If you want to see one of the largest bodied bucks ever killed in the lowcountry of South Carolina, you had better head on over to the Cypress Creek Skinning Shed. I just posted pictures and the full story of the 267 pound monster that was killed at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge over on our Pleasant Hill Plantation tract last week… Truly an amazing deer!

Jeff

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The 2008 South Carolina deer season hasn’t even ended yet, but I have already had quite a few emails from hunters asking about hunting leases that will be available for the 2009 season.

I am happy to help direct them to two of the best South Carolina lowcountry deer hunting lease providers: Morrison Forestry and Wise Batten, Inc. Both are located in Estill, and they both have lots of great land available for hunters. Hunters can find more information on these two great hunting lease providers by checking their websites. Wise Batten, Inc’s site is www.wisebatten.com and his phone number is 803-625-4256. Morrison Forestry’s site is www.morrisonforestry.com, and hunters can reach Michael Greene there for more information at 803-625-2757.

Jeff

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Anybody seen these photos of a good buck bedded up next to a combine?

I also wanted to update everyone on that Chester County buck that I put up last week. He is definitely real, however the hunter has asked to remain anonymous. While I like to share my deer stories, I understand that many land owners worry about advertising that they have giants…

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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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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This morning I am sharing a picture with you that I took about 10 years ago of me with two deer I killed during a late-season hunt here in the lowcountry. You may have trouble telling that there is two deer in the back of my old Jeep, but I assure you that there are. The one you can see pretty well was a 1.5 year old forkhorn with one side broken off; the other deer is on top of him, and that was a young button buck. I found the rack on the bumper while scouting.

The goal of this old picture, which I found while moving, is not to prove what a great hunter I was, but to show how proud I was of my kills. Sure they are not the big bucks that I normally write about here, and that is the point. Back then, I only had a small spot to hunt and I didn’t get to go that much, so when I lucked up and killed two deer in one morning, I was thrilled!

I had hunted hard for those deer, and I always try to remember that so that I do not criticize any one else for shooting a young buck. Yes, I love quality deer management, and I definitely subscribe to it. However not everyone does, and not everyone should have to.  While I think that antler rules and harvest rates are needed to help produce a well-balanced and healthy herd, we also need to make sure hunting is fun so that we not only recruit more hunters, but we keep the ones we have. If and when hunting comes down to be nothing more than who can kill the biggest deer, all hunters will lose. So will our sport! Enjoy hunting for what it is and is supposed to be: a way to reconnect with our hunter/gatherer past, a way to put naturally produced, healthy meat on the table and a way to enjoy the outdoors that no other pasttime can provide.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Now get outside and go hunting!

Jeff

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In my 30 years of pursuing whitetail deer (hardcore for the last 10), my most consistently successful hunting technique is just that – being consistent.

Sure you may luck up and kill a decent buck the first time you rattle, lay a scent trail or sit a stand, but a more likely scenario will consist of you laying lots of scent trails, rattling many days and sitting so long you feel like a tree to even see a spike, much less kill a big buck. It’s just a fact that not even the best hunting technique is going to work every time. So instead of counting on any one quick fix, I rely on consistency. That means I hunt as much as possible during the BEST times and use many appropriate techniques until I get the deer I’m after.

However being a consistent hunter is not easy; that’s why hunters spend millions every year on the latest scents, decoys, etc. Granted, they all work, but only when used properly. I’m not going to bank my big buck on a $10 bottle of scent when by following good hunting fundamentals like always hunting well-scouted stands and not sky lining myself in that stand, I can greatly increase my chance of success for free.

And of course no great hunting tactic is going to work if that big buck smells me before he gets to my stand, or worse, I’m not even in there when he shows up because I was too cold to stay. So I have become a fanatic about controlling the factors I bring to the hunt like body odor, marksmanship and gear.

I hunt year round, with a camera if not a gun. You simply cannot sit where there are no deer and expect any great hunting technique to get you a big buck. You must first find deer (or at least sign that they are there), which means looking over aerial photos and topo maps as well as lots of scouting before and after the season starts. Then I consistently take into account which part of the season it is before I try any technique; rattling while bucks are in velvet probably will not do any more good than laying a scent trail of non-estrus doe pee during the rut.

I also constantly update my hunting plans, consistently taking into account the changing weather, food availability and of course, hunting pressure. I also shoot year round to stay sharp, and mentally prepare to see a big buck that fall, because buck fever will cloud your mind like no drug ever invented. And when I get into my stand, I visualize that buck coming out and practice taking the shot; I also go over different scenarios of how he could come out and how I would react to them.

By being a consistent hunter, I not only hunt longer because I’m prepared, but harder because I’m confident that the deer of my dreams could walk out at any moment. So remember, the only hunting technique that will consistently work is being consistent.

Jeff

PS Now is the time to get ready… the rut is just around the corner. As a matter of fact, we have a good cool front coming in tomorrow, so you may see some early pre-rut action over the next week. And feel free to leave any comments about what you are seeing, or if you have shot something, email me a picture.

Also, all of those racks hanging on our shed wall are the ones that Amy will not let into our new house. She said that we had a “few” too many, so some are now relegated to the workshop. Luckily I got to take my best ones inside!

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Like I talked about yesterday in my post on our QDMA REACH Banquet, we had a very nice time in Virginia while up shooting a cousin’s wedding. We also got to see lots of deer in the many parks right around our hotal in Yorktown including one monster that easily went over 140 inches in the Colonial National Historic Park.

Unfortunately, while there are many special draw hunts for the local parks, they do not allow any hunting in the national historical parks. And when I called the park to ask about how they manage their herd, I did not get much helpful information from them. As a matter of fact, the park rep that I spoke to was obviously horrified that I was even considering shooting one of the park pets.

And I know I said that I wouldn’t reveal the location, but I was just having some fun and Matt over at Bright Ideas out of Virginia seemed to be on to me anyway. Of course living and hunting in Virginia, he has all of the secrets about hunting the park lands and even posted about some of the drawings for special hunts the other day. If you are interested in some great Virginia hunting info and great writing, I would check his site out.

During our trip, I was also very impressed by some of the other deer that we saw at the local BassPro Shop that had come out of Virginia. They were having their yearly “hunting special” weekend, and we had time to kill, so we spent a few hours wandering around looking at all of the great stuff, beautiful mounts and booths that were manned by local groups such as the NWTF and Hunters for the Hungry. We even bought some raffle tickets for a gun drawing to support the NWTF in addition to a drawing for a hunt at the Southwark Hunt Club. They had some great pictures of bucks that they had taken on their club so I am hoping for a call to let Amy and I know that we have won their 5 day hunt.

While there, we also got a chance to speak with Bub Jackson from the Outdoor Channel who was doing a deer hunting seminar as part of BassPro’s special weekend, and he had quite a few monster Virginia bucks with him on display. Interestingly enough, he also had a beautiful buck in velvet in his collection that he had killed right here in the lowcountry at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge. He obviously knows where to hunt for great bucks!

Stay tuned. Opening Day is Friday, and I will have exclusive coverage of some amazing hunts at one of the premier hunting lodges in the Southeast.

Jeff

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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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