Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
We are excited to announce that two of our WeHuntSC.com members are now Pulsar Pro-Staff members. Adam Smith and Clint Patterson were recently selected to the Pro-Staff team and we are excited to see what 2019 has in store. As you may have seen in our posts, our team has been doing a lot of night hunting lately and we use Pulsar scopes on our setups. We’ve been putting a lot of time into the images and videos we share from the hunts and Pulsar has recognized.
Adam and I look forward to learning more about Pulsar’s vision for the future of night hunting, thermal optics, and to learning more about Pulsar products. If you are interested in Pulsar’s products and/or want to know more about our setups feel free to reach out.
Learn More:
Kelleytown Baptist Church in Hartsville, SC is hosting a free event that you should know about. The Sportsman's Banquet and Take-a-Kid Fishing Tournament will be held Friday, June 2nd & 3rd. See the below flyer for more information.
Download the Event Flyer Download Detailed Schedule flyer.
The 2017 Predator Challenge was another successful event. We had hunters from SC, NC, & VA competing this year with a total of 86 teams and 281 hunters. We had been preparing to both host and participate in the competition all year and looked forward to its arrival. Out of all the years we’ve hosted the event it seemed like this year saw the most activity and movement from coyotes. Everyone we talked to seemed to have enjoyed the event regardless of how many coyotes they ended up getting on the ground.
Sponsor Thanks As many of you know and as we mentioned yesterday at the check-in we don’t charge a fee for the competition and we don’t make money from it. We are regular hunters just like you who hope to protect our deer, turkey, duck, and others species for future hunters. (Hunting coyotes also helps protect local farmer’s livestock).
We would not be able to host the competition without the generous donations from our sponsors. They donate their products and services for free for the winners. They don’t have to do this! We ask that you patronize the sponsors by buying your goods, products, and services from them. Be sure to be vocal about our appreciation for their sponsorships. Without the sponsors we would not have a competition.
Competition Volunteers Thanks Hosting a competition is not an easy task. There are tons of details to consider, emails to be sent, sponsors to connect with, hunters to explain (and re-explain) rules to, etc. You get what I’m saying… a competition doesn’t just host itself. With that said I’d like to also thank Gavin Jackson and Adam Smith. Gavin and Adam are the main guys behind making the competition possible. They stalk and wrangle sponsors, handle the Facebook promotions, constantly talk with hunters, promote the competition to everyone, build the check-in setup, handle the weighing of coyotes, and handle all the details that you don’t see on the surface. If you all see, know, or communicate with these guys be sure to thank them.
Did Changing the Date Result in Better Numbers? Based on feedback from last year’s competition participants we moved the competition from January to March. This was done for the sake of listening to our participant’s feedback. This change allowed for the use of night vision for hunting coyotes as SCDNR has implemented a night-hunting program where hunters can register their lands for night hunting and use infrared and/or thermal optics to hunt coyotes.
Moving the competition to March ran the risk of much warmer weather, but we lucked out this year as it was cool the entire weekend. We were interested to see how moving the competition would affect the numbers at the check-in. Of course, there are more variables than just the time of year, but we really can’t control the weather. We anticipated a good turnout at the check-in as we received messages during the competition of people seeing a lot of coyotes while they were hunting. It seemed they were moving well this past weekend. It would turn out that we had a total of 57 coyotes checked-in, which is more than all previous years combined. Whether it was changing the competition from January to March or just a lucky streak of movement we don’t know, but we were pleased with the outcome.
Competition Winners This years winners were:
First Place – Jim Shepherd, Concord, NC - 12 Coyotes
Second Place – Carolina Coyote Slayers, Denver, NC - 8 Coyotes
Third Place + Big Dawg (42.8 lbs) – Wind Walkers Kryptonite, Lucknow SC – 7 Coyotes
Sportsman's Warehouse Gun Give-Away Winner - Ben McAlister, Monroe NC
Thanks, Surveys, & Video Thanks to everyone who hunted in the competition. We appreciate your support and hope you enjoyed the event. We’ll be sending out emails asking for feedback very soon. We’ll see you next year at the check-in.
This past weekend we had a booth at the 2015 SCDNR Sportsmen’s Classic and we also gave 3 presentations (one each day) on coyote hunting. We had been looking forward to the Classic and preparing for some time so it was good to see March finally roll around. At the event there were hundreds of booths set up and there were products, services, and speakers of all types. It was really amazing and it was also a well organized event.
You can see our booth setup below:
Activity at the Booth We had a lot of good traffic by the booth. Since we don’t do a lot shows there were numerous individuals we met who had never heard of WeHuntSC.com before. We had the coyote competition promo video playing on repeat (shout outs to Yellow Cape Communications for some awesome video work) and as people walked by they would see the video and hear the howl of the coyote and check things out. Several coyote hunters said they’d never heard of the competition and that they would definitely be entering it this coming year and some even said they would be the next winners!
One thing that was really amazing to me was to see how many farmers, turkey hunters, and deer hunters stopped by our booth and showed pics of dead coyotes on their phones. These people weren’t specifically coyote hunters yet they had pics of them on their phones. Regardless of the type of hunter nearly everyone at the show had pics of coyotes and I think that is very telling. We all recognize that coyotes are prevalent across the state and to see the evidence first hand from outdoorsmen from around the state just validated it for me.
We even had people stop by and thank us for what we’re doing… that is trying to work to raise awareness for what coyotes are doing across the state & motivate people to start hunting coyotes. Several individuals shook our hands and told us to “Keep up the good work”. Overall we had a good location with good foot traffic and the booth side of the show was a good experience for everyone.
Celebrities at the Event There were also a number of celebrities or famous people on TV at the event. The crew from Lizard Lick towing were on hand, Captain Wild Bill from the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" was there, and Bruce from "Swamp People" was there as well. We were even able to get a quick pic of Sam with Bruce.
Presentation Recap Each day at the event we also gave sessions on “Intro to Coyote Hunting”. We had an average of 22 people at the sessions and the sessions seemed to go well. We fielded lots of questions and you could definitely sense the feeling that the people in the room really cared about the coyote problem. We provided background information on coyotes and also tips on how to get started hunting coyotes. I’m going to post some subsequent blogs on each topic we covered in the presentation later this week. We also had a few organizations inquire about if we would speak to their groups about coyote hunting. If you are interested in that then please let us know and we can line something up.
See You Online & At The Check-In We were glad to be able to participate in the 2015 Sportsmen’s Classic. It was great to meet a lot of new hunters and connect with other outdoor organizations in the state. We hope to be able to do it again sometime. In the meantime we’ll see you online at WeHuntSC.com & hopefully at next year’s Coyote Competition check-in!
For the past few years we’ve been hosting a Predator Challenge in hopes of reducing the coyote population, raising awareness for the sport of predator hunting, and raising awareness for the damage that coyotes are doing to game populations around the state. Thus far the check-in location has been at the Sportman’s Warehouse right off of I-26 in Columbia. Columbia serves as a central location where everyone can drive the least distance to check-in their predators and have a good time meeting other hunters and networking.
This year we’re still meeting right off I-26 except this time we’ll be meeting right behind the Sportman’s Warehouse at a new location called Catch and Release Sportsman’s Consignment. Catch and Release is a new store and has been growing really fast. We’re happy to partner with Catch and Release to host the 2014 Predator Challenge check-in at their location. We think you’ll like the check-in being hosted at the new location.
Last night I did a quick interview with Blakely Byrd, owner of Catch and Release Sportsman’s Consignment, to get a better understanding of what Catch and Release is and to get to know more about her in general. The interview is here below.
We hope to see you at the check-in! Register your team today and join us in reducing the coyote population in SC and beyond.
Regards,
Clint
This upcoming weekend is a big weekend for SC hunters and the city of Florence, SC. If you want to shop around, see the latest trends in outdoor clothing, artillery, weaponry, and everything in between just before hunting season gets here, then be sure to check out the Pee Dee Deer Classic as well as Schofields Annual Classic Extravaganza Event on Saturday July 28th!
For more information on the Pee Dee Deer Classic, just check out their web site at http://www.peedeedeerclassic.com
I hope this blog post finds you doing well, shooting coyotes when you can, and preparing for turkey hunting season. I'm working in the background on some updates to the site and I'm hoping to push them out this summer. It's keeping me pretty busy to be honest.
I wanted to announce some good news and ask for your support. One of our biggest sponsors on the site has been McKenzie Outdoors who has sponsored several competitions giving their Scent Fan Duffle Bags to our winners.
The scent fan duffle bag has recently gained some attention from the market and is currently in the running to be "on the shelf" at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is seeking feedback from consumers as to which products consumers actually want to see on the shelves. This is a great opportunity for a fellow SC outdoorsman to make some traction with his product and we're excited for Eddie McKenzie and his crew at McKenzie Outdoors.
We're rallying the troops to support McKenzie Outdoors by casting votes either by cell phone or through Facebook. The voting period lasts for 1 month. You can cast one vote per day so if you get a second and remember it, be sure to help support one of our most dedicated site sponsors.
Cast your vote here: http://getontheshelf.com/product/3069/Scent-Fan-duffle
More info on McKenzie Scent Fan Duffle - http://www.mckscent.com
Hello everyone! It's been a while since I have posted and just this past week something hit very close to home. The article below happened right across the river from our hunting land in Laurens County. We have killed a few hogs on our own land so this was very scary. My Dad called the Laurens County Department Health Department to confirm this and called our Game Warden we are friends with who said this type of disease 'brucellosis' is all over the state of South Carolina with hogs. I highly recommend you all read it and take the necessary precautions when hog hunting. What are your thoughts?
Man Hospitalized With Illness After Hog Hunting Trip