I have thousands and thousands of trailcam pictures. And I have caught just about everything on them including big bucks, does, fawns, coyotes, bats, birds, even trespassers and thieves. However I have never gotten a bobcat on one of my cameras until NOW. And what is even funnier is that I didn’t even know he was on there because when feeder ran out of corn,  I didn’t even bother to check it until yesterday!

Check out this big guy cruising around looking for a quick bite to eat at 3am… and what is he looking for, well probably not the nice buck that was also hanging out near this feeder, but more than likely the nice little rabbits that love cleaning up the corn scraps.

NOTE: I am still working on getting caught up from a busy weekend of work, and I should have our Range Day photos up tomorrow.

Thanks, Jeff

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Cypress Creek Hogs

It’s time to hog hunt!

Since deer season is over, greatly reducing the pressure on all of the forest’s animals, and winter has killed all of the natural foods in the woods, hunting for hogs during this time of year can be your best bet to take home some bacon! Some hunters choose to hunt them while others choose to trap them, but either way, late winter is often a great time to be in the woods in pursuit of feral swine.

I know we have been working hard over at Cypress Creek to get all of our properties ready for the guests we have booked starting next week, and the trailcam shows that  we have plenty of pigs waiting for them. Just check out the herd that showed up around 8pm the other day at just one of our stands. (sorry the time is off by two hours due to my incompetance

And due to the number of emails that I have received about hunting hogs, we are obviously not the only ones getting ready for them.  One hunter, Shane from Columbia, is looking to trap some of the hogs on his deer lease, and he sent me a great trailcam shot of a nice boar that he says is showing up every night along with about 5 others over on his Bamberg County lease… just check that mean sucker out!

Bamber County Boar

So, after putting together a bunch of info for others on hunting/trapping wild hogs, please make sure and check back because I am going to put all of it into one big post on how to best do both. However for now you can check the “hog trapping” category for quite a bit of hunting and trapping information.

And if any readers have any hog hunting trailcam pictures, kill shots, stories or all three, please email them on over to me… I would love to see them, and I am sure everyone else would to!

Jeff

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I had a few minutes yesterday to run out back of our Luray lodge and check one of the cameras… Unfortunately the battery had died a couple of days ago, but there were some nice shots of a some good bucks from the week before including the two fighting in the background of the shot with the young buck.

I am headed out today to set a couple more out, and since the deer are starting to really move good in this cool weather, we should have some

more to share in just a few days. We have also shot a couple of nice bucks in the last few days, so I will try to get them up as soon as I can.

Jeff

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I put my two trailcams out a few weeks ago at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge, and I had basically left them alone due to being so busy with moving and other work. However I finally got chance to check them the other day, and I was thinking that I would have several hundred pictures after 3 weeks. Unfortunately, both cameras had problems and only ran for a couple of days each before they each died.

So this morning, you get just a couple of cool shots and a reminder of why it is sooooo important to check your cameras every few days to make sure that they are working properly…

The first two shots are of a couple of decent bucks and some big hogs that live right behind the Luray lodge while the other one is of Danny, the owner, putting in one of our food plots. And I included that one to show you the date, Sept. 23rd, which is when most of our plots went in… Unfortunately we have had NO rain since then, therefore nothing has come up except in a few really low spots. But we are finally expecting several inches over today and tomorrow, so everything should pop right on up over the next few days. And that should be perfect since the tastiest, tenderest shoots should be coming up right as our rut starts to kick in – helping to draw those does in with the bucks behind them!

As for the rut, like I said, it should start cranking up over the next two weeks. However we, and others, are starting to see a few older bucks moving around right now. I stopped in over at the Webb Center yesterday to see how they did on their Monday pm/Tuesday am draw hunt, and they had killed quite a few does and a couple of good bucks including one 4.5 year old 8 point that went over 190 pounds! But note, that buck was shot while eating in a pea patch, not chasing.

Anyway, I have put new batteries in the cameras and have them back out keeping an eye on the woods. And I should get a chance to check them sometime this weekend, so by Monday I will have some new pics for everyone.

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In the latest addition of South Carolina Sportsman magazine, there is a great article by Jeff Burleson on how to use a trailcam to survey the deer on your property as well as how to kill the big bucks you find. And in the article, he uses me from Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge, Jonathan Phillips from Black River Plantation and Hugh McCrea from BigWoods Outfitters to showcase how to get the best results. It is a well-written article that is very informative, and not just because he uses your truly in it.

I have put a link to the magazine’s website, however since they don’t put their articles up on it, you will have to pick up an issue to actually read it. I have also included a trailcam picture of a great 6 point that I caught on camera in August of 2006 and later harvested the last week of October; the trailcam picture of him was taken just 350 yards from where I killed him! That just shows that while bucks definitely roam a lot more during the rut, they are usually still in the same general vicinity if your hunting pressure has not run them off.

I also want to thank Blessed for a truly wonderful review of lowcountryhunting over at the Outdoor Bloggers Summit. She really took a great deal of time to go through all of my posts to showcase the ones that really reflect what my site is all about.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and gets to spend some time in our beautiful outdoors. Please take your child or loved one with you if they are interested!

Jeff

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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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We got her!

The giant sow that we have been seeing all week on the trailcam was patiently waiting for Bo and I yesterday when we went to check the trap out on the Jericho tract. That is her in the picture on the last post, and she weighed in at 250 pounds. Of course that was before Bo and I took the skinning knives to her.

Bo has been having so much fun going with me to check the trap everyday, and he has been very interested in how they look, feel and SMELL when I get them out. Most importantly he has not been squimish about me shooting them. So I thought that he was ready to see how meat/food is made…

“We’re going to skin the HOG?!” he asked excitedly when we got to the skinning rack.

“Yes son, that is how we turn the hog in to meat” I replied.

“Cool!!!” he exclaimed

Then we hoisted him up, and I went to work. Bo really thought pulling her hide off was neat, but wasn’t so sure when I opened the pig up and dropped the guts out.

“That’s GROSS, dada” he said loudly as the blood poured from her neck. “You now have boogs on your hand.”

What he meant was blood, but who could blame him for thinking that; Moments earlier it had been pouring out of her nose – therefore it must be boogs.

I finished up the cleaning, and it was time to wash the carcass down. Bo enthusiastically brought me the hose and helped me spray her down so that she was ready to be hung in the cooler. We then cleaned up and hurried home for dinner.

When we got there, he ran inside to tell mama about the hog we killed, “We got a big, MEAN hog in the trap, and we made her in to meat!”

He then blurted out, “And that big, mean hog went peepee and poopoo when dada shot her. But that is what happens when you die!”.

Amy almost fell off the couch with that comment. However after I told her how the hog’s bowels completely emptied themselves out while I was getting her out of the trap, she understood. Three year olds are already fascinated with the whole bathroom process, so to see the giant hog take a 2 foot long poop along with a gallon pee really made a lasting impression… He has now told the story at least 100 times, and that only happened yesterday!

That makes 3 sows this week in the trap that will not be filling our woods with their nasty, tick-infested offspring. I am truly ready for spring and turkey season, but I hate that I have to pull the trap now that I have them really coming in… I could really do some damage to the herd if I just had a few more weeks, and how I would love to get the cool looking boar pictured above. However you can’t have any corn down during turkey season, unless you want a visit from the game wardens – and they are really strict on it.

Oh well, I did manage to get a few of the worst offenders. And I will be ready on May 2 when I can put it back out. So hog trapping will be on hold until then, but hunting those big, ugly red-headed birds should make for some interesting reading, so don’t think for one minute that you shouldn’t check back EVERYDAY. And just because we can’t actually trap them doesn’t meant that I can’t do a few more posts on hog trapping and how to best catch them. So look for those posts too.

I am now headed out to work on getting that radiator in our Corolla. We managed to get the new tires on our van, but a lack of time has thrown off my original schedule. See you tomorrow!

Jeff

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Well it has been quite the last few days… I took the weekend off to spend some extra time in the woods with the family, and it was great. While Amy and Will went to Walmart, Bo and I took my cousins 1959 Toyota Landcruiser out to the Jericho tract to check the camera and reset the trap. We also spent a good bit of time looking for “indian rocks” (we found 3 nice bird points) and following the big, monster hog tracks to see where they went. Of course they went right in to the thick cypress bay were they spend their day, and Bo thought we should go in after them…

We then came back to find that Amy had managed to get our van home from the store even though one tire had busted a steel belt. So luckily they had not gotten stranded on the side of the road, but it looks like a new set of tires will be needed ASAP… Just a few hundred dollars that we really did not want to spend on our kids anyway. LOL

Sunday, we decided that the whole family should be in on the hog trap/trailcam checking fun, so we all loaded up in to the ancient jeep for the couple of mile ride. Sure enough, we found that the trap’s corn had not been touched, but the camera’s corn had been cleaned up. That would mean just one thing – that something would be in there on Monday. So we looked around for arrowheads for an hour (found one bird point), but did not stay too long since we had already hit the Blount Place. There Amy had found a broken, but really nice spear point.

We then headed back to the house where we spent the rest of the afternoon letting the kids ride around the yard in the used Jeep that my mom bought them at a garage sale. They absolutely love cruising around the yard in it, and they don’t seem to even care that it is HOT BARBIE PINK! (That just goes to show that boys aversion to that color is learned) But I think we are going to pick up a couple of cans of spray paint for a custom camo paint job this week… Then they will think it is REALLY COOL.

Monday then rolled around, and I knew one would be in the trap, so Bo and I ran out their yesterday afternoon, and sure enough there was a 100 pound sow napping in the cage. My Rugar .45 made that nap permanent, and Bo and I loaded her up in the trunk of my toyota corolla since the landcruiser was out of gas. We then ran her back to the house for a quick cleaning.

If you are keeping track, that is two sows now out of the herd! When they eat A LOT of corn at $6 a bushel, every one taken out helps. And by killing the sows, it really means that you are taking out a bunch of potential hogs later on. So while I love trapping/killing any hog, catching the sows actually does more good than taking a boar out.

I have also included a couple of new trailcam shots in this post. Nothing too crazy, just a shot of one of the bigger sows that I am hoping to catch, some hungry birds caught mid-flight, and two coons displaying dominance/submission over who gets the corn… you just never know what will turn up on that thing!

I am now headed out to get some tires on our van, then I have to put a radiator in my Toyota. And if I have time, I will check the trap again. So you see I have a busy day ahead of me, but I should be back tomorrow with another update on our trapping program… I just have one more week before I have to pull the corn up due to the turkey season laws, so I am trying hard to get a few more before then… Who needs Pork?

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Since I needed to check the camera and trap on the Jericho tract, we loaded up the whole family and went out for a hike today as well. We managed to find several nice pieces of pottery along with one great bird point arrowhead.

As for the trap, it was sprung but there was nothing in it. Damn hogs will get their noses under the door if you give them long enough… Luckily the camera told the story of what had been there. Looks like two packs of hogs, some deer and a bunch of raccoons.

I reset the hog trap, but now I am going to have to get a coon trap too! At $6 a bushel of corn, I definitely will not be feeding these suckers for long. And check out the midday movement during the full moon – That deer is out at almost dead noon.

And I also learned something about Trophy Rock, the mineral lick. Don’t let it sit in water! It rained so much this past weekend that it puddled up in front of the camera, and the water just ate my brand new rock away. I will not do that again…

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Since I am in Florida this weekend, I thought that it would be appropriate to showcase some great trailcam pictures from here. My friend C.J. hunts west of Palm Coast and gave these to me a while back. He says that they have more bears than coyotes!!! I would hate to find that big one waiting patiently by the feeder for me to show up with a fresh refill…

They also have quite a few coyotes running around too. And I just thought that it was funny that he got a picture of one peeing in the corn pile. I also have caught them doing that, so it must be fairly common for them to mark it. This behavior is also not surprising since they love to go at high-traffic areas.

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