Pig Out in SC

It's been some time since tending to my Blogs here on Attitude Outdoors. No excuses, just laziness I suppose. Will I jump back into the saddle and keep this up on a more regular basis? Probably not, but then again, maybe!

I've spent the better part of this year and the end of last year fighting with Yamaha over the lemon-of-an-outboard-motor that they sold me when I purchased my boat two and a half years ago. Fortunately, I have a six year warranty on it and the only thing these problems have been costing me, is time and aggravation! I guess this is as good an excuse as any for not posting to the site. Let's change that today.

Let's talk about my latest adventure; a free-range hog hunt in the Low Lands of South Carolina.

Y'all ("you all" for my family in Calif) are familiar with my love of bow hunting and you've read some about my annual hunts with my buddy George. Well, every time George and I get together for a hunt, we spend the evening hours after each hunt, eating way too much food while drinking a number of cold beers talking about how cool it would be to "do a hog hunt". This year, we finally put our full-bellied, half-lit talk to action.

It all started with an e-mail I received form George's wife Amy. In her e-mail she tells me that George's birthday was coming up and she wanted to surprise him with a paid hog hunt. Seems he wasn't only talking with me about the subject. She asked me if I could make it happen knowing I was a big part of the reason he wanted to do this in the first place. As most anyone would guess, I jumped on it. With both feet by-the-way!

Now, anyone that knows me well, knows that I don't run head first into big projects or purchases for that matter without doing a great deal of research. So, for the next month or so, I got to work looking up all the hunting outfitters in SC, NC and GA. This had to be an archery hog hunt since that's the only hunting tool George uses. Our hunt was also going to take place during their Turkey season, so I needed to find a place with land set aside exclusively for archery hunts. Through my research, I had the choices narrowed down to two outfitters in SC; Cypress Creek and Bangs Paradise Valley. Now for the hard part!

It just so happens that at the time of this hunt, the birthday boy, a Consultant for a local IT firm, was on assignment in Southern California. Yes, Calif. He fly's each week to LA and returns home to VA for the weekends. The tricky part was first to select a set of days that would work best with his schedule. The second problem, fortunately not one I had to resolve, was how he was going to get too and from the hunt between Calif and SC then back again. Here's what we came up with:

Our hunt was going to be for two days at Bangs Paradise Valley in Ehrhardt, SC (The Low Country). Because of his schedule, we selected a Friday / Saturday combination. We would arrive at the lodge in SC on Thursday afternoon and return Sunday morning. Logistically, this was tough. As it is, George lives 3 hours from my home in Chesapeake, Va. He had to drop off all his gear, including his bow, at my house a couple weeks before the planned hunt. The Plan: George found a flight out of Calif that would end, sooner or later, landing him at the regional airport in Fayetteville, NC. I would pack up my truck with all our gear and get on the road early Thursday morning, like 4am early! bound for Ehrhardt, SC with a 9:30am stop in Fayetteville to pick up George, assuming all his flights were on time. From there, we'd continue to the lodge. So many things could have gone wrong with this plan. However, none did! I arrived on schedule and so was his flight. Picked him up and off we went.

We pull into the hunting lodge around 3pm on a Thursday afternoon and after a bit of leg stretching, we were greeted by the owners son and as luck would have it, our guide for the next couple days, Tom Collins. Tom showed us to our room and told us to make ourselves at home. This was the middle of Turkey season for SC so Tom and his dad Bang Collins had a number of Turkey hunters in camp. Along with them was at least one camera crew filming turkey hunts for shows they were producing. After George and I spent some time making sure our bows were still dead on, we sat down to a wonderful southern home cooked meal while planning out our first hunt Friday morning, which couldn't come fast enough for me. George on the other hand, well, he decided to whoop it up some with our guide and a couple others in camp until 2 or 3 in the morning. Me, I hit the sack. O-dark-thirty comes pretty darn early around these parts.

Morning Hunt - Day 1
 
Before too long, our alarms were going off. After a quick shower, cup of coffee and gathering our gear, we were on the road with our guide being taken to our morning stands. I was dropped off first, next to an unfamiliar swamp, in the dark. Tom says, "About twenty yards down that path you'll come to a washed out walk bridge with an eight inch wide board in its place for crossing." "Be Careful!" he says, "as it might be a little slick if it's wet. Once across, follow the path back into the swamp a couple hundred yards until you see a limb hanging over the path." He goes on to say, "Go around the hanging limb another twenty yards and you'll see an orange survey tag hanging from a limb. Turn left and shine your light into the swamp and you'll see a couple reflective tacks." That was the location of my perch for the morning. I can only assume that George was going through the same instructions right about then. Later I found out that his was a little harder as he had to walk through ankle deep mud to get to his stand.

After climbing up into my stand and getting all my gear situated, I settled in waiting for the sun to rise and the swamp to revel itself. Up to that point, I had no idea what my surroundings looked like. As light began to filter through the trees, shapes began to reveal themselves. It was strangely beautiful. I had never seen swamps with palmetto bushes. It's surprising how soothing a swamp can be once darkness has lifted.

The first sounds of the morning came from Turkey's. I could hear a Gobbler, not too far away, responding to some hens clucking from their roost in a nearby tree. Then, as I turned to scan the swamp behind me, I see a very large bodied four legged creature walking at a deliberate pace past my stand, but out at least fifty yards. It was a hog, a big hog. Looked like it could have easily been 200 pounds. Not only too far away to shoot, but still too dark for a shot. It never slowed down and I never saw it again.

After that, I listened to the hens clucking and the gobblers answering back. I could only imagine the show Mr. Gobbler was putting on with his tail all fanned out looking like an Indian ceremonial headdress strutting back and forth waiting for his hens to arrive. At the same time, there must of been a hundred squirrels hanging around. This first morning, I had plenty of company, just no hogs.

After our morning hunt, our guide Tom picked us up and drove us back to camp where lunch, or more accurately, brunch would soon be ready. We arrived back at camp where a couple of the Turkey hunters were reliving their morning hunt and the camera man was going over the video he shot. If memory serves me, they had one Turkey down. After a wonderful brunch, most of the hunters retired to their rooms for a nap waiting for the heat of the day to cool before they head back out for the afternoon hunt. For George and I, well, my Droid phone crapped out and we had to take a drive into town for a replacement.

Upon our return, we did a little fishing in the camp pond, shot a few practice arrows at their 3-d targets and then, we too caught a few winks before our afternoon hunt in the swamp.  

Afternoon Hunt - Day 1

Our guide insisted that the best place for us to hunt was right back where we were in the morning. He said these where the best stands where they were seeing the most daylight activity. So, back to the same stand sights that we were in from the morning. A few hours later, not unlike the morning hunt, the light departed the swamp without seeing any of them tasty Hogs we were there to kill. So, once the Turkeys were safe and sound, roosted in the nearby trees and the squirrels were in their treetop nests for the night, I made my way out of the swamp and back to the road where my guide and George were waiting.

At the end of day 1, I saw 1 Hog, a number of Turkey, too many squirrels to count and an Armadillo.  

Morning Hunt - Day 2

Once again our guide believed the stands we were in the day before were still our best bet for seeing Hogs during daylight hours. Tom offered to move me to a different stand and send George to the one I'd been hunting from. I declined thinking it would be better to move George to a new stand as I had very little confidence in the stand I'd been in. After all, it was George's birthday present, not mine. I really did believe he'd have a much better chance elsewhere. So I went to the same stand for a third time.

This morning started much like the one before. Absent the large hog in the early morning light. Nope, it was quiet, except of course, for the Tom Turkeys gobbling, Hens clucking, squirrels arguing over food, Armadillos rooting around and the numerous variety's of birds calling. Other than that, it was quiet.

The morning came and went and I had decided to climb down from my stand around 9:30am to meet the guide back at the road and get some breakfast. However, I had to make a slight change to that plan after hearing what sounded like target shooting going on in the general direction I had to walk in order to get picked up. I decided to wait a little longer until I was pretty sure the guide had arrived. Little did I know at the time what an extra 10 minutes would mean.

At about 9:50am I gathered my gear feeling a bit dejected having not seen any hogs in an area obviously full of pig sign. I could only hope George's morning was going much better. So I reattached my quiver to my bow, hooked my pull line to it and lowered it to the ground in preparation for my decent. I turned to unscrew my bow hooks from the tree when all hell breaks loose. Coming through the swamp at a fast trot, were at least 10 hogs. They were heading right for my location. Now what the heck am I to do? Remember, I had already lowered my bow to the ground. Fortunately, the end of my pull line with my bow still attached, was in my hand.

By now these pigs were no more than 40 yards from me. I started to pull my bow back up as quickly and quietly as I could, stopping when they stopped, then pulling the bow up when they continued towards my location. Fortunately hogs don't have the best eyesight. At one point as I was pulling my bow up, I knocked it against the metal ladder stand. This made enough noise to make the entire group of hogs stop in their tracks. I thought I'd just blown it!

We all remained motionless, my bow hanging from a line half way down the ladder for what felt like minutes but in reality was nothing more than a few seconds. Then the lead hog let out a grunt and they continued on towards me. Well, most of them anyway. The larger black hogs decided the little noise they heard wasn't anything to take a chance on and they turned and headed back the way they came. The rest, thankfully, continued in stopping 30 yards in front of my stand to feed on some corn kernels.

This gave me an opportunity to recover my bow, calm down, knock an arrow and take aim. Once I got my breathing under control, I drew back my bow and selected what looked to be the largest hog. Just as I was getting ready to release my arrow, the hog turned facing me, effectively taking away my shot opportunity. Fortunately, the one next to him caught my eye and was just about to be in the perfect position for a shot. I took aim and released my arrow. Now I've shot a few Whitetail Deer with my bow over the years, but this was the first time that I actually saw my arrow impact the animal and come out the other side. Maybe it's just because hogs are so much shorter than deer, I don't know, but it was strange to see. I'm not sure why, but it was.

After the shot, the pig ran off into the swamp. The others scurried around unsure of what just happened and why their buddy ran off so quickly. I thought about knocking another arrow and picking off another hog but just a few seconds later, they all ran off in the direction of the hog I had just shot. Once I got my heart rate back to near normal, I lowered my gear and climbed down to assess the shot and look for a blood trail. Looking at my arrow, I knew I had made a good clean shot but for some reason, I couldn't find a drop of blood to track. I decided to back out and meet up with my guide for help.

As it was, he and George were already at the road waiting on me. I radioed them what had happened and they came in to help me track and recover my hog. Good thing too, while George and I went off looking for a blood trail, our guide was following hog tracks and reading sign. He clearly knew what he was doing. About 75 yards later he called me on the radio asking. "Bret, would you like me to bring your hog to you or would you rather come over here and see it where it lay?" I told him I'd be right there. I couldn't believe it, my first hog ever and with a bow no less!

Like most big game hunts, you have a lot of sitting and waiting. Then, out of nowhere, you go from darn near bored out of your mind, to a level of excitement generally only experienced by thrill seekers or near-death experiences. Let me explain:

One minute your sitting in a tree counting acorns, checking your email, day dreaming or killing ants or spiders that come too close to you. To, at the sound or sight of what possibly might be the animal you're after, your heart rate jumps to the point where you feel like it's going to push clean through your sternum. You're close to hyperventilating, and your shaking so much that, if not controlled, will keep you from ever making an ethical shot on your game. It's this brief adrenaline rush that hooks most hunters to the sport and keeps them on stand for long hours each day.

Back at the lodge, we take pictures, offer congratulations, then after lunch, begin to prepare for our final evening hunt.

Evening Hunt - Day 2

Our guide had been holding out a stand site where he had been seeing a number of young hogs hanging around and decided to put George there for the evening hoping it would pay off and George would get a shot. After dropping George off, Tom took me to the place George had been in the morning.

This is the point where I give my full, unpaid and unsolicited endorsement for a mosquito repellent device called ThermaCell. I'm here to tell anyone who'll listen that this is a must have product if you ever hunt in warm swampy weather. Up to this point, I'd been lighting this little miracle product off before I even get out of the truck. However, this time, something went wrong. The unit, for whatever reason,
didn't light. As Tom drove off down the dirt path turning out of site, the mosquito's, seeing my ride was gone, POUNCED! OMG! Here I am swatting mosquito's while trying to figure out why I'm no longer protected. Looking down at the ThermaCell, I see it failed to light. I'm in the middle of the path, I haven't even stepped into the swamp yet. I'm swatting at the swarming skeeters with one hand while trying frantically to light the ThermaCell with my other. I thought I was going to die! Walking out wouldn't have helped. Surely they'd have had me on the ground long before I got to safety. My only chance was to get the ThermaCell lit.

Finally, the unit lit. A minute later, the blood-sucking bugs had, for the most part left. Wow! what was I saying about adrenalin?

Back to the hunt: Not more than an hour or two into the hunt, I feel my phone vibrate telling me of an incoming text message. It's from George and while I can't remember exactly the words he used, the message was clear. he had just successfully taken a hog. Turns out, not only did he get his hog, he filmed it on his Flip video camera. How cool!

That evening, after another great home cooked meal, we watched his video, watched some video from the Turkey hunts, drank a great deal of beer and congratulated ourselves for not only our first-ever hog hunt, but our first ever successful hog hunt! Bang and Tom Collins offered to let us hunt for free the next morning, paying only if we actually were lucky enough to kill another pig but it wasn't to be as we woke Sunday morning to thunder and lightning. It's never a good idea to sit high in a tree with carbon arrows in your hands.

I told Bang Collins when I was booking this hunt that George and I would measure the success of our hunt, not by the number of hog's we killed, but by the quality of the overall experience. I said. "If George and I are driving home after our hunt, talking about coming back and doing it again next year, That will be the measure of our success!"

Guess what George and I talked most about during our drive back to the Fayetteville Regional Airport Sunday morning?

Third Annual Bow Hunt

Plans were made, dates were set. We’d meet at my property lease in Brunswick County, Va by noon Tuesday morning Oct 20^th. Our anticipation was high as the past two years have all been successful. Year one, I tagged a 7-pointer and during our second annual hunt together, it was George’s turn. He tagged his largest buck ever -- a very nice 10-pointer. So suffice to say, we were stoked and ready to roll!

After setting up camp, we were mulling over stand sites for the evening hunt. I had hunted the property a couple times leading up to this but had not seen much activity. I did however, have some areas picked out where white oak acorns were dropping, but in the end, George decided to do something different choosing a location with lots of shade in the bottom at the front of our property. His primary thought was one of keeping cool. Did I mention it was in the upper 70’s that day?

Me, well, I’m not so smart. As a matter of fact, I’m a little hardheaded. I had a real good feeling about a spot I’d scoped out last season. It’s a low area along the “edge” - I’m a big believer in hunting “edge”, especially this time of year. Confidence in a location, like confidence in your favorite gun or in a special fishing lure is 75 percent of the game. I knew I was going to see deer at this stand site on this particular evening; I just knew it.

So off we went, George to his cool bottom area in the front of the property and me to hunt the edge among the White Oak trees, while working on my tan. Nearly an hour slips buy when I catch movement in the adjacent woods. I can’t see if it’s a buck or a doe but it was clearly a Deer and it was moving at a very steady pace through the woods. He (she) had no interest in the sweet acorns dropping from above. Well, nothing I can do about it. Hope it returns once it finishes up with whatever it was heading off to do.

Another hour goes by when I catch movement on the trail I came in on. It was now 6 pm and my plan was coming together just as I knew it would. This deer is slowly making its way along the path, in my direction. After taking a look with my binoculars, I see it’s what we call a Cow-horn. A buck with two points of 8 inches or longer, one on each side. I also call these Devil Deer for obvious reason. He’s now turned and making his way into the adjacent property and off my lease. He’s standing broadside at about 20 yards, an easy clear shot should I choose to take it. Standing there 18 feet up in a tree, my Diamond Victory bow in hand, knocked with a 100 grain magnum Slick Trick broadhead tipped arrow, I decide to let him walk. I’m thinking there might be some good luck coming my way when I let the first shoot ‘able deer of the season “walk”. Besides, there’s still a good forty five minutes of shooting light left. Maybe there’ll be others.

Thirty minutes later and much nearer to the end of legal shooting light, the cow-horn reappears. This time, on the other side of my tree not 10 yards away …he’s standing there offering me a classic quartering away shot that, in the end, I just couldn’t refuse. Surely this still qualifies as letting the first one walk, Right?

When my 4-blade slick trick broadhead passed through, I thought that deer was going to jump clean out of his skin! He jumped and spun around in one quick motion towards the woods, then quickly ran sideways falling into a small group of saplings. What happened next was damn near comical. The saplings, after bending under the weight of the deer, repelled it back like a slingshot. The Cow-horn, feet and legs running while in midair, hit the ground running in the opposite direction just to hit another group of saplings 20 yards away. This time he stumbled. When he got back on his feet, he headed back, once again in the other direction, towards my tree. This time however, he only got about 5 yards when he piled up just 10 yards from my tree and 15 from where he was originally shot. I can't be more sold on these magnum Slick Trick broadheads. After meeting up with my buddy George, I learned that he also saw deer. Six I believe but the only shot he’d have, came well after legal light. So his chance was going to have to wait.

Wednesday was a bit slow for us. George saw a couple deer but neither of us had any shot opportunities. Still, we had another nice evening; drinking beer and dinning on fresh Venison tenderloin. Thursday morning we had a plan. I was sending him down to one of my favorite stand sites overlooking a group of White Oak trees that have been dropping acorns for a week or more. Me, I made a lousy choice for a backup site. I'll not go into it and just relay the events that took place for my friend George.

Around 9:15am he’s starting to get a little bored. He’s mind is starting to wonder when out of nowhere, a nice 8-pointer steps into the picture. He stood broadside at 30 or 35 yards but George decided to let him get a little closer. At about 20 yards, he settles his 20 yard pin on the bucks vitals, touches the trigger on his release and sends the arrow flying. The deer hauls ass into the cutover and George is watching him as the buck struggles to make his way through the thick overgrowth. Then, nothing -- The buck is down. Now George is sitting down trying to regain his composure and slow his heart rate back to something more normal. Fifteen minutes goes by when he sees what he believes might be a doe coming down the path. “Two deer down in one day, can it be?”

George quickly knocks another arrow and after a few more yards, sees that this isn't a doe at all, but instead, finds that it's a very large cat -- a Bobcat to be exact. So at about 20 yards, after making sure it wasn't someone’s house cat Fluffy, Ol Dead Eye George sends another arrow sailing. Whack! A perfect shot right through its plum sized heart.

After a quick recovery of both animals and a number of pictures, we packed them up and hauled them out. We were in a bit of a rush to get the deer dressed, quartered and on ice as it was another warm day. Once the work was complete, we spent the rest of the afternoon celebrating another successful hunt together. So that's it, a great and productive two and a half days of hunting, way too much eating, a little drinking and a bunch of just plain enjoying ourselves away from our day to day responsibilities. Until next year George! By-the-way, we need to get planning that archery wild Boar hunt!

Opening Day Blunders

Not opening day in the regulation sense, as I found it way too warm to sit in a tree last week on “Opening Day”. No, opening day as in -- this is the first time this season that I have headed out to hunt. However, as I walked to my truck at 4:15am Saturday morning, the second Saturday of the Virginia bow season, I was clearly questioning my decision as the outside temp gauge in my truck read a balmy 76 degrees. Well, I was already up and dressed, so I reasoned things might be a little cooler after the 2 hour drive West.

Now I don’t know about all of you, but for me, my first day in the field is usually a little on the comical side. Never is it smooth and practiced -- something always comes up. Maybe it’s fumbling with the tree stand in the dark, or dropping an important item on your way up the tree, and who hasn’t forgot something critical to your success for that day. Yeah, you all know what I’m talking about. For me, it’s often a combination of things. For this reason, I use my opening day to “work out the bugs”. This is the time to get back into the swing of things. This opening day was no different than those past.

I arrive at my club about when I expected, just before sun-up. The temp, a balmy 76 degrees! My plan; stop at the clubhouse to change into my scent-free hunting garb before heading to the stand that I decided on once the wind direction was confirmed as I stepped outside my truck. Dressed and ready to go, I head to the middle of our property to begin my trek to the tree I planned to climb. As I’m loading my portable tree stand on my back, I get this overwhelming urge to grab a good book, or in my case, a good hunting magazine, then run off to my reading room. So back in the truck and back to the clubhouse I rush.

So starts the Opening Day Blunders!

That taken care of, I head back to the middle of the property, load my stand and begin the walk. Unfortunately, now the sun’s coming up and it’s getting pretty light. The path I’m walking down is about a quarter mile long. At the end of the path is another path requiring a turn to either the right or the left. As I approach that turn, approximately 5 yards from it in fact, I come face to face with my quarry, a tall racked buck that I believe to be sporting 6 points. He’s minding his own business meandering his way along the path that I’m quickly coming to. Not a care in the world, afterall, it's been what? 9 months since he’s dealt with a critter like me on two legs? We both freeze at the same time. Now, with just a few branches from a shrub between him and me, we stand. Me? I have my bow in hand but no arrow is knocked and my release is comfortably in my pack. A good 40 seconds goes by before the buck remembers the potential danger associated with critters like me. So with a rather loud snort, actually a series of loud snorts, he turns and runs off.

And so the blundering continues.

A few minutes later I get to my tree which is in close proximity to a number of oak trees. After bumbling with my tree stand as normally happens on opening day, I get it set up and begin my ascent. Now comfortably in my perch 18 feet or so above the ground, I wait – arrow knocked, bow in hand and release at the ready.

Roughly an hour passes with nothing moving, no sign of life, not even a Squirrel. I’m thinking it might just be too warm for deer to be moving during daylight hours today. I’m situated in the tree, facing away from where I expect deer to show up, presumably to feed on White Oak Acorns. I decide to stand and draw my bow in that direction just to make sure nothing is in my way including my new safety harness. Yeah I know I should have checked that first thing. Well, as I said, this is my opening day. I stand, draw the bow and make sure all is clear. Satisfied, I let down the string and begin to sit on the rail of my climber. As I’m sitting, I notice movement about 50 yards in front of me under a group of oak trees. Could it be a deer? Yes, it’s a doe with a single yearling in tow.

Soon, like in a matter of a few short weeks, that yearling will be kicked out of the house so-to-speak. The rut is no place for a young doe to be hanging around. So I wait to see if momma doe will come within range of my arrow wondering all the while if I will take the shot or leave her be. I pull out my new range finder and it tells me she’s 55 yards out. Too far for me. She moves a little closer, turns and offers me a nice broadside shot but instead of raising my bow and putting the site on her, I hit her with the range finder once again. This time she’s 40 yards out. For me, still too far. I’m deadly inside 30 yards and while my Bowtech Victory bow is capable at 40 yards, I’m not. I don’t have the room to practice out that far so I’m not about to take such a long shot at a live animal. In the end, she never comes any closer and she, along with her young, feed off in the direction they came.

Now it’s about 10:30 in the morning. Time to get down, maybe do a little scouting then take a nap before a buddy of mine shows up for the evening hunt. 3:30am comes pretty early. I don’t normally nap, but I plan to drive home after the hunt this evening. Don’t want to be falling asleep at the wheel. At 2 in the afternoon after a couple hours sleep, my buddy shows up and we shoot the breeze, then take some practice shots with our bow’s while planning our evening hunt. He showed me a cool new trick shot while shooting at one of them small round throw targets. At about 30 yards, he missed it with an arrow equipped with a lighted knock and it skipped off the dirt and embeds itself into a distant pine tree. Looked pretty cool when he did it.

So around 4pm we head off for our evening hunt. I gave up my “good” stand to my friend as I choose to try out another section of the property that had a great deer-crossing highway noticed during Turkey season. Problem is, I didn’t take into account how much different it would look with all the leaves on the trees and bushes. Still, I beat my way down there so I decided to make the best of it. After all, what’s an opening day of blunders for? I get to the spot and the only good tree to climb is smack dab in the middle of the game trail (highway). What the heck, the wind was right. The worst that could happen is every deer that wonders buy, offers no shot as it crosses directly under me. At least I’d learn something, right?

Not to be! A couple hours later, with dark ascending upon me, I climb down and assemble my stand, load it onto my back and begin to make my way out. A couple hundred yards later as I make my way to the top of a trail, I damn near jump out of my skin, as once again I walk up on an unsuspecting Whitetail. Final Blunder of the day! This one had to be a Doe because she wasted no time deciding I was an undesirable element in her woods. She let out a God awful snort / wheeze, turned and ran back through the cutover, snorting loudly over and over again to let every deer in the county know that it’s not safe to enter this section of cutover anytime soon. Good thing they have another 7 days to forget all about it. As for me, these are memories I’ll keep with me for a good long time.

A Killer Weekend

Wow! What a Deer season I’m having this year. I think I’ll be buying a lottery ticket tonight. If you recall my last post, I harvested a very nice (by SE Virginia Standards anyway) 130 class 9-pointer with my bow a few weeks ago. I figured I had used up all my luck right up front and I’d be lucky to even see another deer let alone another wall hanger. So you can imagine my surprise when this monster jumped into my lap! With the split brow tine on his right side, he ends up a 10-pointer. The rack has a 20" spread which will become more noticeable in the next couple pictures.
Two bucks of a lifetime from property just 3 miles apart - in one season. And the season still has a month and a half left in it. Most hunters go a lifetime and never see bucks like this afield and here I sit with two of them. Someone pinch me because I must be sound asleep. I won’t bore you with a long story. Suffice to say this one was more luck than the last. One of our dogs pushed him out of the cutover and into a finger of woods I was waiting in. He jumped the creek then quickly slammed on the brakes when he saw me standing just 30 feet away with a shotgun pointing at him. I can’t stop thinking about the look in his face. It was one of “Oh crap! This ain’t gonna turn out well” And it didn’t. One quick shot and it was all over. Here are a couple more pictures.





I get home around 10pm Saturday night knowing I have 3 guys showing up at 7am Sunday morning to go fishing offshore. So I take a shower and a few motrin then head to bed. 6am the alarm goes off and up I go again. Guys show up at 7, I hook the boat up to the truck and we’re off. Our plan was to fish the Triangles about 35 miles offshore for 10 to 15lb Blue Fish and we also wanted to get a mess of Sea Bass. Flounder were also a possibility.

Water was a little rough from the winds of the last couple days but we made our way out running 20kts. Once we got to the Tower (roughly 14 miles out) we decided to take a rest and fish some of the wrecks. Good move since we were catching a number of legal Sea Bass. When that slowed, we continued on our way to the Triangles when 2 of my crew noticed a beehive of birds about a mile off my starboard beam. They also noticed some commotion on the water that turned out to be 3 Sperm(?) Whales circling schools of fish for breakfast. I tell you what, between the Whales, Striper and Blue Fish, this isn’t a good time to be a bait fish. One can only imagine the carnage that takes place under water.

So anyway, we start marking schools of nice fish and begin to jig from the bottom up. Most of the time our jigs never reached the bottom as either a big Blue Fish or a nice Striper would grab it and the fight was on. We must of caught and released 15 quality Striper and came home with, I think, 10 Blue Fish between 8 and 14lbs for the smoker. We also got a number of nice Sea Bass and my buddy “White Boots Dave” jigged up a Flounder that was just an inch shy of taking a ride in our fishbox.

So that’s it. No pictures since I forgot my camera and of course, the crew kept reminding me of that fact, especially when the Whales showed up. All-in-all an exceptional weekend.

The Brunswick County Acorn Buck

So in my initial hunting post a week or so ago I said, and I quote
“Maybe next week I'll have a story that involves tracking, dragging, field dressing and processing some Venison.” Well, I’ve come close. I’ll have to skip the tracking and dragging while adding spooking, high 5’s, picture taking and loading.

The Plan:

Not unlike the previous Saturday, I got up early, loaded the truck, kissed the wife and headed out for the 2 hour drive to my club in Brunswick, VA. On this day, two additional members were planning to show up and do some work around the property. Yes, another working party. My plan was to get there early enough to sit for a morning hunt, work with the others on the property mid day then hunt from 3 or 4pm till dark. We were all staying the night then heading home after breakfast Sunday morning.

The Results:

My initial thought was to stop and hunt the morning on an 80 acre piece of property we have rights to in Emporia but somewhere along hwy 58 I decided to continue on to Brunswick. I arrive at our property as the sun was rising and quickly changed into my hunting garb. After spraying down with de-scent solution I grabbed my bow along with my tree stand then made way to my morning stand.

As I near the final 300 yards I run into a rather large flock of Turkey. Must have been 20 of them. It’s always an impressive site watching these large birds take flight. The cackling along with the sound of their wings pushing the air for lift is one I never tire of. Had I been toting a 12 gauge instead of a bow, I would have had a turkey for dinner. I digress.

I made my way to the far back corner of our property where weeks before I had cut a path through the cutover to the edge of the woods and to a tree just made for my climber. After settling in about 18 to 20 feet up, I sat taking in the morning, still hearing the startled Turkey’s clucking away trying to reassemble the flock for safety.

About an hour goes by, during which I stood 2 or 3 times thinking Turkey were working their way through the cutover towards my stand. They never showed up. Then I hear another sound. A much heavier sound. As I slowly look to my right and inside the woods, I catch movement, Deer! I watch, standing with bow in hand and release on the string loop while I wait for a shot opportunity. Four or five deer file through with just one Doe stopping, offering me a small window for a shot. As I begin to draw my bow string, one of the other deer playfully charges her and off they go, along with my “opportunity”.

I sat on stand until something like 10am then decided to head back to camp and help with the days work. On my way out I did jump a Doe that was bedded down on the end of our path, but that was the end of the morning hunt.

Fast forward once again to the evening hunt since no one wants to hear about working parties. I would point out however, I damn near didn’t hunt the evening. After all the work we did, I had talked myself into believing that no self respecting deer would ever be fooled into getting close enough for me to take a shot. How wrong I was..

Evening plan was to hunt my now favorite Oak Ridge. Knowing the White Oak acorns are dropping and the deer have been feeding heavily on them building fat and getting ready for the rut and Winter. I knew right where I wanted to be so I changed into a fresh set of scent free hunting clothes, sprayed my boots and hat, put my climber on my back, grabbed my bow and headed for my tree.

Around 4:15pm I was 18 feet in the air waiting for the dinner bell to ring. 30 minutes later, up the path from the opposite side comes another Cow-horn. If you remember, that’s all I saw last Saturday – Cow-horns and a 3-pointer. If this little guy continued on his present course, he would cross my scent path and surely bust me. Fortunately, he ducked into the cutover well short. No time to relax though, turns out he had reason to duck out of site.

Turning around to face the Oak tree, I notice more deer had arrived. Wow, this was just like the prior week. As these guys feed in and out of view I noticed a deer with a pretty nice rack on his head. As he worked his way closer to my stand, I see 4 tall tines and judge him to be a pretty nice 10 pointer. "This guy is going for a ride on the tailgate of my truck." I tell myself.

So about now, I’m obviously talking to myself; “Damn! This buck is nice.” “God I hope he gives me a shot.” “I sure hope none of these other deer see me draw on this guy.” So much was going through my head as this deer gets closer. Now he’s just steps away, all he has to do is take maybe three more steps and I’ll have a perfect broadside shot at just 20 yards. I drew my bow and held, and held, and held. Now I’m hearing a stomping sound behind me, you know the one. It’s the sound a deer makes when he senses trouble or is pissed off at something. My 10-pointer also hears it and instead of taking 3 steps out onto the path, he moves back under the tree. Now I have to try and slowly let off my bow and hope none of the deer see me do so.

After letting off my bow, I slowly turn to see what just kept me from a very nice deer and what I find starts the heart to racing once again. It was another very nice buck. Probably an 8-pointer, definitely a wall-hanger. He’s standing about 20 yards down, broadside looking right at me. Funning thing is, he’s not spooked. He just stands there. I can’t draw or for sure he’d see me, so I wait. A half a minute goes buy and he makes a quick move to the Pines. Now I have no shot! 30 seconds later, he goes charging into the woods and the next thing I hear is one cool buck fight. I’ve never heard deer grunting and fighting in the wild. It sounded like 2 pigs going at it. They made such a ruckus all the other bucks feeding under the White Oak all headed into the Pines to watch the fight. Damn! Now what?

The last deer to move to the Pines was a basket racked 6-pointer. He stopped, giving me a clear shot and while I wasn’t happy about it, I was drawing my string to take it. Just as I started to draw back, he too jumps in to see the fight.

What can I do? One minute there’s 8 to 10 bucks of all different sizes feeding 20 to 40 yards from me and the next, nothing. So I stand there, bow in hand and wait. Another 20 minutes or so goes buy and out pops a Cow-horn. Now after everything I’ve just seen, I’ll be damned if I’m going to take a Cow-horn. This guy walks right by my tree, up-wind. I just watch thinking to myself, “What the hell am I going to tell the guys back at camp?” I know they’re going to ask what I saw, I also know they aren’t likely to believe me. No, I decided that I was going to tell them I saw nothing since they wouldn’t believe me anyway.

About now the sun is starting to get low in the Western sky. I have maybe 20 or 30 minutes left of legal shooting light. Looking down the path I see my little Cow-horn buddy that ducked into the cut-over. He’s heading for the Acorns. Just as I had predicted, as soon as he got parallel to me, my scent hit that nose of his and he stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t like what he was smelling. Sure enough, he turned and headed away. Once he got about 20 yards away, he started running. Thank god he didn’t snort at me or sound the alarm. So now I’m thinking it’s just about over. I decided to turn and take another look towards the White Oak and “Oh My God!” there’s another deer and he’s heading in my direction.

After seeing it was another buck I waited for him to get closer. Now I can see that he has a number of points and they are tall and wide. This was it! not the 10 pointer but still a very nice buck. “Please keep coming” At about 30 yards, he turns broadside and I drew my bow. Not real sure at the yardage, I make a bone-headed decision to use my 3rd pin. Don’t ask me why, I never use it. My middle pin is good out to 30 yards. Like I said, it was a bone-headed decision. I take aim, pick the spot and release. A split second later, I hear this thud. I’ve heard this before. It’s the sound a Broadhead makes when it hits bone. To my surprise, the deer drops to the ground. At this point, I knew what had just happened. Yes, I hit him high and in the spine.

When this happens, you just have to try and keep your cool. Don’t do anything to spook him. As he was laying, I had no follow-up shot at his vitals. However, with every attempt to get up, he was turning more and more broadside. Then, not believing my eyes, another deer snorts and spooks him. This caused him to start dragging himself across the path under the Oak tree. When he stopped. Thank God! I couldn’t see all of him but I could see enough through the trees to see his vitals so I quickly launched another Slick Trick, at the correct yardage this time and straight through his heart and lung. The hunt was over! The buck lay still. The woods are quite and my heart is POUNDING OUT OF MY CHEST!

After a few minutes of catching my breath, I lower my bow to the ground and turn to start climbing down when out of the pines comes another deer. He's moving slowly towards my buck, alert and stomping his hooves, not knowing quite what to think of this brute laying on the path ahead of him. As he steps out, I see that he’s yet another respectable buck. I had to spook this guy away in order to climb down out of my perch. Man what a hunt!

So here are the stats and a couple more pictures of the buck. I call him, The Brunswick County Acorn Buck. He has 9 points, 8 main and a 4 3/4” sticker sticking straight back from the base of his right antler. He looked to weigh damn near 200lbs. Inside spread of 20 1/2 and an outside spread of 21 1/4. I scored the antlers the other day using the Boone N Crockett web site and he gross scored at 137 2/8 Not bad! Originally I scored him at 127 or so but I found a mistake in my measurements.

My First Hunting Report

So, here we are, hunting season has now been in for just over a week. I skipped opening day on the 4th due to the warm weather and instead, took one of my buddies fishing. With predicted temps in the upper 70's, I may have skipped this second weekend as well, trading in my bow for a fishing pole. But with the a forecast of high winds and seas in the bay running up to 3 foot, I decided to Hunt. Besides, my new club; Lonesome Three Hunting and Fishing Club, had a scheduled working party during the middle of the day on Saturday.

The Plan: Set the alarm for 4am and get on the road by 5. Hunt my Headquarters Hunt Club property first thing in the morning until around 9:30 or 10am then drive over to the new club to meet some of the members and do some work. Then, for the evening hunt, I planned to hunt somewhere on the new property. Here's how it went:

I got up at 4am Saturday morning to my wife commenting in about the same fashion she does when I get up to go fishing, "You're nuts! Why do you do this to yourself? You never get to sleep in." And my typical response, "I know, I know, go back to sleep." It’s a good question, just not one I want to dwell on at 4 in the morning.

I quickly jumped in the shower and washed down with scent free soap and scent free shampoo, hurry up and get dressed, finish loading my gear into my truck and hit the road. 2 hours later, I pull into the club property just as the sun is coming up over the trees. On this morning, I decided to try a different location and set my climber up on a tree a few yards down wind of a very old White Oak tree that was heavy with acorns. This tree sits in between a field that's gone to fallow and a 1 year old cutover. I had high hopes for this location so up I went.

About an hour after climbing the tree, out comes a Squirrel. After he gets halfway up a tree about 5 yards from me, he freezes. What's that big-assed camouflaged glob in that tree over there? This little guy just couldn't figure out what I was or if I was a problem, but he was pretty sure I wasn't there last time he climbed that tree. A couple times, I thought he was going to jump on over to see for himself. He didn't. He did however, climb up and down the tree, stopping every once in a while to see if I had moved. One time he actually considered climbing up the tree I was in but changed his mind at the base of my tree. Back up he went on the tree across from me. This little guy kept me company for the better part of 2 hours barking and chirping at me before finally heading down and back to his den. Good thing for him I didn’t have a field point tipped arrow in my quiver since he is the only sign of fur bearing life I saw all morning.

At 10am I gave up, climbed down, packed up my gear and headed back to my truck, then down the road to the new club. When I arrived there were 3 other members hanging out on the porch and a kid mowing the grass on a riding mower. They had about a half dozen ducks hanging from the porch that they had shot during their morning hunt behind the club house. A little more productive than my morning ended up being. There were only 4 of the 12 members there on this day. They seemed to be a pretty good group of guys. I'm looking forward to the season.

Fast forward a few hours and we're coming up on 3pm. I had intended to hunt a location on the new property. Being new to the property, I solicited some suggestions. After a little conversation, it was decided that I was going to hunt a creek bottom between two cutovers on a property they refer to as "the Y-road” I head off with anticipation. 10 minutes later, I arrive at the Y-road property and parked my truck. After spraying down with scent eliminator and getting my gear together, I grabbed my bow and headed to the head of the wooded finger and creek-bottom. I had planned to work my way along the creek-bottom about 3 hundred yards in, find a small clearing and a climbable tree near a fruit bearing White Oak and hunt till dark. Not to happen! You know what they say about “best laid plans.” Yup, they often go awry. And so this one did.

After about 40 yards into my trek, I realized how thick this wooded creek-bottom was. What a pain. I pushed on another 50 yards or so. Now I'm dripping with sweat. Not good for a deer hunter. This was just way too thick. Where was I going to set up and still have a shot if a deer comes by? So I look outside the bottom area thinking maybe the walking would be a little easier at the edge of the cutover. Hell no! That was nothing but thickets and thorns. So about now I'm concerned my hunt is ruined. I give up and start making my way back to the road. After looking at my watch, I realize I have two options; pack up and get an early start on the 2 hour drive home or quickly drive to the more familiar acreage at the Headquarters club. I chose the later.

On the ride over I decide I'm going to hunt an oak ridge on the edge of our property again confident I'm going to see something large and brown. Might not see a deer in range but I was pretty sure I'd see a deer. And I did! Around 5pm the first of 3 deer sneaks on in and starts feeding on the White Oak Acorns on the ground. This guy was a bit on the small side but it was what we call a Cow-horn. For non-hunters, that's a deer with two horns sticking straight out the top of his head. Probably about 8 or 10 inches each.

Shortly afterwards, two more deer join the cow-horn feeding on the acorns; another cow-horn and a 3 pointer. This 3 pointer looked a lot like a 3-pointer I let walk last year about this time. Only now, his single horn is about 6 inches longer and curved in. These 3 bucks fed in and out of bow range from 5pm until the sun went down. I drew on two of them more than once but decided I'd rather get home at a decent hour than spend an hour waiting and another hour or more tracking. By then, I would have likely ended up spending the night. So for now, they are safe and only because I was tired and lazy. That won't be the case should I see any of them next Saturday.

So that's it. My first ever hunting report. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Maybe next week I'll have a story that involves tracking, dragging, field dressing and processing some Venison.

Until then, thanks for reading.

2008 Wish-a-Fish

So let’s talk Wish-A-Fish. I believe I have already defined what Wish-A-Fish is, what I now want to show you is the smiles and enjoyment that comes from this charitable organization.

All the volunteer Captains and Mates start to arrive by land and by sea just before 8am the day of the event. Family’s are scheduled to arrive at 8am. If you trailer over, as I do, you get your boat launched and tied up to the pier then check in with the Dock Master. Once that’s done, you wait for your name to be called asking you to come pick up your family. It just so happened that Bill and I were one of the first to be called.

I met my family at the check-in, made sure they had life vests, signed the paperwork then walked them to their ride for the day. Checking out the first picture, you can clearly see the excitement on the faces of each family member as well as on my Mate’s face. He’s an old coot but he really does enjoy this event.

Shortly after boarding The Attitude, we set out for the fishing grounds. The kids always love the boat ride. I’d have taken pictures but I was a little busy handling the boat.

After making our way around a tug and a barge, we stopped briefly just outside the Navel Base to see if there were any schools of fish around. None showing up on my bottom machine, we took a brief look at the carriers, subs and tin cans of our mighty Navy and moved on out. A short ride later, we stopped to wet our lines in the channel between the Monitor Merrimack Bridge Tunnel and the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. Here, we found a few small Croaker for the kids to play with.

Here’s a couple pictures of the action:

After a few hours of fishing, we were ready to pack it in, wind up the motor and hurry in for some well deserved lunch. But not before getting Anthony's cousin Keven his Jr. Angler Award. This is an award the State gives to kids that catch 6 different species of fish, typically in one day but I'm not sure that's a requirement. Kevin caught one or more of the following: Oyster Toad, Blue Fish, Croaker, Sea Bass, Pin Fish and a Flounder. High fives and congratulations to Keven for earning that award.

So with that, Anthony gives us a peace-out and were headed back to the park for picnic, awards and a raffle.

Bill and I get the boat loaded up on her trailer and we head over to the picnic grounds where we were met with the smell and taste of deep fried turkey, barbecued chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, tater salad, beans and all the fixing's. We took up a seat next to our old friends at Whalens Marine, my X-Suzuki dealer and also a special friend from last years event, Michael.

We had the privilege of fishing with Michael during last years Wish-a-Fish event. This year, Brian Whalen treated him. Sure looks like he had a great time!

So this ends another successful Wish-A-Fish event. If you'd like to know more about this group, please visit their web site at http://www.wishafish.org/ After everyone has had time to stuff themselves, Al, our Wish-a-Fish coordinator kicks off the awards by presenting each and every kid with their very own rod, reel and certificate.

That's it. By they way, did I say it was Hot during this years event? It was Hot! We had a record high of 98 degrees this day. I love it!!! My buddy and first Mate Bill on the other hand, was hating it.

Thanks for reading. Until next time!!

Wait, might as well combine reports and give you a quick update of our travels the next day. Bill and I decided to do some, shall we say, more serious fishing. We launched the boat at day break and after searching for live bait, we headed off shore about 16 miles or so to a wreck I know of. We spent the day catching and releasing small Sea Bass and Triggers. The Triggers we kept. We also had 4 Sea Bass that were legal and made the ride home with us. We ended the day with 10 Trigger Fish and 4 Sea Bass. Here's a couple Pic's.