so that they have everything that they need on your land and never want to leave (or at least less often).

The two most important pieces of habitat is a good deal of thick cover for deer to bed in along with a lot of food for them to eat. However the one mistake that I often see that keeps deer from fully utilizing all of the food that the property manager has provided is not putting the food where older, wiser big bucks will feel comfortable eating. A lot of food plots that I see are planted along the edge of a big fields where it is easy to plant and easy to hunt. That is fine for killing some deer, but it will not work that well for those big boys.

For those, hunters are far better off if they spend a little extra time and effort to put those plots deep in the woods, preferably right next to the thick cover where big bucks like to hang out. Check out Gillian’s pictures of some of their food plots. Those nice green strips run down through the thick pines and clear cuts where big bucks bed. They are also long and narrow, not big and open. This allows big bucks to feed VERY close to thick cover, making them feel safer to come out to eat.

I understand that it is tough to put these types of plots in, so you must work with any areas that are conducive to it. That probably means planting fire breaks and reclaiming logging decks. You can see the pile of timber leftover from a cutting being burned in order to clear the area to be planted. Not only does the fire clear the brush piles, it also helps fix the soil with some much needed nutrients from the ash. You will still want to fertilize your new plot, however this should reduce the amount needed. Please note that it will not reduce the amount of lime that should be applied, and only a soil test will be able to accurately detail the exact amounts of each that will be required to bring the soil up to optimum condition.

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In this morning’s post are all lowcountry big buck photographs taken by Mike Cassteven’s wife, Gillian. As I have told you before, Mike ran Pleasant Hill Plantation for many years, and probably has forgotten more about managing for giant deer than most hunters will ever learn. He now works for Wise Battan, helping him manage some of the best tracts of big buck landscape anywhere in the country, and they really know how to implement a quality deer management program that is second to none.

That is Mike in the first picture with a monster velvet buck… just check out that deer’s neck; they just don’t get that fat that early in the season unless it is at least 4.5 years old or older!

And I’m not sure who the second hunter is (except that he is one of Mike’s friends), but I sure know what he is… out $500 bucks for a mount of his fantastic deer! Again, look at the giant neck on him, his old face and those long main beams. Truly a fantastic lowcountry buck.

The third picture is of a really nice buck that Gillian took off of one of Mike’s stands. Check out the great spread on him along with his sweeping main beams. Another awesome buck that most lowcountry hunters would have a hard time passing up!

And do you know what happens when your quality deer management plan starts producing a balanced age structure and bucks like these - you find monster rubs. Look at that oak that Mike is standing by… it is literally torn to shreds. And Mike said that these are all over the properties they manage; he even said that he has one rub line that goes on for over 1 mile!

You definitely won’t find that on your property if you are shooting all of your young bucks before they can put some serious age on. And you probably won’t find it on your property if you are not working closely with your neighbors since most hunters do not control enough land to get this type of result without some serious cooperation!

Mike is a board member on our Quality Deer Management Association’s Salkehatchie Branch, and he will be the first to tell you that producing big bucks is all about cooperation - Cooperation among land owners and hunters in their management plan to achieve a good buck to doe ratio within a herd that is under the carrying capacity of the land. He will also tell you that you can find lots of information about how to achieve this at the Quality Deer Managment Association’s website.

Stay Tuned! Tomorrow I will have more of Gillian’s great photographs along with the management practices required to grow unbelievable bucks like these. And later this week I will get in to the hunting techniques that best enable hunters to harvest those bucks.

Also, don’t forget to check out the previous post I did of Gillian’s big buck photos if you haven’t already… Just click on the link to go right to it. You can also click any of the other hot links to go directly to any of the other websites that I have mentioned.

Jeff

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Check out these unbelievable lowcountry big buck photos that my friend’s wife took this past season. Her name is Gillian, and she is married to Mike Casstevens; he ran Pleasant Hill Plantation for many years and helped grow some of the biggest bucks South Carolina has ever seen. Mike now works for Wise Batten, Inc and helps manage the many properties that they are responsible for. And let me tell you, they are some serious practitioners of quality deer management, and shots like these show their success in helping their clients produce great deer.

Along with the pictures, Gillian also sent along the following short story about them…

Thanks for the compliments! I have to admit that I am not really comfortable in the “outdoors” like Mike and I was a nervous wreck taking those shots. Mike left me in the middle of nowhere in the stand and made me promise not to make any noise. Within 15 minutes the deer started arriving. I actually have several porno shots of the full “rut”……the experience was awesome and I caught the deer fever through the camera, not a gun. Anyway, I have tons more I would love to share with you that I think are great.

I don’t mind you posting them on your website at all….I am most proud of them and think they are an awesome glimpse of our SC wilderness. As for where they were taken, I am sure Mike would be protective of his honey hole! Give him a call to discuss…..

Well, I don’t need to discuss it with him since I am positive that he wouldn’t want his secret spot given away. Needless to say, it is somewhere here in the lowcountry! And I am working on getting some of her other photos up… like she says, she has some shots of the full “rut”, and by that she means them actually breeding! How many of you guys have ever seen that here in the lowcountry? Well, you will as soon as I can get part II up.

Gillian proves that you don’t need a gun to enjoy the outdoors and that there is a lot more to “hunting” than just killing. Thanks again Gillian for sending those!

Jeff

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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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I caught up with Daniel and Lucas over at the Wilkinson camp in Scotia today. They were finishing up a weekend in the Lowcountry, and were having a great time over on Aunt Mary’s place. Unfortunately they said they were not seeing too many deer! But like I have said before here, that is to be expected during this transition phase.

We all agreed that the deer are not hitting the corn very hard in most spots either, but that two stands were still being hammered. (They have several big bean fields along with some good cut overs, so that is not surprising either). I had Richard’s camera on one of those two spots, and the pictures below are off of it. I will try to get my camera over to the other spot where two good bucks have already been seen in the next day or two, and hopefully we can get some good footage of them as well.

Late celebrity status and another round of congratulations also go out Derek. He did not make it this weekend, but he already has one in the bag from opening day. That is him in the picture above with his 4.5 year old 185lb 7 point. I finally got a good file of the shot today from his dad, so I definitely wanted to put him up.

As for the hunting, don’t bother. It was hotter tonight on the stand than it has been in two weeks. My cousin’s son came out to hunt with me, and he saw two does while I saw nothing. But I also let off a huge blast around 6:45 when I claimed the 30 pound devil dog as it hunted in the clearcut in front of me. And I actually flushed a covey of quail just yards from where I retrieved him - I wonder if he was working on getting one?

It is already Sept. 23, so in just three weeks we should be good to go with the big bucks. They are already starting to scrape lightly around the fields. Check back soon for more reports and pics… and don’t forget to leave a comment with YOUR hunting report if you have one!

Jeff

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This is a great picture from last season showing deer dominance. I just wanted to share it with everyone, as well as lighten the mood of my post!

I promise to get right back to what I am sure most people are here to read:Big Buck Movement Report. That would be zero. I hunted tonight for the first time in a week, and did not even see a deer, just one armadillo. I did hear some hogs back off of the field, but they never showed. Amazinly enough, for no deer in the woods, a huge amount of corn was missing off of all of the roads and there were fresh tracks everywhere.

That is the problem right now. The deer just do not have to move. There is enough food and standing cover to keep them underground. They are also starting to grow in their winter coats, so it seems hotter to them now than ever. Can’t wait: Doe season starts next week- need some meat!

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I finally got out to check the cameras on Cubbedge Hill this afternoon as well as trim a few shooting lanes. The place was soaked after a couple of days of good rain, and the grain sorghum is now almost all headed out. Of course, there was not a grain of corn left anywhere! However I will get everything loaded up tomorrow for the weekend’s hunt. And while I am corning, I will also be checking my camera on the pond road on the Blount Place, the camera right behind the clubhouse and Derek’s over in Scotia - so check back tomorrow night for new shots.

As for the cameras I checked today, C.J.’s is near the back line at 12, and Richard’s is on the new road near the Big Oak. Neither one had much on them as far as big bucks go, but they did have a few interesting pictures including a doe with tattered ears and a curly horned yearling.

I also checked Derek’s camera over on Aunt Mary’s tract in Scotia last week, and they had set it to video. I have the same camera, but generally don’t use the video capture because it only works during the day, and most big buck pictures are taken at night.

However I think I will have to try it sometime. I loved the short clips it made. I have attached two for you to watch. One is of two sows and their piglets eating corn in the back of a cotton field while the other is of three nice longbeards cleaning corn off of the logging road.

Cotton Field HogsTriple Longbeards

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So says Kenny Kearse of The South Carolina Bowhunters Association in last week’s Hampton County Guardian. Kearse is the vice president of the SCBA, and he was quoted extensively in the special hunting pullout that comes out every year on opening week.

In the article entitlted “The Real Deal.”, Kearse advocates bow hunting  while putting down gun hunters. His statement, “They get tired of killing with a gun and they want to be true hunters” pretty  much says it all. Fortunately the other bow hunters quoted in the story, while still saying bow hunters are special breed, do NOT go so far.

While I am always greatful for any positive hunting coverage, this kind of publicity does a disservice to ALL hunters. Our sport is under constant attack from those who would restrict or outlaw hunting, so every type of lawful hunter needs to stick together to preserve our great pastime.

Kearse needs to remember that anti-hunting activist would just as soon outlaw bow hunting as they would gun hunting. And that long before the SCBA, groups like the NRA  were working hard to preserve our hunting rights by reaching out to the hunters who hold the most votes to stop the loss of hunting privileges - GUN Hunters!

So hunters, regardless of your legal weapon choice, remember to not tear down other hunters when trying to promote your style of hunting!

Also, please note that I could not find a link to the story anywhere on the websites of the 3 newspapers that carried the special pullout - the Hampton County Guardian, the People Sentinel and the Citizen News - or I would have included it.

Jeff

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