If interested, please contact Mike at 843-726-1425.

And like I wrote on Friday, we are now completely moved over to our new house, which is right next door to my mom’s house. Now we just have to clean and fix up for hers so that it is ready when she arrives. But most of those projects can be done a little at the time over the next month, so I will have some time to take Bo back out to the woods this week. And don’t think that he is not excited about that!!!

Other than that, I am just trying to enjoy some down time after the move because my free time will soon be very limited. We have an onslaught of hunters that start arriving at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge around October 10th. Danny generally doesn’t book any hunters during the slow September transition period so that the stands and property sit very quiet and the big bucks don’t feel any hunting pressure. That makes for much better hunting during the rut which should start around October 10th and run through Thanksgiving. So I will be very busy (even busier than I already am!) as well as have lots of new stuff to blog about once we get cranked up in a few days.

But until then, I have several good stories coming and hopefully some good shots of great lowcountry bucks that were killed during the early part of the season; I am trying to track them down now. However this morning, I would like everyone to check out one of Michael Greene’s hunters showing how to shoot a doe at his Greenefield Hunting Lodge in Estill. If only it always went this way…

Greenefield Hunting Lodge Doe Harvest

Cubbedge Hill Plantation’s Blount Place has at least 2 of their 4 spots open. This 450 acre trophy managed tract also includes a club house to stay in along with planted food plots. $2500

Morrison Forestry in Estill has quite a few good leases open right now ranging between 100 and 1000 acres. Prices are $20 to $25 an acre. You can visit their website at www.morrisonforestry.com for more information.

Dog/still hunt club in Hampton has 3000 acres and splits the week between dog hunting and still hunting. This is for SC residents only! $500

Wise Batten, Inc also has some great leases available ranging from 50 to 5000 acres. You can visit their website at www.wisebatten.com for more information. Prices normally run $20 to $30 an acre.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or for more contact info…

Jeff

Not only has Marion lived here in the lowcountry his whole life, he is a master deer and hog hunter himself, so he really knows how to put you on game. Some hunters may know him from when he managed Bostick Plantation, while others may have read about him in Boar Hunter Magazine or seen him on ESPN when they did a special show on hog hunting with dogs.

I was fortunate enough to be invited out a few years ago for a truly exciting stand hunt for hogs, and that is my nice meat hog I harvested in the picture with me. I saw tons of pigs with a couple of real monsters. However I left those for his clients and took home a tender young one.

Marion offers hunts by the day or week on his 1650 acres, and you can find lots of information about those hunts as well as the prices for them on his website http://www.gohagansguideservice.com. This year he is also offering a handful of premium memberships. So give him a call if you are looking for a great place to hunt with everything taken care of for you. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Jeff

Many women feel left out when it comes to hunting. They stay home while their husbands and boyfriends head off to deer camp to have a fun-filled weekend with the guys, or they go too and put up with all of the macho male bonding and S**T talking.

But not at my cousin Beth Rivers’ club, the Lightsey Hunting Club for Ladies, over in Brunson. She caters exclusively to women who hunt, and women who want to learn to hunt. Beth is a true Southern Belle who really enjoys the outdoors, and she runs a very nice club where the ladies can cut loose without the menfolk.

One of Beth’s members caught these bucks on her trailcam last week, and she was nice enough to send them over. The club has been very conservative about their buck harvest for the last few years trying to undo the damage the former club had done by killing all of the young bucks. And they now have a huge crop of medium bucks with quite a few mature ones too… and the buck caught trotting away is definitely one of them, and the other two should be there in another year or so!Now I wish she would email me a copy of the bucks that they actually photographed in the fields during daylight last year – one would easily go above 140″.

Beth and her club were highlighted three years ago in our local paper, the Hampton County Guardian, by Wayne Knuckles. I have copied the article here since they do not archive their stories online. I thought that everyone would enjoy reading it…

Talk about your major career changes.In the space of two years, Beth Rivers has gone from being a make-up artist for a cosmetics company to hunt mistress of her own whitetail deer hunting club.

Along the way, she’s not only transformed her own life, she’s leading the way for other women to take up the sport of deer hunting as well. Rivers runs Lightsey Hunting Club near Brunson in Hampton County, which caters exclusively to women who want to take part in a sport that has traditionally been the domain of male hunters.

Lightsey Hunting Club is one of the few-if not the only hunting clubs in South Carolina that caters only to female hunters. “I don’t know of any other clubs that cater exclusively to women,” Rivers said. “There aren’t any others that I’m aware of.”

That may soon change, however. Through programs such as the South Carolina Department of Resources Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW) Program, more and more women are gaining exposure to outdoor activities-and finding that they love it.

According to SCDNR, the 8-year old program now has a mailing list of about 7,000 and its two annual weekends are filled weeks before the deadline.

In fact, it was a BOW class about five years ago that changed River’s life. “One day in the newspaper I saw a small article on the outdoor women’s program,” she recalled. “I went to the first class and I become totally addicted.” Rivers said she had been exposed to hunting by her brother as she was growing up, but never really had a chance to participate.

“I didn’t really know anything about hunting at all,” she said. “All I knew were they had these ladders going 20 feet in the air.” As she continued to attend classes and spend time in tree stands, Rivers began rethinking what she wanted to know with her life. “The more I was hunting, the less I was enjoying my work,” she said. “I’d be going down the road to work, but my mind was in the woods.”

Last year, Rivers was able to obtain a lease for 1000 acres of privately-owned land, complete with a bunk house for overnight stays, an she tried out her idea for a hunting club for ladies on a part-time basis. “I had met all these women who had nowhere to hunt,” Rivers said. “The first year, it was all word of mouth advertising. When I was turning down more money in a week than I could make in a month, I knew it was time for a change.”

Lightsey Hunting Club is opening its first full season with the goal of catering to “lady deer hunters (beginners-advanced) who are desirous of the sport and the art of the hunt,” according to a brochure Rivers has prepared. “Hampton County is a very popular area for deer hunting,” Rivers said. “The success rate has been really good. So far I haven’t had anybody come here and not see something. Last year, one girl killed four deer in three days.”

Lightsey Hunting Club requires no memberships fees are paid by the day. In addition to a variety of tree stands, including one huge stand overlooking a corn field that Rivers refers to as “the condominium,” transportation to and from the stands is offered, as well as grill and kitchen privileges. Harvested deer can be delivered to a nearby processor or they can be cleaned onsite for a fee.

Rivers will also offer special “bring your man” weekends during the off-peak hunting season so couples can enjoy hunting deer together. Rivers says more and more women will be hooked on hunting as they become exposed to it through programs such as BOW. “I like being out in nature,” she said. “I like sitting in a deer stand, being so still and quiet that nature comes back to the way it was before I got there, and seeing it as God sees it. I’ve let a many deer walk under my stand because I didn’t need the meat. I just enjoy being out in nature, and the friendships you make along the way.”

For more information about Lightsey Hunting Club, contact Beth Rivers at P.O. box 10, Brunson, S.C. 29911 or call (843)562-7099, (803)943-3132 or via e-mail deerrivers@yahoo.com.

Michael Greene, who runs Greenefield Hunting Club outside of Estill, sent me these trailcam pictures the other day. Michael is a local game warden, and his club hunts some of the land that is right next to the Blount Place. I have seen some nice bucks come off his place, so I knew he must have some good trailcam pics too! I really love the coyote shot since those are some of the hardest animals to capture…

Thanks Michael for sending those over!!!

Also, please check back for details on this weekend’s hunt. We have six guys here, so I should have something to report…