If you get a chance, drop by Mike Hanback’s Big Deer blog and thank him for featuring the South Carolina lowcountry. He was nice enough to showcase the Webb/Cubbedge Hill Monster that Cody Whittle took in October as well the huge 6 point I killed in November.

And I know I have posted the trailcam shots of our two deer before, but I wanted to make sure that any of his readers that are stopping by for the first time see them. I also wanted to include the trailcam shot of Cody’s deer from when he was 3.5 years old to show everyone what a difference 2 years makes!

In addition, I wanted his readers to be able to see the other buck I was talking about in Mike’s post. That is Daniel and his son Derek posing with his great 130 inch buck that he killed in December. And that is his deer in the trailcam shot next to them from October.

You can find tons more big buck photos under my trailcam category, so please feel free to look around. Thanks to all of Mike’s readers for stopping by my site, and a huge Thank You to Mike himself for featuring big bucks from our neck of the woods!

Please note that while I will not be managing Cubbedge Hill Plantation any longer, I still plan on promoting them and their great deer. And as everyone should know by now, I truly love promoting the hunting in the Lowcountry, period!

Jeff

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Would you look at that… The Hunter’s Wife has awarded me the BIG E, the excellence award.

I have to truly thank her for recognizing me and this blog because I just absolutely love writing about the great hunting we have here in SC as well as sharing all of my stories and photos. I also just love that so many people enjoy reading it, and I promise to keep up the good work starting with a post of some great trailcam pics later today, so please check back.

(I am in Florida this weekend, so working from my friend’s computer is making things tougher and taking longer. I have already had to download Firefox because I was unable to write a post from his Explorer… and even with that fix, I now can’t get the hot link buttons to work!)

I also have to pass the Excellent Award on, which is tough when I read so many great blogs. Every one of the sites listed in my blogroll, posted over to the side, should get it. They are all so deserving, and of course some have already received it. However I think the Hog Blog really stands out for recognition.

Phillip always has such great content! And just as importantly, he consistently provides a perfect example to other bloggers on how to to deal with the inevitable controversies that come up. I know I learn something every time I visit his great site, so please check him out and congratulate him on his EXCELLENT blog!

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Arthur at Simply Outdoors has a great post up asking readers what their favorite TV shows are as well as detailing his own viewing habits. Amazingly enough, he says that he loves the Outdoor Channel - imagine that, a hunter who loves the channel set up just for us!

It is also one of my favorites, and I stay glued to it whenever we are visiting Will down in Florida since we do NOT have cable! I know many of you are wondering exactly how you live without it, but I assure you it can be done (hunting videos!). As a matter of fact, Amy and I went many years without any TV at all, and we are now talking about going back to that!

But back to our topic - The Outdoor Channel. I like many of the hunting shows on there, but I agree with Arthur that I tend to watch the ones that showcase more “real” hunting. My pet peeve is all of the recreated shooting and recovery scenes, and I tend to flip away from them if they over do it.

One of the best shows on the channel is Quality Whitetail TV, QDMA’s very own program showcasing good deer management as well as great hunting footage. It is on every Wednesday at 10am, Thursday at 8:30pm and Friday at 3:30pm - so you have several opportunities to catch it. This week it will feature noted deer expert and photographer Charlie Alshiemer following the amazing life cycle of a trophy buck as he goes from yearling to old timer.

And like the press release says on The Outdoor Wire, “The show also features many noted deer management experts such as host Neil Dougherty, wildlife habitat consultant from New York, and co-hosts Dr. Karl Miller, professor of Wildlife Management at the University of Georgia, and Brian Murphy, Joe Hamilton and Kip Adams, all noted wildlife biologists with the QDMA. Each episode is dedicated to helping viewers achieve better deer and better deer hunting. For complete air times, visit the Outdoor Channel or QDMA.

Also, please note that QDMA founder and co-host Joe Hamilton will be speaking tonight at our QDMA Salkehatchie Branch’s monthly meeting… We are truly looking forward to his very special visit, and I will have a full report on it tomorrow!

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Am I the only one in the hunting community that has not seen and commented on the Tiger Ridge Locked bucks video. I was pretty busy during the holidays, so I admit to being a little behind. My friend sent it to me a few weeks ago, but I just now opened it… Wow!

If you have seen it, you know what I am talking about. And when I googled it in search of more information on the clip, I found that there has already been quite a discussion about it over at Field and Stream’s blog Whitetail365. I couldn’t help but to read ALL of the comments, and I think the they are as interesting as the video itself.

What do you guys think about the footage? And just as importantly, what do you think of the definite division in our ranks on this?

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You guys know how I love free stuff, or at least trying to win free stuff. I am always over at the Hunter’s Wife looking for her next contest. And now Bill over at Muskoka Outdoors has just announced that he has four copies of Kerplunk, one of Patrick McManus’ great books, to give away. I have always loved reading that guys stuff in Outdoor Life, so I was up for any challenge he would demand for entry into this contest.

Turns out it wasn’t hard at all. All you have to do is write down one of your most memorable hunts. Bill then says that he is then going to assign numbers to the entries and randomly pick the winners on January 19th. I have already completed my entry, so I thought I would share it with everyone below. I also think that I am going to send Jimmy Carter over to supervise the election, I mean drawing, to make sure it is all above board. If he can help the North Koreans, the former peanut president should definitely be able to get me a damn book.

One of my most cherished memories afield was when I killed my first Eastern wild turkey eight Springs ago. I had been trying for several years, but without any luck. Finally my wife and I came up to SC for a weekend of camping and hunting, and it all came together.
We slept in due to rain, then headed out about 9am. We had to wade water every where we went but finally made it to our pre-scouted spot to set up about 9:30. We had been calling off and on for about an hour when a bird finally answered from the neighboring property. He was pretty far off, so we just kept up our light calling for about another half hour. Then, like a ghost, the giant bird just appeared about 75 yards off to my right. This would have been an easy shot for my wife (we were sitting about 50 yards apart), but since she does not carry a gun or like to kill things, he went right on by her. I let him continue circling around until I was pretty sure he was right out in front of us. But with a row of brush in my way, I just couldn’t be sure. So I lightly let out a yelp with my mouth call - the big bird hammered back from just 30 yards away.
However even with him so close, I definitely could not get a shot from my spot, so I Rambo crawled across a muddy firebreak and eased up behind a big pine. There he was, and looking straight at me! I quickly drew a bead on him and let him have it… I couldn’t believe it when he went right down.
But then he was back up and flopping all around. I was so scared that he was going to run off that I looked like Carl Lewis hurdling bushes and sprinting over to get him. Once there, I put my best wrestling move on him and held him down until he stopped moving - I knew we would want to mount him, so I did not want his feathers messed up!
My wife came racing over and gave me the biggest, best hug ever, and we just stood there in complete amazement over what a spectacular hunt we had just had. The 2 year old gobbler weighed 16 pounds, had a 9.5 inch beard and 7/8 inch spurs. That bird now stands in our living room and struts for all of our guests. It was truly a moment that I will NEVER forget!

Thanks Bill for spurring me on to write this memory down…

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I just received an email from Mike Hanback, amazing outdoor writer and big buck hunter extraordinaire. He has started a new blog, Mike Hanback, and he has informed me that some of the giant Lowcountry bucks that we have killed will be featured in an upcoming post on it!

Like many readers of his former blog, The Big Buck Zone, I wondered why he had not posted lately. However I just chalked it up to his busy hunting schedule along with holiday commitments. But then I read over on Hunt Smart, Think Safety that he had started a new one.

I immediately checked it out, and of course it is as good as the Zone. And knowing what a great writer/hunter he is, I have no doubt that it will be even better! He just has so many contacts in the big buck hunter’s circle that he is usually first in posting about any new giants killed. He also has so many readers that he gets lots of emails letting him, and us, know about other cool hunts and kills.

Please check out Mike’s new site and support him as he begins this new project! Also, please make sure and thank him when he shows his many readers the potential our Lowcountry has for producing monsters.

Jeff

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Arthur over at SimplyOutdoors has tagged me. That means that I must do a post about myself, and not about hunting. The idea is for everyone to learn a little more about the bloggers that they read, and of course most of us do have lives outside of the woods.

However I can’t say that about Rex over at the DeerCampBlog since I believe he has left the hold of society in search of Thunderhoof, or at least a monster buck! He did manage to send out a Christmas card before he left though, and you must check it out!

I am headed to Florida for two days to work, so I will try and get this done once I get back. I am looking forward to it… Please note that I also have a pre-written post going up on Friday, so don’t forget to check it out as well.

Jeff

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I thought that some of you may be interested in the giveaway the Hunter’s Wife has coming up. She gave away a cool, deluxe gun cleaning kit in a wood case yesterday for the one who guessed closest to the BTR (Buckmasters Trophy Records) score of one of her husband’s monsters. And she says there is another contest post coming soon to her unique site, which is definitely worth checking out even without the possibility of a prize.

I’ve got a pile of guns in need of attention, and they were sure hoping that I could come up with the right answers. However it was tough… The picture of the deer was shot from below, and of course no snapshot ever does a big buck justice. I was thinking it must be a bow kill, therefore probably around the 115 minimum , and you have to remember BTR does not include the inside spread.

Luckily I looked around her site and found the shot of her husband with his giant. Wow, with him in the shot for perspective, my score jumped up to around the firearm minimum of 140. I just could not decide on an inch here and there, so I was torn between guessing 141 and 145. I went with 141, and the deer turned out to go exactly 145 7/8, which would have done it for me if I had gone the other way. Instead, this fanatical shed hunter named Robert Cline won with 144 7/8. This guy has so many shed’s to practice scoring on that he makes a Christmas tree out of them every year. You got to check out the pictures of it over at the Shed Antler.

Due to this devastating loss, I am now fanatically rough scoring all racks in every picture I can find. I normally do this anyway, but I am determined to win myself whatever is up for grabs in her next contest… I don’t know what it is, but I need it!

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First I wanted to thank Bryan over at DeerPHD.com for sending me one of his new stickers. I think that he has a grea idea, and I am looking to have some printed now as well. I also loved that he made it big enough that you can read it! And that is me and my 2.5 year old son, Bo Hunt, with a giant shed I found during turkey season behind my 87 Jeep Cherokee. Our 1 year old baby, Will Hunt, was napping and unable to make the photo shoot and bumper sticker sticking!

Second, I wanted to try and give credit for my post “Another Gun Control Nut” a few weeks ago. I know that it is very important to attribute your sources, and I certainly did not mean to steal others Bloggers topics without giving them their due for being vigilant in defending our Second Amendment Rights. In my post, I said that I could not remember which blog I found the story on, and that is true.

However it has now come to my attention that at least several bloggers had covered it (and much better than I did), including Kristine over at Hunt Smart, Think Safety and Cliff at Hunting Sense. And while I am pretty sure that I did not get my source from them, it is great to see so many bloggers paying attention to those that would give up so many rights just to take away one.

So with that, I would like to explain why I did not have a credited source for my post even though it is so important - I saved the actual newspaper article in my favorites, but neglected to mark the blog. That was on or near April 30th of this year, and I was still in the infancy stages of my blogging research. Up until that time, I had pretty much never read any blogs because I did not even know there were that many out there, and I did not really look for them. To tell you the truth, I did not search (I hate the term surf) the internet that much until recently. We live so far in the country that we do not even have cable, so we definitely do not have high-speed internet, and that makes it tough to do a lot of looking around. I normally just went online long enough to check my email, the news and a few hunting sites. I also would update our plantation’s website blog, but that was it.

I did not even know that there were blogging services out there. I was just using one of our web pages to keep a running journal of our hunts, etc, and having to move everything around when I updated it! That is how far I was out of the loop… However when I went online to the blogging services, I also looked up “hunting blogs” and checked out a few. That is when I found the article on gun control. I thought it was a) so great that someone was writing about this stuff and b) that I wanted to do it too.

So I saved the gun control article but not the blog I found it on (I know better now). I figured I would just tell my friends and members about it, so when I managed to get my first real blog up and running, I put it up for them. That is who I was writing it for, since I don’t believe I had that many readers other than them at them time. Hopefully that has changed now that I am on Skinny Moose, but that was definitely the case up until then.

So I just wanted to clarify that and send a shout out to all of the bloggers that covered that story in a more timely fashion. I also wanted to let everyone know that I will be very careful in the future to attribute any post that I get ideas from. However please keep in mind that I am very new to this, and I may make some mistakes that more knowledgeable bloggers would not. But I promise to always make corrections and send apologies.

Jeff

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John over at Western Wanderer has a great post about his Labor Day hunt with his daughters in which he killed a nice forkhorn. They used drivers and DOGS to get the deer up and moving out of their brushy canyon beds - just like many hunters do in the South when hunting inpenentrable swamps.

I had never heard of hunting with dogs out West, but this did seem like the perfect use for them out there. Our members who dog hunt down in Florida really need to check this post out, and everyone else for that matter!

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