Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
Hunting for a Cure is an organization that raises money to fight against childhood disease. The mission of Hunt for the Cure is to introduce children to the joys of wildlife, hunting, and the outdoors and to also raise funds through volunteers and sponsors to contribute to the fight against childhood disease. Hunters from everywhere donate hunts and individuals purchase these hunts at a silent auction at the Hunt for the Cure banquet. The highest bid wins the hunt and 100% of all the proceeds go to St. Jude?s Children?s Hospital in Memphis Tennessee.
Recently, Jimmy Bradley of Pageland, South Carolina was involved with Hunting for a Cure. Jimmy donated a few turkey hunts and the hunts were purchased by John and Tyler Largen of west Tennessee. Tyler is 11 years old and he and his father just started turkey hunting last year. From hearing Jimmy tell of their experiences turkey hunting in SC, I?d say that they definitely have a few hunts to remember.
Jimmy, Tyler, and John?s first hunt together was on Thursday morning. I asked Jimmy to give me some insight as to what all happened on some of their hunts. It really gets tough towards the end! Jimmy has described some of the memories of the few days of hunting below:
Our first hunt was on Thursday morning and we got in really tight on a nice tom. I took my wing out and did four ?Fly downs? with it and the long-beard immediately hammered! He flew down, but no matter what, he was not coming our way. He headed in the opposite direction so we pulled up and moved a half mile down the road. After we moved we heard two birds gobbling really well. So, we set up on the two birds that were gobbling. We called to them and they would gobble back at the calls really well, but they must have been with hens because they would not come near the area we were hunting. In time, they got quiet and we had not heard them for about an hour. We decided to move about a 100 yards and make a new set up. As you would imagine, when we stood up and walked to the decoys the birds flew off!!! They were within 75 yards and where coming in on us silently. I thought to myself that I really blew that one !! At this point, we decided to break for lunch and give John and Tyler time to take a nap because they had arrived late.
John and Tyler Largen on the float trip
We headed back out for the afternoon and set up where we had seen the birds that morning. About 7:00pm I could hear something walking to my right. I looked and saw a Gobbler coming. I was trying to get Tyler turned in that direction so he?d be ready to get his first turkey. About that same time his father, John, turned towards the action and the turkey saw his movement and within moments the bird was gone. Dad had gotten caught! We hunted until dark and came out. We decided we?d try again Friday morning and hoped for better luck.
Friday morning we listened for birds but did not hear any that were within our hunting area. We decided to be creative and do something different since this was a special hunt. We decided to try to float the river! This float trip turned out to be a hunt we would never forget.
In order to do this ?float trip? we needed a boat. After getting my dad?s boat out of the weeds where it has sat for the last 20 years, we made a quick run to Wal-Mart to buy a plug and some paddles. We were excited about our big float trip because the birds seem to gobble really well on the river, but they don?t appear to move too far away from the water. We figured we would just float down the river and call a little and when some turkeys responded, we?d pull the boat up and set up on them.
Jimmy Bradley and the boat After getting everything at Wal-Mart we finally got the boat to the water. Everything started out smooth, then we came to some rocks and I had to get out and pull the boat through. We got back into the boat and got into a good rhythm and were just taking in the whole float trip idea! We weren?t hearing any turkeys calling back, but to be floating down the river turkey hunting seemed neat at this point in time.
I continued calling ever so often, but nothing responded to my calls. Soon enough we came to some more rocks. Here again we had to get out of the boat to pull it through the rocks. We started back on our journey and drifted around a curve and I called some more. Still nothing was responding to my calls. We floated a little ways down the river again and, yes, had to get back out of the boat to pull it through more rocks. We got back on our way and called again and still nothing responded! Then we had to get back out of the boat to pull it past some more rocks! You should be getting the picture by now! By now our ?quick? cruise had lasted 4 hours and we hadn?t even heard a gobble, but we sure had seen a lot of rocks!
While floating down the river we made plans to eat dinner at Beth?s Country Kitchen because pork chops (YUM YUM!) were on the menu and I figured John and Tyler might like that because everyone else in Pageland does. We decided it couldn?t be much further to the bridge where we parked the truck. It didn?t take us long to figure out that we were wrong. We continued to pull the boat down the river which by now seemed to be more rocks than river. We started to get tired so we stopped for a break. When we stopped for a break John dropped his BlackBerry in the river. Our novel idea for a ?float trip turkey hunt? was turning out to be accident prone and more like work than hunting!
The River and The Rocks
Things really went downhill after that. We continued to walk and pull the boat over the rocks and our ?quick? trip ended up being 6 hours long. At the height of all of the bloopers, I slipped on a rock and fell into the only deep spot in the river! I was completely soaked and my wallet, camera, and range finder were soaked too! We realized our ?quick? trip had cut us out of eating pork chops at Beth?s. This was indeed a low-point for the whole squad.
Then we did the unthinkable?We abandoned ship! Due to complete exhaustion, we pulled the boat up into the woods and walked out. Our ?quick? trip ended up lasting 8 hours and I was beaten, battered, and thirsty! The only thing to do in this situation was to laugh about it. We laughed and had fun despite all the river threw at us on our float trip. Shortly thereafter, we went and ate a nice dinner at the Mexican restaurant in Pageland and talked about our fun-filled-day. This was definitely one hunt we will never forget. During the whole river trip we never heard a single gobble! I guess we all have bad days and this was one of mine!
Someone is going to be walking down the river and come up on an old john boat and wonder how it got there. All I can say is take it?It?s yours! You haul it out and you got a boat?.that is, if you get back to it before I do!
Even though no turkey was harvested on their trip, Jimmy the guys definitely had a trip to remember. I?m glad that I didn?t have to haul the boat over all those rocks, but I?ve done similar things before in my life! Jimmy says John and Tyler were troopers even through the blunders of the last day of hunting. So congratulations to them for being soldiers in the backwoods of SC!
Though the last day of hunting turned out pretty rough, we applaud Jimmy for donating a trip to Hunting for a Cure and also encourage you to do so if you can. If you would like to get involved with Hunting for a Cure, contact [email protected] and tell them we sent you.
In the mean time, I think I may go and find me a free john boat!
Regards,
Clint
Recently we?ve posted some trail cam pics of turkeys and mentioned that we were getting after them and would elaborate further when the time was right. Well, the time is now right and we?ve got some good news to share.
On random weekends and throughout the week over the past month we?ve been hunting with Jamie and Jacob Satterfield from the TV show ?Southern Outdoor Experience?. You all see where we attempt to get turkeys & deer on camera, but these guys have a real TV show and they hunt in style if you know what I mean.
We were in contact with Jamie and Jacob and had lined up some hunts with them as we prepared for turkey season. Every time they came down the birds were out and about, but getting a shot on them proved to be difficult. I like to say its ?Murphy?s Law? that whenever you take a camera hunting that nothing will move. Though, these guy?s camera is a just a little bit different than mine if you catch my drift.
Jamie and Jacob returned this past weekend to hunt again. While Garth and I were checking things out in Washington, Will and Adam stayed home to do some turkey hunting. We were all crossing our fingers hoping that they would finally get a good shot on a bird. From my perspective, I was sleeping in DC and I start getting flooded with text messages from Will saying ?Big Bird Down, Big Bird Down? and I knew what that meant. I was sleepy and yet excited. It wasn?t long before I got the post game from Will and he told me the story of the hunt.
Will said they arrived early and Jamie placed 2 hen decoys about 15 yards out in front of them. They started calling a little after sunrise. He said initially they heard some gobbles in the distance, but after a while it calmed down and there was a long period with no sign of a turkey anywhere nearby. Then, along about 8:15 or so, Will spotted a bird down in the right corner of the field. The turkey was walking out from the woods into the edge of the field. The bird turned out to be a really nice gobbler and Jacob started calling. When the turkey heard the call, he perked his head up as if to see where the sound came from. Will said that when tom perked his head up, he saw the decoys and immediately sprinted about 50 yards directly to the hen decoys. Of course this was the perfect set up for the S.O.E. crew to get a good South Carolina turkey on film. Will said that the turkey came right in and got really close to the decoys and was strutting his stuff big time. Then Jacob took the bird while the camera was rolling! It turned out to be the perfect hunt. After the hunt, Will said that Jamie and Jacob did some cut-away shots and some a wrap-up segment and that was it.
I could tell Will was excited and Jamie even emailed me a picture of the bird while I was away. When I got the email I saw what all the hype was about. They got a nice turkey and hopefully some nice footage. In time, we hope to see the hunt on TV somewhere and if we do, we?ll make a fuss about it over here of course.
Now Will was rolling some film during the hunt, but we didn?t want to potentially mess up their hunt fidgeting around trying to capture the bird on film. We also don?t want to post any footage that they may put on their show. So, in the blow video you will see the set-up and then the post game segment after the turkey is down. There is a blatant gap where the bird approached and kill-shot happened. Obviously we don?t want to spoil anything for S.O.E. So, given the constraints, here?s the video that we are airing.
You may wonder what Jamie and Jacob are like being that they hunt on TV and all that. These guys are just as down to earth as the next and are easy going, good people. They were very appreciative and thankful to us for taking them hunting. You wouldn?t know they were on TV if you just met them on the street. Overall, it took a few times and some patience, but in the end Jacob was able to get a good South Carolina turkey.
The next day brought another hunt and another turkey?more to come.
After the showing we had yesterday, we all felt like we couldn?t do any worse if we went back out again today. Though, after we hunted yesterday, Adam went and bought a new slate and a diaphragm call. He was pumped up about practicing calling birds in and I think he even went hunting yesterday afternoon just to see if he could get one to talk back to him. Adam is pretty driven and when he gets something in his mind to do, then he usually works at it until he gets it done. I have no doubt that he?ll be a good turkey caller before too long and his efforts today yielded some pretty impressive results. Keep in mind that this was his first time turkey calling without a deer antler.
We all met early again over at my place and headed out. We didn?t drop the striker for the slate on the way in this time so already it was a success in comparison to yesterday?s hunt. This morning we didn?t hear many turkeys gobbling from the trees in the dark like we did yesterday. We got set up and had our two decoys out in front of us. We sat and waited and could hear one turkey gobbling way off in the distance to our left. He was very talkative, but remained at a distance and didn?t seem to get any closer as a response to Adam?s calling.
In time, the sun had risen and was up really high and we still hadn?t seen a turkey. We were a little frustrated at the lack of action, especially since we actually brought the slate striker today! We talked a little in between ourselves and even thought about leaving. Then Adam looked at us and said ?Hey, patience kills turkeys? (referencing to a quote that Mr. Puette told me only a week earlier). I said, yep ? you?re right and we decided to stay in another hour just to see what would happen.
We sat and sat and the temperature started to warm up some. Due to their positioning, Will and Adam couldn?t see as well as I could. I had a better perspective so I was constantly scanning the tree line looking for any movement. After a while, I saw something directly across the field from us that looked like the shape of a turkey, but it was so far away that I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me much like they do when deer hunting. I ?whisper-yelled? at the guys and said ?Throw me the binoculars? and they reached to get the binoculars, but before they could grab them I saw the turkey move. I repeated ?there he is, there he is, can you see him?? and they immediately perked up. I could clearly see the turkey, but it took a few minutes before he came into Adam and Will?s view. Adam was randomly hitting the slate call and I told him to talk to the bird. He started slowly ?purring? at the bird and instantly the turkey puffed his feathers up. I whisper-yelled again ?Can you see him? and by this time they had him clearly in their line of sight. We were all excited and the bird was headed our way.
Adam kept lightly striking the slate call ever so often as the gobbler slowly strutted his stuff across the field. It was awesome. He would walk for a bit, then puff his feathers up and walk some, then like deflate and then puff up again. It was like a cycle that he went through and he did this 3 ? 4 times within the minutes that he strutted across the field. There was no doubt that this turkey was hearing what Adam was doing and responding to it. Even once the turkey stopped and gobbled real loudly in response (and you can hear it on the video if you turn the volume up). We were all glued to our seats as this big boy was strutting in the field like he owned it. The bird was coming closer and closer.
As the turkey got closer I noticed that I started getting some shakes going on ? the same kind of rush you get when a big buck walks out in front of you. My heart began to beat more as the turkey responded and kept drawing in closer to us. It was neat to watch this bird come out from about 200 yards away and come directly towards us. I really thought that we were going to get some great footage of a kill shot.
Finally, the turkey got close enough to us and he stopped and perked his head up. He saw our decoys and when he saw the decoys his whole demeanor changed. The turkey came up from the other side of a small hill. It wasn?t until he topped the crest of the hill that he could see the decoys. As soon as he saw the decoys he started walking differently. He seemed to be more in a hurry and then he went hard to the left and was seemingly pacing back and forth for a minute or so. He did this twice and then made a b-line for the trees. As rookie hunters we really have no clue why the turkey did this, but our current theory is that when this turkey saw the decoys he felt that the male decoy was larger than him and got intimidated and immediately fled the scene. The turkey we were calling had a beard, but it wasn?t a huge one. This is what makes us believe this notion.
After the turkey went back into the woods we were all just sitting there deconstructing what had just taken place before us. We were all pumped and excited and we all felt that same rush. It was a pretty intense few minutes for some novice turkey hunters. Again, we sat for a little while and then two more birds came from the corner. I spotted them and then we went back into stealth mode in the woods. Though, these two birds were just feeding and were hens. They came out in the field and worked their way past us. This was fine with us and we tried to give them time to leave, but we were ready to go. We got up and I interviewed Adam and during the interview Will saw the hens working back down. We paused the video to try to get closer and call them in, but had no luck.
All in all I think it was a much better hunt than yesterdays. To see the turkey blow his feathers up like that and come across the crest of that hill was a neat scene for me and one I won?t forget. I hope to see that again in my life! We headed back to the truck and yet again to Bojangles. I don?t know if it?s a good thing to tell the wife-to-be, but I think I may have caught turkey fever!
You'll best see this video if you blow it up to full screen and watch in 720p, but give it time to load
With turkey season opening up this past week I had been looking to go turkey hunting with someone because I?d never been before. I?ve got a friend who?s big into turkey hunting in York, some friends who turkey hunt in Chesterfield, and some in Pageland, but for whatever reason I couldn?t get anything lined up. I called up fellow Central High Football Coach Craig Hatcher and told him to put feelers out with some of his hunting buddies and see if he could line anything up. Craig called me back a day later and said that he?d searched high and low and that it turned out that he could get me a turkey hunt with one of the best hunters around. Bruce Puette is a great outdoorsmen and is also a teacher in Pageland. He?s also taught in Cheraw and I?ve always heard stories about how good of an all around hunter he is. My dad has told me on several occasions that Bruce knows his stuff when it comes to hunting?and after my first turkey hunt with Bruce, I have to agree.
I called Mr. Puette on Good Friday and we lined everything up for the hunt. I asked him when and where he wanted me to meet him. He told me to meet him at the Exxon gas station in Wallace, SC at 5:00 am! If you?re not from South Carolina or if you?re from different areas of South Carolina, it takes about 40 minutes to drive to Wallace from Pageland. Wallace is right across the county line and is located in Marlboro County. The Pee Dee River (where we caught those catfish last weekend) is the county line. Once you cross the bridge you have left Chesterfield County and are in the city of Wallace. Anyway, to arrive at the Exxon station at 5:00 am, I would have to get up at 4:00 am. When I talked to Mr. Puette on the phone I was just excited about lining the trip up and wasn?t really thinking about the timing. After we hung up, I thought to myself that I would have to wake up at 4:00 am just to get there. Bruce said he liked to get out there early which meant that I wasn?t going to get much sleep. For some reason I just can?t go to sleep until late. I usually end up online doing something and can?t get free until late. I tried to go to bed early, but still couldn?t. I went to sleep around 11:45 and rolled out at 4. It wasn?t that bad initially.
I drove down to Wallace in the truck and met Mr. Puette at the Exxon station. We pulled up at the same time and got some drinks and then headed out. We drove a few miles and ended up at one of his hunting locations. I thought that it was a good sign that we saw 2 deer cross the road in front of us as we were driving to our hunting location. We dropped our trucks off not too far from the gate and then started walking. We walked in by the moonlight and Mr. Puette was telling me about his hunting land as we walked in. It was a pretty long walk to our final destination. Mr. Puette had come out the night before and watched where the turkeys went to roost and they had gone to roost behind where the ground-blind was set up.
The area we were hunting backed into a swamp and he said that the turkey?s like to roost near the water because no bobcats or anything will mess with them when they?re over the water. As I got situated in the blind, Mr. Pruette put out 2 decoys about 15 yards ahead of us to our right. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Puette came back in and we got situated in the blind. I backed my chair up into a corner of the blind. We were there really early and it was still dark outside. We just sat in the ground blind and talked for a while. Mr. Puette was telling me that he had gotten up early that morning and read Jeremiah 33:3 which reads ?Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.? We talked briefly about this verse and we talked about all kind of stuff. It seems Mr. Puette woke up at 4:00 am too and was reading the bible while I was on my way.
As the sun started to come up we could see 3 deer way out in the field. I tried to get them on camera, but the lighting was so bad that I couldn?t get them in focus + they were way out there. As we talked in the ground blind, Mr. Puette told me that patience is what kills turkeys, not turkey calling. He said ?Patience kills turkeys, not great calling?put that in your blog.? He said that you don?t have to be a great caller to get turkeys to come in; you just have to be patient. He said that his patience while hunting turkeys has made him more successful than his ability to call them in. Though, from sitting in the blind with him, I?d say that he?s not too bad of a caller either. Throughout our turkey hunt he used a slate call and a diaphragm call.
The light was starting to slowly shine through the trees and Mr. Puette started calling with the slate call. Off in the distance we could hear turkeys responding back to his calls. He would call a little, listen a little, call a little, and listen a little. I would say that about 70% of the times he called there was some kind of response. Slowly but surely, the sounds of the responding turkeys was getting closer and closer. We initially heard these turkeys responding back to us around 7:30 am. In time, the sounds got louder and closer and finally we spotted the first turkey that entered the field. It came out to our right about 50 yards down the edge of the field and was headed straight to the middle of the field. It was a hen and it seemed as if the decoys spooked it because it started a quick trot out to the field after it cleared the edge. (In the video I say it was a Jake, but I was wrong?the first turkey was a hen) We couldn?t really understand why the decoys may have spooked the turkey, but we were still hearing more turkeys behind us on both sides. Randomly we would hear gobbles coming from the right and the left.
As we were situated in the blind, we were looking out of mainly 2 windows. I had a window right beside me to my left and then there was one straight ahead of me that I could see out of. There was also a window behind me, but I was backed into the corner and couldn?t really see out of it without turning completely around. Though, Mr. Puette could see out of it easily.
We kept hearing calls and then 3 more turkeys entered the field from the same direction as the first one had. This group was a group of Jakes (young males). They did the same thing as the first turkey did?they kind of ran out to the middle of the field. This was puzzling us. Soon thereafter another Jake darted into the field following the first three. We had 4 turkeys out in front of us and then we saw 2 more coming from way out down the left side of the field as well. The sun was up by now and we could see well. The mixed group of hens and jakes was out in the middle of the field, but no big gobblers had come yet. At first glance we thought some of those Jakes were big ones, but after seeing them out in the open we could tell that they weren?t mature birds. Mr. Pruette even had his gun up on one of them, but then took it back down when he saw the bird wasn?t big enough. They were close enough to shoot, but that wasn?t what we were looking for.
We sat there and whispered to each other about the locations of the turkeys. Mr. Puette had been saying that the big boys won?t be too long behind the hens and Jakes. The group of turkeys had been out in the field for about 20 minutes now and Mr. Puette told me that this was the time-frame when most turkey hunters mess up. He said that there was always this time in between when the hens get out and when the big gobblers arrive. He told me that most people don?t see any big beards on the males and so they ?overcall? or start calling too much. This is where his lesson on patience was tying back in to our actual hunt. So we sat and watched the turkeys out in the field for a while.
The majority of the turkeys that were in the group out in the field entered from our right side. So we kept looking out the right window just waiting on a big gobbler to arrive from the same direction. Well, we never saw or heard any more turkeys from our right. Matter of fact, we hadn?t heard anything gobble for some time now. I was beginning to think that we wouldn?t see a good turkey. It had been a good while since we heard any kind of turkey sound at this point. Then Mr. Pruette leaned over in the ground blind to grab something. I don?t know if he was grabbing for crackers or for a different kind of turkey call because he had a few different types of calls in his bag. As he leaned over, I heard something moving in the woods behind us. Since I had never been turkey hunting before, I didn?t have an idea of what a turkey sounded like walking through the brush. Mr.Puette leaning down gave me the space to swivel and look out of the window behind me. When I turned around all I could see was feathers about 15 yards behind us. I got excited and started tapping Mr. Pruette really hard. I didn?t want to talk because I didn?t want to scare off the birds because I knew at least one of them was big. So I was tapping him and pointing behind me while trying to be quiet. He looked out of the window and saw the bird and his eyes got real big. I grabbed the camera and turned it on. As he grabbed his gun, I stuck the camera out of the blind and was literally just pointing it behind us in hopes of getting the bird on video. I wasn?t satisfied with ?hoping? to get the shot on video so at the last second, I brought the camera back in the blind and videoed Mr. Pruette taking the shot. You?ll see it in the video below. He said ?Big Beard, Got?em?. We sat for a second and made our way out of the blind. Mr.Puette made the shot somewhere around 8:00 am.
Sure enough, Mr.Puette had dropped him in his tracks about 15 yards away from us. It was a nice turkey, but what surprised me was how this turkey got in on us and wasn?t gobbling at all. He was just walking through the woods quietly. Mr. Pruette told me that there were 3 birds in this last group and Mr. Pruette took the biggest one. We got out of the blind and the big group of turkeys was still in the field. They didn?t really scatter until we started walking out beyond the edge and then I saw how fast a turkey can really run. We walked up to the bird and took some pictures and continued rolling the video. The beard was a nice one and the spurs were about 1 inch or so. Mr.Puette said the beard was a nice one and that it was so big that it looked like a paint brush. After looking at the bird, we got the decoys up and headed back towards the trucks. As we walked back to the trucks we saw all kind of turkey and deer tracks and we even saw more turkeys down some old logging roads. We literally had birds all around us.
Let me deviate for a moment and say that had it not been for the Thermacell we had in the ground blind, I don?t know if we could have made it. I didn?t realize this until we got out to go and look at the bird. We turned it on about 10 minutes after we got there and I was glad that we did. Those things really work! I was getting eat up by bugs as soon as we got out of the blind.
I was really glad that Mr.Puette had allowed me to go turkey hunting with him. I would say that we had a pretty good time, especially for my first turkey hunt ever! I learned a lot about how to turkey hunt from Mr. Puette and it was a trip that I?ll never forget.
I guess all the stories I?d previously heard about Mr. Pruette being a great outdoorsman were true.
If you want to see the birds, it?s best if you watch this video in the HD format (720 p) and blow it up full screen. These controls are in the bottom of the player.... you'll probably need to give this one some time to load though.