Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
It was around this time last year when we got the green-light and started the Tecomate Seed Food Plot Journey. The first blog entry aired last January and I didn't know what to expect, but I knew I had a lot to learn. Around 25 blog entries and a year later, we've had some successes, some failures, some lessons learned, some memorable hunts, and some really good looking food plots.
I?ve posted some pictures below of the spring/summer and fall/winter food plots.
Spring
Fall
I'm no guru by far, but even from my little bit of experience over the last year I can tell you that the soil was one of the most important factors in our Food Plot Journey mix. We planted food plots in several different areas and the areas where the soil was best fit for the food plot were the areas where we had the best food plots. Of course rain is crucial, but rainfall is something we can't control. Essentially the soil acts as the "transfer agent" through which your plants will get the nutrients they need to thrive. One of my takeaways will be the quality of the soil. You can get a high quality seed or a low quality seed, but it's all moot if you don't have fertile soil.
If you've been following along then you've seen everything that we've done via video, pictures, and the text in blog entries. I created one last video of some of the before/after shots that happened along the way.
I've had a great time learning, creating, and documenting the food plots in our Food Plot Journey and hopefully I haven?t bored you with it all. A big thanks to Tecomate Seed & the GroundHog MAX for working with us to sponsor the Food Plot Journey.
And if you are on your own "Food Plot Journey" then it won't be long before it's time to start the soil samples again. I know that we're already making plans for the upcoming spring/summer and next fall/winter plots?
Regards,
Clint
I was pumped to see the second season come in and for good reason. The last few weeks have been pretty awesome for me and my gang. We?ve been hunting lakes, swamps, ponds, and beaver holes. We?ve seen ducks in every spot we?ve been to. I want to tell you about a few hunts we?ve had over the past few weeks.
One hunt, that really sticks out in my mind, is the morning my buddy, Cole Lowery, put the smack down on a few geese. It was a COLD morning. The water was frozen, but we were determined to hunt either way. We headed out to a little pond- this pond holds a lot of ducks to be such a small pond. Justin Gainey, Cole, and I decided to break a section of the ice and throw out the decoys. We worked and worked to break up the ice but it would freeze back up as soon as we would get back to the bank. Getting ready for the ducks to fly in, we took a break to talk about how cold it was and how we really had no sense to be out in such cold weather. The birds started chirping and then the ducks started flying in. We busted a few wood ducks. We were pretty pumped about it. The ducks were scattered around us, so Justin and I decided to start picking them up. We laid our guns down and took off into the water to get them. While Justin and I were out in the water gathering the ducks, Cole stood on the bank and guided us in the right direction. I glanced across the field, and all I could see were geese coming right toward us. I was too far from my gun to take off to get it and so was Justin. I started yelling at Cole to get ready because the geese were coming in. All I could do was stand there and watch. Man, that made me sick. They came in pretty as could be, all but landing on the end of Cole?s gun barrel because they were so close. Cole started firing and geese started falling. After the first shot, two geese fell to the ice. Then, he shot two more times and two more geese fell. He reloaded, shot again, and another one dropped. He had reached his limit. We were all so excited. We jumped up and down like we were kids again. All three of us were pumped up about our great morning. Not to mention, it is Cole?s first year of duck hunting and he was very excited. We had so much fun that morning. I can still play it back in my mind like it was yesterday. That was definitely a morning to remember.
The next hunt that sticks out is another morning to remember. It was the cold morning of December 18th. The boys got together and headed down the long, muddy, bumpy road that leads us to the honey hole. We got our gear together and headed on into the beaver hole. We got set up, and it was just a matter of time until we would be seeing some ducks. In no time, the ducks started diving in and we started shooting as fast as we could shoot. At one time, I couldn?t keep my gun loaded. I dry fired more than I fired successfully. It is a rush that I can?t put into words. We shot close to ten minutes straight. I was keeping up with the number of ducks we hit. I yelled out to the boys that we could only kill two more ducks before we reached our limit. The last shots were fired and reaching the limits was taken care of. We had reached six limits of wood ducks. All we could do was sit back and admire them as they flew. We had EIGHTEEN wood ducks and THIRTEEN of them were drakes. We were hyped about our great hunt, but also glad we had reached our limits because between the six of us, we probably didn?t have a full box of shells left. Ducks were laying everywhere. It was such a great hunt and the first time of the season that we all reached our limit. I had to go out of town that morning for a Christmas gathering so I left the cleaning to the other guys. I?m sure they had a few choice names for me that morning.
Another impressive memory is when some friends of mine gave me a call one evening to ask if I wanted to go to Lake Wateree to hunt. Of course, I was ready to be in on the lake action, so I gathered up my lake gear that night. I arrived at their house at 4:00 AM. By 4:15, we, with our gear, were packed into the Trailblazer like a pack of sardines. We finally arrived at the boat landing and started loading all of the gear into the boat. The excitement in the air felt like Christmas morning. The boat's throttle is bad about freezing up when it is that cold. Thankfully, we were prepared for it. We had two clothes hangers ready to rig up to get us to the hole. We were determined to make the best of it and shoot some ducks. We took off across the lake with P-Nut driving the boat... with the clothes hangers. (It was worth the trip just to see this!) We arrived to the lucky log, got the decoys out, and hid away the boat. We were ready to hunt. I had my usual "break time". The set up looked good and the sun was rising quickly. We could see ducks flying above and all around us. We decided to take out a few of those ducks. We killed a few drake woodies. We sat back and were waiting on the mallards to fly in. All of a sudden, P-Nut yelled to Doug to "Call 'em in, man!" P-Nut had spotted three malley birds in the distance. Doug started calling, and the ducks started turning toward us. At first, they came in a little out of shooting range but Doug wasn't going to let them get away. He called them back in. This time they were within shooting range. Everybody sat as still as the tree we were perched on, and it was paying off. When the ducks came into land in the decoy spread, we rose up and fired. All I could see was three ducks hit the water. My heart was pounding. We had dropped all three ducks. We started yelling, dancing, and hooting across the lake. We didn't care if we saw another duck because we accomplished what we came to do. We gathered the ducks and the decoys, and began taking pictures immediately. We started our journey back across the lake so we could get our feet warmed up. We had a good time that morning. I think Doug's head may have grown a little that day, but he called them in so two thumbs up to him!
The last few mornings have been depressing in comparison to the start of the season. I can count on both hands the amount of ducks I have seen. Hopefully, whatever element has changed will go back to normal soon, and we can have a few more good hunts this season. This also proves that it?s not about duck killing. It?s about the hunt. Not every hunt will be as successful, but the time shared during the hunt makes the good hunts even better.
This past Friday morning was New Year?s Eve and a handful of the WeHuntSC.com crew and some other local hunters got together to go rabbit hunting. We all met up near McBee, SC and Chip was even nice enough to have cooked sausage for everyone. We munched on sausage and hung around for a little bit before starting out on the hunt. There were probably 12 ? 15 people there and I met some nice guys from River Bottom Kennels in the Rock Hill area there too!
While everyone was talking and eating, ?Hoot? (the internet phenom who grunts up rabbits) showed me the new addition to his dog box. He created a piece of metal that reads ?Hoot?s Holdaline Hounds? and mounted it on his dog box. So, if you are in SC and see a dog box with "Hoot's HoldALine Hounds" on it, then you?re riding behind Hoot.
Since we were over by Hoot?s truck I grabbed Hoot and did a quick pre-hunt interview. We had to cut the first interview short as someone cranked a truck up in my ear and messed up the audio. We did a second interview, but since the camera loves Hoot so much I?m posting both below for your viewing pleasure. Shortly after the interview it was time to chase some rabbits.
We left and ended up at a cut-over within a couple of minutes. Everyone got ready to walk through the brush of the cut-over. I think the dogs could sense that we were getting close because you could hear their anticipation building in the dog boxes. Some of us parked on the side of the road and the others drove up the dirt road that went to the cut-over. Once we all got there Hoot did something that I thought was neat?he opened the hunt up with a prayer. We all stopped and paused while he lead us in prayer and then about 5 minutes after the ?amen? dogs were hitting the ground.
I?m not an avid rabbit hunter, but once the dogs got on the ground it reminded me of when we went rabbit hunting last year. Within minutes the dogs were all fertilizing the soil and a strong stench filled the air! Hoot says that?s just part of the fun though!
I wasn?t able to stay too long because I still had some family holiday functions to attend so I had to jet early in the hunt. I would have loved to stay and get some more footage though. I believe the guys ended up getting about 5 rabbits in total. Hoot was kind enough to send me a pic of two rabbits on the tailgate.
It was neat to get out and meet up with some of the crew plus to meet some new faces. I hope we can do it again sometime soon! Thanks to Chip for cooking and all the other guys for making it a good time.
It?s going to be like a second Christmas pretty soon for the winners of our competitions?but first someone has to win! Last year we selected the winners, but this year we?ve narrowed it down to 3 entries per competition and are letting the site audience vote on our winners. Voting will be live for 7 days and run through Jan 10th. On Jan 11th the winners will be announced and the prizes will be delivered shortly thereafter. Stay tuned for the winner?s blog when we post pics/videos of the winners receiving their prizes.
As you know, this year we implemented the ?have the date in the pic rule? and that made many pics ineligible for the competition. We had to enforce this rule because site users were uploading pics of deer shot in previous years. Forcing hunters to put the date in the pic removes the question as to when the deer was harvested. In this year?s GroundHog MAX Buck of the Year Competition we had to make a ruling on a pic that was a tough decision.
Ryan Lyle posted a game cam pic of a deer (with the date in it) then posted a pic of the harvested deer right beside of it. It was a great deer! It seems Ryan found out about the competition after he harvested the buck so he created a side by side pic showing the game cam pic of the deer and then the pic of him and the deer after he shot it. While the rack in both pics looks very similar, we threw this pic out from judging because we want to abide by our own rules, we want to be fair to the entries that did have the date in the picture of the harvested deer, and we also don?t want to have to compare any racks with game cam pics in future entries. It?s just too fine of a line to walk and could lead to unfair decisions and future scrutiny. While this deer is one of the biggest deer I?ve ever seen shot in SC, we?re sorry that we can?t accept the photo as an entry. Feel free to complain in the comment section below.
With all of that said, thanks to everyone for participating and thanks to our sponsors for donating such great products to WeHuntSC.com & to our winners.
Go and Cast Your Vote