Kip Adams, QDMA’s Director of Education and Outreach for the Northern Region, just released a new article that he has written reflecting on how quality deer management has drastically changed the face of deer hunting over the last 10 years.

In “Deer Harvest Trends”, Adams highlights the amazing improvements in buck age structures across the country as well the ratio of does to bucks in the harvest from 1999 to 2005. For instance,

• the percentage of yearlings in the buck harvest declined from an average of 51% in 1999 to 45% in 2005

• the percentage of 2.5-year-olds increased from 28 to 32% and 3.5-year-olds or older increased from 19 to 23%

• In 2005, about 2/3 (65%) of the states shot as many or more antlerless deer than bucks

• the percentage of yearlings in the buck harvest declined from an average of 51% in 1999 to 45% in 2005

Please click below to read the entire article! You will be amazed at how QDM has positively impacted our hunting. And please note that I have included the entire article instead of linking to it since it has not been released on the QDMA website yet. Read the rest of this entry »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

What happens when you are taking care of life’s business and not hunting enough? Birds invade your hunting gear and claim it as their own!

I have written about many of the changes I am currently making in my life, and unfortunately implementing them takes a lot of time and energy. I also still have a wife and two boys, and they are a priority. So actually hunting has taken a backseat to writing about hunting.

However a pair of Carolina Wrens has decided that if I wasn’t using my gear, they would. I have posted about how I leave all of my hunting stuff on our screened in porch so that it always stays scent free. Well, after accessing a hole in the screen, the birds decided that they hated to see all of my good stuff not be used, so they took it over as a nest.

I caught them a few times about a month ago putting twigs in my backpack, so I made sure and took it out before they got finished. I thought that would do it. Well, it didn’t. It seems that while I wasn’t paying attention, they managed to sneak back in and completely build a nest, then lay eggs in their new home. And since I didn’t want to break up the happy family, I decided I would just leave them alone until they were finished raising their new family. And sure enough, when we came back from Florida this past weekend, there were the baby wrens waiting on supper to be served.

In the pictures, you can see my Scent Lok backpack hanging on a hook on the porch, then you can see the eggs laying in it, then mama bird sitting on the eggs and finally the baby birds sleeping…Hope they enjoy my Olympus binoculars in there!

As for our trip, we had a very nice time in Florida doing absolutely nothing for a few days. We took dive gear with us, but we basically ended up just hanging out, going out to eat a few times and letting the grandparents enjoy the boys. And while it is always nice to get away, it is even better to be home. I am ready to get back to work on all of my plans… Thanks to everyone for their support, and for reading this site!

Jeff

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I guess I should have mentioned that we’re in Florida this week… My regularly scheduled posts will return on Monday.

Thanks, Jeff

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This was a shot I took about 12 years ago during the 4th of July fireworks in Sanford, FL.

Enjoy your holiday and please be safe!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

To view today’s article about “What Does Your Hunting Journal Tell You”, please visit Simply Outdoors where I have a guest post up. Arthur is on a great vacation and somebody had to stay home and work!

Jeff

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that stopped by last week to wish my mom/hunting mentor a happy retirement. I am also glad that so many people enjoyed reading one of our classic family stories!

And thanks to all of her coworkers, the party was a huge success as well. I truly enjoyed getting to meet everyone that she works with and talks about, and I can’t thank them for giving my mom such a wonderful sendoff.

It was held at Whitey’s fish camp in Orange Park, so there was a ton of great seafood. It was fried, but my mom was roasted. She has worked with her company/state-funded agency for 18 years, so her friends and coworkers really know her. And boy did they let her have it about everything from being tight with the budget (her job) to accidentally showing up on a Saturday (Friday to her) and being upset that no one else had come to work!

They also sent her off with some very nice gifts in appreciation for all of her years of hard work. The gifts included a HUGE basket of books and books on tape (she loves to listen while on the road), a rocking chair to sit with her grandboys and a giant flat-screen TV (so the boys can watch big buck videos in style when she babysits).

Of course, since my mom loves to tell stories about me, they were also not surprised that I was late for the party. However for once it wasn’t my fault. We had to sit on I95 for over an hour watching firefighters use the jaws of life to cut some accident victims out of their truck and then load them in to the lifeflight helicopter. But while that did put us behind, all of the action did keep the kid’s from getting restless during our wait and give them something to talk about. (fortunately the news said that everyone survived)

And Matt did hit the nail on the head when he commented that he hoped that my mom didn’t read my blog since it said that we were going down to surprise her. She, just like my wife, hardly ever reads it since she has to hear about all of my adventures anyway, so I didn’t think anything about putting that info up. However she “accidentally” clicked on my blog that morning, so she did know we were coming… but she says that it didn’t take anything away from us making the trip down.

As for us, we made it back home and are all now recovering from getting sick. The kids picked up something last week from daycare, and it has made its way through everyone including me. I did nothing all weekend but rest, and unfortunately I am still trying to shake it. I believe I will survive, but I hate being sick.

Please check back again tomorrow for some more important updates on us that I have.

Jeff

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Quality Deer Management Association
2008 QDMA Salkehatchie Branch REACH Banquet
The County Line Restaurant
Hwy 601 @ the Hampton-Colleton County Line
August 9th at 6pm

We are looking forward to a great night of fun with fellow hunters and land managers. Activities at the banquet will include:
general raffle 2 live auction
silent auction 3 card raffles
games (minnow race, guess the deer rack score, guess the corn kernels, etc)
All attendees will also be entered in to a general raffle as well as receive a dinner of ribeye steak, potato, salad, roll, dessert and a cold drink.
Beer and liquor drinks will be available for purchase.

Single Ticket: ($50) Couples Ticket: ($75)
¨ one membership and meal ¨ 2 total tickets (1 membership and two meals)
Branch Donor: ($250)
¨4 total tickets (2 w/memberships, 4 meals)
¨Donor Gift- 1 copy of the Quality Food Plots book ($35 value)
¨1 entry into a separate “Donor Raffle” at the banquet
¨¼ page Black & White ad in the program (if desired). Also, all branch donors will have their name listed in the program for recognition
Corporate Table: ($500)
¨8 total tickets (3 w/ memberships, 8 meals)
¨Reserved seating for corporate tables
¨Corporate Gift- 1 copy of the Quality Food Plots book ($35 value)
¨3 entries into a separate “Donor Raffle” at the banquet
¨½ page Black & White ad in the program (if desired). Also, all corporate donors will have their name listed in the program for recognition.

All “tickets w/ membership” will receive:
¨ A 1-year membership in the QDMA ($30 value) which includes:
A subscription to Quality Whitetails (six issues per year)
Opportunities to participate in QDMA Branch and attend deer management seminars
A Basic Guide to Quality Deer Management booklet and Developing Successful QDM Cooperatives booklet along with a vehicle decal

Our QDMA Salkehatchie Branch is also looking for donations to auction off at the banquet. If you are interested in providing a product or service, please contact Jeff Hunt at 803-842-1155. All donations are full tax deductible!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The SCDNR and QDMA Salkehatchie Branch’s quality deer management workshop held this past Saturday at the Webb Wildlife Center here in Garnett was a complete success! We had about 45 attendees including 24 registered guests and 10 branch board members as well as quite a few employees from the South Carolina DNR, law enforcement and forestry commission.

Our three main speakers were Dr. Guynn, professor of Wildlife and Forestry from Clemson University, Charles Ruth, SCDNR deer project supervisor, and Marion Barnes, our county’s Clemson extension agent. The workshop started at 10am and ran to 5pm, and in that time we listened to each speaker address their area of expertise, ate lunch and toured several food plots on Webb. Dr. Guynn spoke about the four pillars of quality deer management, Charles Ruth covered trends in South Carolina hunting such as baiting and the use of tracking dogs and Marion Barnes addressed food plot and orchard planting. Webb biologist Jay Cantrell also covered how to keep deer out of your food plot while they are being established (a real problem here in the South) as well as helped Webb technician Ted Rainwater show how to plant food plots with various farming tools running the gamut from an ATV with a spreader to a tractor with a grain drill.

Everyone came away from the day with lots of new knowledge and a renewed excitement about quality deer management. We even handed out a anonymous survey at the end of the day to assess how well the day went along with the quality of our speakers… and much to our pleasant surprise, we had almost unanimous agreement that it was well worth a whole Saturday!

It is through efforts like this that will allow hunting to flourish as our true great American past time in the 21st Century. I truly want to thank everyone that attended, helped with the preparations and spoke at the workshop!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We took the day off yesterday to have a little fun fishing with the boys at the Webb Center here in Garnett. It’s just too bad that you can’t eat fun, because we sure didn’t catch any fish!

However that wasn’t really the point. The objective of the day was to get outside, hike around the woods and enjoy the beautiful lowcountry. And what self-respecting fish would come to Bo’s pole when he is stomping on the dock, throwing sticks in the water by his bobber and yelling with excitement every time a ripple moved it like a biting fish would? But the boys had a great time running back and forth on the dock while pointing out all of the birds flying around. Bo also wanted to take a few pictures with my “special” camera, and that is his image of Bluff Lake below.

When they finally ran out of energy, we loaded up the van and cruised some of Webb’s back roads checking out all of it’s beauty. The neat looking old oak stump with the amazing flowers growing out of it was just one of the many of the sights you can encounter on the 26,000 acres that makes up Webb, Palachucola and Hamilton Ridge.

We then headed home to spend the rest of the day in the yard picking up sticks and burning them in our fire pit - truly a redneck’s favorite past time!

We are having our QDMA’s deer management workshop tomorrow at Webb, so I will have a full recap of the educational event on Monday. I will also get back to work on some of the other promised posts by then as well. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Jeff

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

All hunting does not have to be done on land. You can also hunt for lobster, fish, pictures and a good time underwater as well.

These pictures were taken last summer when my wife and I were in Fort Lauderdale snorkeling off of the beach. We used one of the disposable cameras, and it did a pretty good job. It has been sitting in my car since then, and while I was in town the other day, I finally got it developed. So I thought that I would share a few of the shots here.

The neat thing about diving in Fort Lauderdale is that you do not need a boat or air tanks. You can literally just swim a couple of hundred yards off of the beach to one of the reefs and see some amazing things. And while having an air tank would allow you to stay under longer, since it is only 10-20 feet deep, you don’t really need one. Plus it is a great workout!

The reef runs parallel to the beach, so once you get out to the reef, you can just swim along with the current until you are ready to get out. Then you swim back to the beach and walk back to you car. It truly is one of the easiest and neatest dives I can recommend. And depending on the experience of the diver and their physical fitness level, there is a reef for you.

There are generally 3 reef lines that you can reach from the beach. The first one is only about 75 yards offshore. This is the easiest and the closest, so it is perfect for beginners. The average depth is normally about 8 feet, so you don’t have to work very hard to get down, and since it is so shallow, you don’t even have to… you can swim along and see pretty good. This is perfect for beginning divers!

The second reef is about 200 yards offshore and tends to be a much better dive. However since it is a longer swim with an average depth of 15 feet, it tends to be a little tougher for those not comfortable in the water. You can still see lots of stuff right from the surface, so being able to dive down is not mandatory, but it helps when you want to get a closer look at some of the coral or what’s under it (notice the lobster hiding). Expect to see lots of sea fans, tropical fish, sea turtles, tarpon and nurse sharks.

Then you come to the holy grail of beach diving, the third reef. Unless you have a boat, this one is not recommended for inexperienced beach divers due to the difficulty and the distance. It is about 700 yards offshore and averages 20-25 feet deep, so it is definitely not for the weak at heart since you must first swim all of the way out there. Then once there, to really enjoy it, you must be able to dive down to truly see the wall of corals and the abundance of sea life that live in and around them. But if it is clear (and it normally is), you can still see from the top, so it is not a wasted trip even if you can’t get down. Here you can expect to see an even greater abundance of tropical fish, lobster and grouper as well a more diverse landscape of corals.

The best way to do this dive is to tie a raft to your dive flag so that you have something to hang on to while you rest. Like I said, it is a pretty good swim (usually against the current) to get that far off the beach, so if you have a cramp or something, a raft really comes in handy. And since the life guards can’t see you if you have a problem, you are on your own.

Diving in Ft. Lauderdale is truly one of my favorite underwater excursions due to the cost - nothing. You don’t need any special gear, just a mask, snorkel and fins. Most people already have those, and you can rent them from a local dive shop if you don’t. And if you live anywhere in Florida, you can do this dive on a day trip, so no lodging is needed. However if you have just a few bucks, you can get a basic room right on the beach strip for around $75 and walk to the beach to dive. And by staying, you can then go a little more hardcore by doing a night dive! There is truly nothing like swimming offshore hundreds of yards in to the black night to see the reefs come alive after dark…

I may have to do another post on this!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!