On the morning of August 16th I was heading into hunt. Here in the low-country deer hunting season comes in earlier than in most area. On this particular morning I was running a few minutes behind.. I rushed to grab my Cross Over Camo from of my Mckenzie Scent Fan Duffle bag.  The unique pattern of CrossOver Camo combined with the scenting abilities of the McKenzie Scent Fan Duffle bag meant I would be well camouflaged and smelling strongly like the scent of a pine tree.  I also sprayed my snake boots down with Atsko?s scent killer to help minimize any human scent or scent from my vehicle.

 

 My scent and gear were under control I was ready to head in. I grabbed my flash light and headed out in to the darkness.  As I was walked down the edge of a corn field toward my stand I heard a loud crash just ahead of me.  I shinned my light in the direction of the sound and there were two does standing in the edge of the corn looking back at me. 

	First Coyote

As I continued walking I thought to myself that this early encounter was a good sign that the deer were moving.

 

 I arrived at my stand at 5:45. By this time I could see into the wide open field, but it was that time where the light was bright enough to see but not bright enough to make out exactly what I was seeing.  Objects looked somewhat fuzzy as I scanned the edge of the field.  I thought I could see movement but I wasn't sure what it was. The sun finally began to peek over the tree tops when I looked straight in front of me. I saw something moving about 150 yards away.  I was getting excited to see movement since it was the second day of the season and the sight of a deer walking out in front of my stand was a sight I had not seen since in a long time. I flipped the camera on and zoomed in on the object. It turned out the animal was actually a coyote. I have never seen a coyote when I?ve been deer hunting before. I actually had to take a double take thinking maybe it was a house dog, but as it moved closer toward me I was sure it was a coyote.  As I was picked up my rifle the coyote started to lie down in the field.  I decided to watch it for a minute to see what it was going to do. After a few minutes of lying on the ground, I decided I was going to take the shot. Just as I was about to pull the trigger it got up and darted into the woods after the other coyote standing in the edge of the woods. I was thinking to myself I should have shot earlier while I had the chance. About 5 minutes later a bigger coyote emerged from the woods. The first coyote returned and they started playing with each other running around in circles. They played for a bit, but when the big one stopped I took the shot. I reloaded and tried to stop the other one as it ran straight toward me but I couldn't get a shot on it. I enjoyed watching them, but I?m also glad I got the opportunity to take one out. They are a big problem around the area I hunt.

 

 

I have also been filming a few deer since the start of the season. The problem I?m facing this year is the deer are walking right at dark. I can see them through my scope but it?s too dark to film a lot of the deer I have been seeing thus far. I?m going to keep after?em though and hopefully I?ll be able to get some good film in the near future.

 

 

Derek

 

 

This season has been full of ?first? birds. I have taken 4 new hunters with me and some have taken their first spring gobblers. Going on these hunts is really enjoyable anytime someone gets their ?first? of any wild game.

	Sams First Turkey

Since we?re in the low-country of SC, turkey seasoned opened March 15th for our club. The night before the season opener a good friend of mine named Sam ("The coon hunting guy") and I decided to stay the night at the club house in order to get a good spot the next morning. We arrived at the club house around 10:30 to the sight of a large fire burning and three guys sitting around it trying to stay warm. We got out of the truck and Sam Introduced me to the other members of the club. By the end of the night it felt like I had known them my entire life. We all sat around the fire telling stories of different hunts that we have partaken in; everything from ducks to deer to turkey hunts. After an hour or two we took our gear into the bunk room and got setup for bed. We set the alarms for 4:00am. The next morning everyone sleeping in the house woke up at 4:00 o?clock to the sounds of five different alarms going off simultaneously. After a quick breakfast snack we arrived in a spot we had roosted two gobblers a few days before. When day light broke the horizon I hit the owl call, but didn?t get an answer back. This happened for about 15 minutes. Sam and I were stunned that the birds would not answer. We decided to just sit down and do a little bit of calling. Just after putting out a hen decoy and sitting down at the base of a tree, I started to call softly with my slate call. Sam turned and asked if I heard a gobble in the distance. I responded "No I was calling and couldn?t hear anything." Sam was sure that he heard a bird so we got up and started to make our way in that direction. After walking about 300 yards we heard a hen yelping right on top of us. Before we knew it we had to drop to the ground in the middle of the road because we had a bird right on top of us. A jake came out to the edge of the road and I told Sam to take a shot. Sam shot one time and missed and finished the bird with a second round as it was running down the road. I don?t think that the jake we shot was the bird that gobbled earlier that morning. Even though the hunt didn?t turn out the way we planned, with us setup to film the bird coming in Sam still got his first bird on the ground. If everything happened according to plan they wouldn?t call it hunting.
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Denny And Danny

	11 In. Beard 1 In. Spurs

My father?s good buddy Danny also got to harvest his first turkey on the opening weekend of turkey season. It was early Sunday morning and we made our way to a different piece of property. We all got out of the truck and walked down a little dirt road. By the time we got to the half way there was enough light to hit the owl call. We had three different birds answer us! We rushed down the remainder of the curved road and got to a little hard wood bottom where we expected the turkeys to come to. Well once again it didn?t happen as I had planned. As soon as we got set up we heard hens start yelping in the same area where the gobbles came from. I thought to myself these birds are probably already ?henned up? and wouldn?t leave the hens. After about an hour of listening to the birds gobble on that cool spring morning, they finally shut up. They wouldn?t gobble to any type of call we tried. I didn?t have time to stay there and hunt. I headed out to worship service back in Charleston. About 11:00 am I got a picture message from my dad of a bird. I called him and he explained that they setup of a food plot that was still growing from deer season. After an hour and a half of sitting patiently the birds emerged from the bottom making their way to the food source. Three gobblers came strutting into the decoys. Danny slowly rose up his gun and set his sights on one of the gobblers. He took one shot and it was a solid hit!
Danny had never been in a turkey hunt before. He told us that "it was the most exciting hunt he has ever been on." Danny said it was a big adrenaline rush watching the gobblers strut 25 yards in front of them, and he couldn?t wait for the bird he wanted to clear the decoys for a shot. The bird weighed 19 pounds had 1 inch spurs and a 10.75 inch beard. The key to that successful hunt was patience because If they would have tried to get closer to the birds after they stopped gobbling, the turkeys may of spooked and the hunt would of been over. Instead they knew the turkeys? patterns and cut them off while they were going to feed.
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	Wildlife Energy Shots

This past Saturday Kyle Dyson and I had the opportunity to take Ryan Parson hunting with us. Ryan has never killed a turkey and was excited to give it a shot! Friday night Kyle and Ryan stayed the night at my house in order to get an early start the next morning. Not being able to decide where to hunt, we flipped a coin between the Wee Tee reserve and the ?Hell Hole?, both of which are government associated. The coin landed heads so the next morning we took our Wildlife Energy Shots and headed out to Wee Tee. At only 2 Fl ounces the energy shots blow the competition out of the water, they kept us wide awake and alert all morning! I had only been to the area we hunted once before during this past deer season. Because we were unfamiliar with the area, we left earlier than normal to get there on time. When we arrived at the gate there were two guys that were riding into the darkness on bikes. We all chuckled at the sight of the two guys riding bikes to hunt, but we soon found out they were smarter than we were. We started walking down the road at 5:00 am and didn?t stop until 6:15. Part of the reason it took us so long was because the property had changed so much from deer season. Everything was green and there was water everywhere we walked. We had to weave our way through the dry patches of the swamp to find areas we could walk across without getting wet. While we were walking the three of us crunched leaves and sticks with every step, we kept spooking birds out of there roost. We scared at least 10 different birds out of the trees on the way in. I knew that wasn?t a good thing but at least we knew that there were turkeys nearby. When we finally stopped walking we hit the owl call and heard 2 gobblers within 200 yards (at least we thought it was about 200 yards) from us. We walked a little further and hit the call. It sounded like they were across the flooded part of the swamp. We all decided to get closer in hopes of having the gobblers fly down on our side on the water. By this time the sunlight shining through the trees was good and revealed the beautiful bottom we were standing in. Kyle and Ryan sat down on trees adjacent to each other. I went to put out a decoy about 25 yards in front of our setup. As soon as I pulled the decoy out of my vest, we heard a loud Swoosh! The bird spotted me and flew away. It turns out the bird wasn?t 200 yards across the water. It was more like 100 yards and he was on our side of the flooded area. I felt terrible for ruining the hunt especially after walking as far as we did to get to the spot. We didn?t hear another bird that morning.

Knowing where the birds were roosted, we decided to go back to the same location on our next hunt. This time is was very different. We learned from our mistakes and decided to not get so close and let the birds move to us instead of us moving to the birds. When daylight broke we heard 5 different birds sounding off to the sounds of my owl call. We finally got setup and started calling. I began using the slate call and had the birds gobbling for about 30 minutes. Ryan does a vocal hen call using only his natural voice with no help of calls. We told him to give it a try to see if the birds would gobble to it. It turns out they gobbled to his vocals better than they did to the box or slate calls! I was amazed at the sounds he could produce without any calls. I set my calls aside and let him work the birds. After a few more minutes the bird came into sight. The long beard was strutting to the sound of Ryan?s call. He was about 80 yards away when we first saw him gobble. I told Ryan to use a soft cadence to try and lure the bird in and every time he did the bird would answer back with a loud gobble triggering the other 5 birds to gobble as well! It turns out the bird got hung on a flooded part of swamp bottom and wouldn?t cross the slough. Even though we didn?t kill him, it was still a great hunt!

	Kyle(left) And Ryan(Right)

This season I have learned to call less and listen a little more. On top of that I have learned patience is the key to hunting a smart long-beard that may be call shy or spooked easily. Another key to my success this year has been then use of the new CrossOver Camo pattern. The pattern is different from other patterns in that, compared to say mossey oak obsession, CrossOver has a variety of lighter colors. Most camo have the basic greens and browns, but cross over incorporates shades of white and different tans which helps me blend into many different backgrounds. I can stay hidden in pine trees, and swamp bottoms all with one pattern. There is not a camouflage out there that will keep you hidden if you can?t sit still. Without the help of my Thermacell to keep the bugs away I would probably scare off every bird that came into range by swatting bugs away from my face. I?m not sure I could hunt without one after being spoiled with its ability to keep my hunting area bug free.

 

 

Sams First Turkey

 

 

 

 Ryans First Turkey

This turkey season has been a great one and I?m looking forward to a few more good hunts before the season ends.
 

Derek

 

Never would I of thought that staying up late at night and sometimes early into the next morning chasing dogs through the woods would be any fun, but it was surprising how much it appealed to me. One night last week after baseball practice I got a call from some good friends of mine named Sam and

	Sally At The Grand American In Orangeburg

Daniel asking me to go coon hunting with them. Sam had just picked up a new dog and wanted to try tree a coon with him. I like trying out new things so I agreed to ride along. With a chance to get footage for a blog, I had to run home and get my camera before we left. When I got back to Sam?s house they had all their equipment laying on the  tailgate of the truck. I would have never thought that coon hunting could be so expensive and require so much gear. They had 2 tracking collars, a tracking box, a handheld Garmin GPS system with 4 GPS collars, and 3 declarable coon lights, hip boots, and some leashes.

After about a 45 minute ride to Buck Horn Hunting Club in Summerville South Carolina, we finally turned the dogs loose. As soon as we turned the dogs out of the box they began to scan the hardwood bottom for any fresh coon tracks that were nearby. We just sat back and enjoyed the crisp breeze and gazed at all the stars while we waited for the dogs to locate some tracks and/or coons. Coon hunting was very relaxing, that is, until the dogs trailed and treed a coon. Daniel and Sam could pinpoint their dogs and tell me exactly

June Treed

what their dogs were doing. The dogs have different bawls and barks for locating, trailing, and treeing a coon. After the dogs treed the first coon we started to make our way theinto the woods. Looking at the Garmin GPS, the dogs were 320 yards northeast of our position at the truck. The hard part began after we finally arrived at the tree. We had to shine the top of the tree and the tree adjacent attempting to locate a black and gray coon in front of a dark night sky. Shard eyes Sam finally spotted the coon, the boar coon made the mistake to look down into our lights and we caught a glimpse of his glowing eyes. The next stage of the hunt was not for the faint of heart. We put the ringtail in the sights of the .22 and let him have it. He fell out of the tree, and the fight began. The dogs jumped on the coon and grabbed it around its neck until it was dead. It all lasted about 30 seconds. Sam informed me that they do not shoot but 1/3 of the coons they tree. But the dogs needs a reward for all their hard work every once and a while. Walking the dogs out of the woods isn?t as easy as it sounds either. The dog?s leashes kept getting hung up on briars or trees which caused us to constantly stop and untangle the dogs. We finally made it out though and it was a hunt I won?t forget.
 
All and all it was an exciting night filled with dogs bawling in the night time woods and coons being treed. I love relaxing, letting go of all of my everyday stresses and worries, and just listening to the dogs run.

 

 

 

	Camera Tripod

The season was coming to an end and I was looking for a way to get a few deer on the ground before it ended. So Instead of sitting in the stand I tried my luck at a dog hunt. I was invited on this hunt by a buddy that hunts in that area of Santee. 

 

We arrived at the club house to the sound of dogs barking as they were being loaded in the trucks. After signing in and drawing stands we headed out to the woods. Just after the dogs were turned loose they struck a trail. My heart started to pump faster as I heard the dogs moving my way. But in the back of my mind I had doubt, I was sitting on the edge of the of an open field, and I didn't expect any deer to run out in the open. But luck would have it both deer crossed the field.

 

 

 

This hunt was a blast! Surely I am going to attend more dog hunts next season.

It has been a while since my last blog. I have been busy with school, and baseball season starting. I have a couple good hunts to discuss that have video included with them. 

I will start with the deer hunts from the last part of the season. This first hunt was during Christmas break. Our good friend Griffin Crane is in the armed forces and is stationed in Alaska. He had the opportunity to come home for Christmas and visit his family and do a little hunting. Of coarse he was excited about the opportunity to hunt whitetail. He said in Alaska there is phenomenal duck hunting, bear and moose. But whitetail do not reside in the area where he was stationed . Griffin and Rodger Pye were sitting in a box stand looking down a cut road with pine trees on both sides at "Walters" hunt club in Andrews. Ill let the video explain the outcome to the hunt.

Watch In HD (especially the duck video, difficult to make out some of the ducks) 

 After that successful hunt. Rodger decided to take the rifle in hope they got another chance at a doe for the freezer. Luck would have it, about 5-10 minutes later 3 does came out behind the stand, and he got his chance to take a shot at a doe.

 

 

 Nick also had the chance to harvest a doe a few days later. Nick climbed in the stand before day break. He didn't see any movement until  8:00-8:30AM. 4 does wondered out to the corn pile. As nick was setting the camera up and the right angle, and preparing his rifle to take the deer 3 of the does lined up. nick attempted to take 2 with one shot. He dropped one and bloodied the next.

 

 

 

 After nick took a doe for the freezer he wanted his girlfriend to harvest her first deer before the season ended. This was an interesting hunt. Snow is rare here in the low country. Well it began to snow so nick thought with it being so cold the deer would be moving trying to keep warm. Well he was right! Everything was walking that afternoon. Turkeys and deer.

 

 

 Duck Hunting this season was a blast! Well before the season began I purchased a camera mount to fit on the end of my shotgun. I soon figured out how difficult it was going to be to film my hunts. A few problems I had consisted of having to turn the camera on and off record mode according to the birds flying over. Every time I went to throw the gun up I had to make sure the camera was recording to conserve hard drive space on the camera.  Also pointing my gun up to the birds to early was a problem. I would try to film the ducks while they were flying in, but obviously the ducks would flare when I would throw the gun up.

 

 

 

All in all I had a good time filming these hunts to share with y'all. I learned a lot about filming and will use that knowledge for filming next season.

 

The 7 day Waterfowl season is not going as I planned, but I have definitely learned my lesson. This past Saturday, as most of you know, was the opening day for ducks here in South Carolina. Nick and I were excited to get out on the water and try to harvest a few ducks, but due to poor planning and time management, our season hasn?t gone as planned. We don?t like to hunt rivers too often due to the crowds there, so as part of our strategy for duck season Nick and I get on Google Earth and scan the Francis Marion government woods for locations where ducks would reside such as swamps, ponds, etc. When we find a location that looks good we mark the coordinates and punch them in our hand held GPS, ride out to the area, and check it out. Before the season started we executed this plan and marked some spots we wanted to check out. Due to poor time management by Nick and me, we only got around to 3 of the 7 spots we marked down. The days got closer to the season and eventually opening day arrived and we still hadn?t checked out all our previously identified spots. So we grabbed our guns and headed out to one of the spots on Saturday afternoon. (Saturday morning I was unable to hunt because I went to my girlfriend?s North/South game) Well to make things better there wasn?t any water in the swamp we selected to hunt. We had just wasted a trip so we left to visit a spot we knew had water, but a lot of people hunted it and we roosted some ducks. The next morning we went back to the same location, and again, poor scouting got us. The birds were flying all around us but not where we had set up. We didnt kill any birds that morning either. Though, the next morning I went back and set up were we had seen the birds coming out of the roost the day before. On this hunt we finally killed some birds! We ended up with 2 Drakes and a hen.

Throughout all of this we still had fun chasing ducks around in the swamps. One thing I did learn is to get all my scouting in before the season is in!!! We still might not kill any, but at least we know where the birds are lol.

P.S

If anyone is into filming there hunts you need to take a look at Deer Ridge Innovations Camera Mount. It simply attaches to your shotgun, rifle, or bow and you can film anything you shoot at. In the clip below I used it in my duck hunts, and it worked very well! I?m pleased with the purchase and suggest it to anyone trying to self-film. I self-film my deer hunts with a portable camera arm, but this Mount is going to be much easier for me to setup and use in my future hunts. I?m sure y?all will see more videos from me while I use the Deer Ridge Camera Mount.

Deer Hunts This Past Weekend

Trail Camera Bucks This Past Weekend

 

Derek

After our football game last Friday night, Ryan (wide receiver/safety on our team), Katie (my girlfriend), and I headed out towards camp. After driving for about an hour or so we arrived and were eagerly awaiting the next day?s hunt. Early that next morning, five o'clock to be exact, we made our way to the stands. Katie and I went to a two-man stand on a row of pines surrounded by hard woods and Ryan went out to the stand overlooking the cut-down / cut-over. We were optimistic about the hunts and hoped to see some big bucks.

Katie and I got to our stand early and we kept dozing off and waking up until the sunlight started to shine throughout the woods. After sitting for about an hour, a 6 point walked out. Katie, shaking from excitement, grabbed the camera from my hand and began to film! I thought to myself, I think I have found my new camera operator! After filming the buck for a few minutes, Katie put the camera down to enjoy the sight of the deer. Before this point Katie had only seen two little fawns sitting with me during the pre-season. Getting to watch someone see their first deer in the stand and to watch their reaction is one of my favorite hunting experiences. About ten minutes passed and the deer moved out of our shooting lane to a small track of hard woods to our left. Katie asked, "Why didn't you shoot the buck?" I explained to her that we were managing our property and trying to shoot mature bucks with 8 points or better and a spread of at least outside their ears. It was a neat experience and a good day in the stand!

Ryan was sitting in a stand that Nick and I had put up a few weeks earlier. This was also the same stand that I harvested the cow horn from in my pervious blog. Ryan also had a good hunt as he saw 3 does and a 4 point on the corn pile. Having not hunted for a while, Ryan said that he had the "trigger happy fever", but he never did shoot any of the deer, he just enjoyed watching them.

	Atsko Scent Eliminator 4-pack

As I?ve mentioned before we?re really focusing on our scent control this hunting season. This past Thursday I was excited to receive the Astko Scent Eliminator 4-pack. Having great success with the McKenzie Scent Fan Duffle Bag in all my previous hunts, I was excited to try these new scent products as well. The Astko four-pack includes: Body wash, laundry detergent, scent eliminator, and a UV eliminator. The night before my hunt, I washed all my clothes with the laundry detergent and placed them in my McKenzie Scent Fan Duffle Bag. The McKenzie Duffle Bag scents my clothes and acts as a cover scent while the Atsko products kill bacteria and reduces my human scent. Using these two as a combination helps control my scent from the inside out.

Atsko also has another neat product that I?m using?their UV Killer spray. After arriving to my stand, I took my camo out of the McKenzie Scent fan duffle bag and sprayed it down with the UV killer. I used the UV killer spray to lessen any reflection that may be coming from my camo or gear. Regular commercial detergents have brightener dyes in them that, when hit by light, are visible to deer. Just in case my clothing came with any reflective dye or material on them or had any on them from previous washings, I wasn?t taking any chances.

I truly believe that these products had (and are having) a great impact on my hunts. We had deer walk underneath the stand and not even know that we were there! I?ve been close to deer before, but not as much and as frequent as this year! If you want an adrenaline filled hunt, try having deer walk right underneath your feet! Getting that adrenaline rush is what hunting is all about and scent control can make it happen.

Thanks to Dennis Coblentz For Some Of The Footage

 

 

 

Derek

 

 

Just as in my previous blog, we are still concentrating on getting our property right for the upcoming years. By ?getting our property right? I mean we are working on food plots, shooting lanes, and game management. October 10th was a very foggy Saturday morning and I was running late to get in the stand. So instead of sitting in the ?honey-hole stand? as we call it, I choose to sit in a stand closer to camp for sake of time. This stand is also in a good location so I was optimistic about seeing some deer. Three deer have been killed out of it since the start of the season so it has been getting some action. Nick and I have also filmed a good amount of deer from this stand. It?s a two-man stand set up on a logging road and the view from the back of the stand overlooks a cut-over.

Just as you would imagine?a buck came out behind the stand in the cut-over. As I mentioned, it was a very foggy morning and it was really difficult to see out of my scope! I thought to myself that it was just my luck that a deer walk out behind me and then I could barely see him for the fog in my scope. I didn't have my camera tripod that morning so I pulled my camera out of my bag and tried to free hand a little short segment of footage. With the light being low, the deer coming from behind me, and the fog making it difficult to see?I really couldn't tell how big the buck was. At first I thought it was a spike from a distance, but I finally got the camera focused on him. It turned out to be one of the deer we have been looking to harvest for genetics sake. Before I picked up my rifle, I checked and double checked to make sure this was the buck we?d been looking to cull before I made the shot. After I finalized my decision with the help of my camera, I had to stand up and turn around in the stand to make the shot. It wasn?t going to be the best body position to be in for a good shot, but I was able to as I used the back rest to steady my rifle as I placed my crosshairs right in his kitchen. I made the shot at 7:34 and he dropped right on the corn pile. After I got down and made it over to the deer I can tell you that this deer was one of the biggest cow horns I have ever seen! I usually do not shoot small racked bucks but this was interesting because of how big he was and how his horns didn't show that! The deer turned out to be around a four year old buck according to the processor.

That afternoon I went to a climber that I placed on another logging road about 800 yards away from the stand I hunted in that morning. I didn?t see any deer that evening but I did experience something awesome that I have never experienced in deer season. I had about 25-30 hens walk under my stand in a uniform line calling to each other! It was amazing to watch how they act out of turkey season and how much the call. I couldn?t believe what was happening, but I just sat there and watched it all take place beneath me. It was a pretty neat thing to experience and see.

So far in my life, I?ve always hunted with guns. This past Sunday afternoon I attempted my first bow hunt. I ended up perched on a wooden platform about 25 Feet up in the air on the edge of some hard woods. After a little while of sitting I had a small doe walk out. Having never killed a deer with a bow I was going to shoot a doe if it walked out, but once again my camera helped me! I zoomed in on the small deer and noticed that it had little bumps on his head and I knew it was a ?Button Buck?. I thought to myself in three to four years he could be a nice shooter. So I practiced restraint, and didn?t hit the release and let the arrow fly. It was a very close encounter with this deer. He was so close to the stand that I could hear the corn as he mashed it with his teeth. Crunch! Crunch! Even though it was a small deer, that hunt has to been one of the best experiences in my book.

Being so close to the deer and he not even knowing I was there was really neat. Again, I think one of the reasons for that is the McKenzie Scent Fan Duffle Bag. I put my hunting clothes and gear in it for 2 hours before every hunt and it is really working. I even put my gloves and face-mask in it just to be safe. I know that my scent control must be on point if I want to be close to my game and without this bag I may have been winded by this deer. This deer had no clue I was in the woods because I smelled like strong pine and because of this close encounter I got to experience a great first bow hunt.
 

 

 

All in all, it was a great weekend of hunting. I hope to have many more to come.

 

Derek,

 

	New Stand

Early October is here and it is one of my favorite times to hunt whitetails.  We?ve had some successful hunts lately and I?m excited about what the rest of the season holds.  Hopefully the momentum will keep on rolling through the remaining months of deer season.

If you can remember back to last season, I killed one of the nicest bucks I?ve ever had the privilege of harvesting in October.  This season looks to follow the same trend of having a lot of action in October!  The weather is changing and the temperature seems to be dropping lower each day.  I?m a firm believer that the colder the temperature is, the more the deer walk and that seems to hold true so far.  I try to better myself through researching and I?ve read in many magazines and internet articles that early October is the beginning of the rut phase.  In my area of South Carolina (the low-country) the research indicates the rut peeks at the end of October.  At the start of the season I would see a few does or maybe a small buck, but as soon as the cold front came through the deer action seemed to skyrocket!

We?re seeing a lot of deer and it?s always a great feeling to catch some nice bucks on camera.  Though, it?s not as exciting to only see small bucks or deer with bad genetics on your property come through the lens of your camera.  I?ve had a little of both in my past couple of hunts.  We are working on taking the deer out of the herd that have the bad genetics such as these below.  We talked to a hunter that hunts a property that is adjacent to the land we hunt and he said that we are surrounded by a few hunting clubs that can only shoot bucks 8 points or better.  These hunting clubs that surround us prohibit their hunters from shooting non-8 pointers by issuing fines for any deer shot that are less than 8 points.  For this reason, these hunters let all deer walk that are not trophies.  So, deer with bad genetics are breeding every year and spreading around their genes.  We?re going to try to thin those deer out while also trying to keep our deer un-pressured.   This will be a fine line to walk, but we?re going to do our best.  We don?t shoot unless it?s a must and we only walk in and out of the stands to hunt. If we need to take some corn out to the stand?we take it with us on our hunt.  Then after our hunt we go ahead and put the corn out while we are already there instead of leaving and coming back later. Eliminating the number of trips we make to the stand helps in reducing the spread our scent in the area.  

You may also remember my friend Nick.  We hunt together a lot and he?s been in a lot of the videos that I?ve posted here on the site.  Nick and Kevin Pye are also having great success on their hunts this season. Nick hunts on our lease, but he also hunts on his father?s club, which also happens to be close to our lease in Andrews. The first video clip below is Nick hunting at his fathers club.  As you can see, Nick filmed a vast amount of different deer! He had bucks fighting, scraping, and rubbing all over him! Unfortunately nick misses the buck in the video clip, but I say if you haven?t missed?then you haven?t hunted enough!  I?m sure he will have a chance to shoot this monster again at some point. 

Kevin, on the other hand, did not miss the buck that came by him as he sat in a swamp bottom. He had been sitting for only a few minutes and a few turkeys came to the corn pile. While he was getting the camera focused on the hens a nice 10 point came in to view. He only gets a few seconds of the buck on film before he has to make a shot.  He also gets a few other deer on film. I will let the video do the rest of the talking.  

Be sure to watch in HD

 

 

My video was filmed from a stand we just put up last Thursday.  It?s a tripod that is on a long row of pine trees.  At the end of the pines are some thick, hardwoods.  From the action I?ve seen so far I?m hoping this stand will be a good one.

 

 

 

Derek