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Thanks,
Jeff

I have been visiting lots of other hunting blogs lately trying to get an idea of what all is out there as well as gathering ideas for my own. There are many great ones out there, and I have been very impressed by the amount of information they all contain. So for my readers, I am going to highlight several of them every week!

www.deerPHD.com is a great blog by Bryan Karazsia that concentrates on the mind/body relationship to hunt sucessfully. Right now he is doing a series on Tackling Buck Fever. He also covers his big buck hunting in the great state of Ohio.

From the Stand www.skinnymoose.com/fromthestand.com is run by an outdoor videographer who films for Bass Pro and Advantage Adventures with Tom Miranda. He was at Black River Plantation www.blackriverplantationsc.com  in SC for opening week of deer season filming Bass Pro’s Next Generation TV Show. His young hunter managed to tag a nice hog. Check out his story here  http://skinnymoose.com/fromthestand/2007/08/17/south-carolina-hog/

The last few days, the deer actually moved a bit. Shane saw several nice bucks heading in to the corn at the big oak and killed a nice 162 pound 8 point Saturday afternoon. However C.J. shot first, taking out a young turkey killer going for a drink in the sink holes between the Clover field and CH6 (Apple Oarchard). He also saw plenty of deer, including a 2 year old buck. Those guys always come to HUNT!

It rained all afternoon here today, so I slipped out this afternoon for a sit at the back of the pasture on Cubbedge Hill after it stopped. It was very dark and dreary out, with a little breeze, so I thought that it would be perfect.

It was, except for the lightning! It cracked, then rumbled far off, as it moved in with black, ominous clouds leading the way on an already gray, afternoon sky. Then it started hitting closer and closer. I swore I was getting down several times, only to find deer in the field when I finally did decide to! What to do now?

Of course, hang tight in the metal tower standing prominantly on the edge of the field! So, while I counted the seconds between the crack and the thunder (27 seconds, which is close to 30. The safe zone, I think?) the deer poured out in to the field. Unfortunately it was nothing but does and fawns. But they truly put on a show while enjoying the cool, rainy afternoon.  The yearlings and the fawns took turns running from one end of the pasture to the middle in one big circle, but with tight turns like in horse barrel racing. while the others bucked and messed about.

While this was going on, more does and fawns came out behind the stand and fed around on the corn. However the lightnings periods were getting shorter and getting more intense. The rain also really picked up along with the wind, and it caused all of the deer to get uneasy. The ones behind me just kind of melted back in to the pines while the group in the field trotted back towards Webb. I then gave it a few more minutes before finally getting totally spooked by the now, super close strikes, and got down.

I know that the Toledo Blade (Ohio) is not one of our Lowcountry newspapers, but I still thought that a post about them was warrented since it effects all gun owners. The Blade’s Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat and member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, wrote the most anti-American editorial I have ever seen about how to disarm our law-abiding citizens.

Unfortunately I can not remember which blog I found the original story on, but they had it when the story was first printed on April 27th. I include the link for you guys to decide for yourself if Dan’s America is where you want to live… If NOT, email the Blade, your Senators and Congressmen, etc and let them know that law-abiding citizens should NEVER have to give up our rights while the criminals go unpunished.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007704250310

 In case you don’t have time to read the whole article, here are a few of Dan’s best quotes:

“The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building.”

“I don’t have any problem with hunting, although blowing away animals with high-powered weapons seems a pointless, no-contest affair to me”

There are a lot more of these stupid ideas and comments in his article, so please read it when you have a chance. Because unfortunately, Mr. Simpson is not the only one in America that has these ideas.

Jeff

C.J. and Shane came up yesterday, and we hunted Cubbedge Hill last night… just a few does and fawns unfortunately, and a couple of unidentified ones. The deer just have not been moving very good, but they said the deer were definately out last night by the number of fresh tracts this morning. C.J. sat at BP7 and saw a few in the clearcut behind the stand while Shane sat on CH 20, the new road, and saw a three does and one small buck.

It rained pretty good yesterday at CH, so the grain sorghum should really start to head out now. And it rained 1.5 inches at the Blount Place the night before, so that helped out over there. The weather man is now saying that we should be in the low 90’s for the week, down from the 100’s, so maybe the deer movement will pick up…

C.J.’s camera was out this week at CH5, the clover field, and had a few bucks on it. Unfortunately it shut itself off at some point, so it did not get as many new shots as it should have. However it did have a few good ones on it. One of which you can see is a good 8 point! There was also a few upcoming bucks such as the 7 point in the other picture.

We just put new batteries in several of the cameras as well as moved them, so we should have a bunch of new pics here in a day or two. So check back!!!

Jeff

So says Kenny Kearse of The South Carolina Bowhunters Association in last week’s Hampton County Guardian. Kearse is the vice president of the SCBA, and he was quoted extensively in the special hunting pullout that comes out every year on opening week.

In the article entitlted “The Real Deal.”, Kearse advocates bow hunting  while putting down gun hunters. His statement, “They get tired of killing with a gun and they want to be true hunters” pretty  much says it all. Fortunately the other bow hunters quoted in the story, while still saying bow hunters are special breed, do NOT go so far.

While I am always greatful for any positive hunting coverage, this kind of publicity does a disservice to ALL hunters. Our sport is under constant attack from those who would restrict or outlaw hunting, so every type of lawful hunter needs to stick together to preserve our great pastime.

Kearse needs to remember that anti-hunting activist would just as soon outlaw bow hunting as they would gun hunting. And that long before the SCBA, groups like the NRA  were working hard to preserve our hunting rights by reaching out to the hunters who hold the most votes to stop the loss of hunting privileges – GUN Hunters!

So hunters, regardless of your legal weapon choice, remember to not tear down other hunters when trying to promote your style of hunting!

Also, please note that I could not find a link to the story anywhere on the websites of the 3 newspapers that carried the special pullout – the Hampton County Guardian, the People Sentinel and the Citizen News – or I would have included it.

Jeff

Fox News reports : Researchers in Norway claim a grown moose can produce 2,100 kilos of methane a year, equivalent to the amount of CO2 caused by an 8,077-mile car trip, der Spiegel reported.

Norway’s national animal releases methane through burping and flatulence, as do cows, considered more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

There are estimated to be more than 100,000 moose in Norway.

 I guess we are going to have to plan a trip over to Norway to help thin the herd!!! And as for the hunting, the high winds killed it the last two nights… not one deer out during daylight. Of course the couple of tons of corn I put out somehow disappeared. Hopefully this weekend will be better.

Jeff

 Thank goodness for C.J.’s dad, Chip. And the fact that he knows how to hunt!!! He managed to salvage us from a very disappointing opening week by paying attention to the cutover behind #7 on the Blount Place and killing a nice 8 point this morning.

Many hunters would have just watched the road, where he did say he saw one doe eating at the corn pile. However the bucks had obviously already made it back to the thick stuff and were loafing around when he spotted him. After the shot, Chip said one slightly smaller buck ran off.

The deer just were not moving good this week, and Chip’s deer was the only buck killed this week by our group that included Richard, Will, Shane, C.J. and Chip. However several nice, but small, bucks were seen on various stands, and I saw 5 bucks at the back of the pasture Friday afternoon, including 2 that were around 100-110 inches but chose to pass. Richard also saw a couple of shooters headed into the tall corn around CH 10 on Wednesday and Thursday pm’s hunt, but failed to get a shot.

As the major feeding times get right over the next few days, I think that the buck movement should get better, and they were certainly moving better last night when I saw over 20 does and fawns at CH2, but none of the 5 bucks from the day before???

As for some of the other hunters around us, our crew over at Aunt Mary’s tract in Scotia killed one nice 7 point that went around 105 inches in a big clearcut (that must be where they are all at!) while the Cubans killed three 8 points that ranged from 1.5 to 3.5 years old down the road from the Blount Place. And right across from the BP, Duane killed a nice 7 point, around 105 inches also, while hunting with Michael Green’s crew on the Pendarvis piece.

EVERYONE, please feel free to leave comments on how your hunt was and/or what you saw. Also, please include where you hunt if not at Cubbedge Hill! Hope everyone enjoyed their hunts this week!!!

 Jeff

Man oh Man… it is just crazy hot out there! I just finished another afternoon battling the heat while knocking back some branches.  ‘Cause I don’t want anyone to have any excuses for why they missed:) Also got a few new chairs out and tried to evict some of our squatters with stingers. Just two more days to get ready!

And while I was out yesterday, I checked all three cameras… and nothing. Well, practically nothing. Two cameras had dead batteries and the other one just took some nice pictures of a bunch of 2 year olds. They will be nice in another year or three, but not what we are looking for at the moment. But we have racked up so many cool shots that never get appreciated, I just thought that everyone would enjoy the picture of the doe checking out the bulldozer stand over on the Blount Place…

Also, everyone please be aware that you can leave comments here!!!

 Jeff

I finally got our septic tank issues taken care of, but now I have Jeep problems. Yesterday after loading up Cubbedge Hill, my truck blew a tire and had a wire harness fire all at the same time! That left me high and sweaty on the Webb avenue for several hours until Jamie could come and rescue me. Thank god, because I was just shy of a heat stroke.

I did check two cameras before the break down, but I have been too busy to get any images up. So…. I am putting one picture of a big buck up to keep everyone jacked up. Many of the bucks on camera this week have already been seen (at least by me!), but this one 10 point was new. And he is big, almost as big as our giant, but with less mass. So if anyone sees him next week, just go ahead and pass him up so that we can give him one more year to grow. Yea right….

Jeff