Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
I create sub-folders and number every blog entry that I write just to help keep things organized. With all the video, images, and text if you don?t keep it organized things can get hard to find. It just appeared to me that I had written 99 blog entries thus far. I periodically give site growth/metric updates and so figured I might as well give a site update since the 100th blog entry is here.
In football we always said "The big eye in the sky don't lie" which, while grammatically incorrect, still carried valuable meaning. This saying meant that we knew someone was filming practice or the game and that eventually we would all be sitting down with the coach and would watch the film to see what really happened on various plays. In the web world, the "Big eye in the sky" is the analytics program that runs in your site's background tracking your site's metrics. The "Big eye in the sky" always told the truth about your performance on the field and so do the metrics denote the true success of your site.
With that said, I feel we?ve made considerable progress with the growth of the site. As deer season is approaching, the numbers are already starting to climb. As many of you know, we started this site last September just for fun and have essentially done minimal marketing. It?s mostly been word of mouth, some bumper stickers, and a couple of T-Shirts. Considering the low-budget marketing, I think the growth of the site is pretty impressive?at least from a web developer?s standpoint. To have over 100,000 page views within just less than a year is a good sign and is definitely more than I initially anticipated.
So here?s the metric breakdown and some other info?
Metrics and Info (from Sept ?09 ? Aug ?10)
At the time of this 100th blog entry we are one month short of being up one full year and have had:
I mentioned the numbers have started to climb as we approach deer season?here?s an image extracted from the metrics demonstrating what I mean.
The Top 10 cities in SC that visited the site were as follows:
* I will also add that for about a month the link to our site went semi-viral in Finland due to this blog entry. So everyone from Chesterfield downward was outdone by the Finns! Hyvva Suomi!
Searching for WeHuntSC.com via Keywords
The YouTube Channel
In sum, I?ve written 100 blogs (with this entry being the 100th) and I hope you have enjoyed at least some of them. It?s neat that we cross the 100,000 page views at a time close to the 100th blog, though I don?t think they are exactly related to each other. We?ve come a long way since last September, but we?ve still got plenty of ground to cover. Though, keeping it in perspective? it?s all in fun! I?m interested to see what happens on the site this upcoming deer season with the images, competitions, videos, and ?yes? with the analytics!
Regards,
Clint
If you judge the level of activity on the site by the frequency of the blog entries in the past few weeks, then you are mistaken! It?s getting really busy here with everything leading up to deer season. We?re tying up loose ends, shifting the photo galleries around, maintaining/upgrading the site platform, going to meetings, taking part in hunting and fishing campaigns (you?ll hear about it soon), getting competitions lined up both on the site and with the sponsors, getting shirts and stickers squared away, getting ready for the fall food plots, working like the devil on a custom application for the site, checking game cams, getting stands out, visiting processors, and chasing people down via email to give them Thermacells and on and on and on. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it all!
So fear not, this is just the calm before the storm and we?re excited to see what hunters around the state have going on this coming season. We?re anticipating some exciting footage coming from the low-state down around the Hanahan area as Derek Coblentz & Nick Pye will be getting in the woods and blogging about their hunts. Of course I?ll be hunting (when the wife lets me that is) and carrying my cameras with me and trying not to miss another doe right in front of my face again?that one still gets to me sometimes. Anyway, with all this off-season food plot work, I just hope I can at least see one near the food plots! Only time will tell about it though.
We?re also getting considerable traffic from other states. From the metrics reports it looks like our friends right across the line in NC seem particularly interested in seeing what?s going on in SC. Maybe we?ll open up WeHuntNC.com next season and see who?s got the biggest deer in the Carolinas! And if the guys in NC happen to have pics of bigger deer than us, then we?ll just play them in football or baseball and settle things! (Notice how I left basketball out?mainly because of Duke). No man it?s all in good fun. We?ve actually got members of the site from NC so thanks for checking us out!
Don?t forget about the Pee Dee Deer Classic coming up next weekend (July 30 ? Aug 1!)
Remember to take your cameras in the woods with you this year or at least to get some pics so you can share with everyone!
Join us for our Hunter's Night Out
WeHuntSC.com is excited to host the WeHuntSC.com Hunter?s Night Out which will take place on Saturday, May 1st, 2010 at First Baptist Church Fellowship hall in Pageland, South Carolina. We received a lot of feedback from the ?Food Plot Journey? with people wanting to know more so we?ve asked the organizations involved with the Food Plot Journey to come and present and they?ve all agreed! The subject matters for the evening will be food plot creation + maintenance and game management. So if you?re interested in food plots or quality deer management, then round up your hunting buddies and come on out and join us. The event is free! The event will start at 5:30 and will last around 1.5 hours given the # of questions that get asked. We will also have some food and drinks afterwards for anyone interested. Featured Speakers Background: Keith Frachiseur ? Keith is the inventor of the a new concept in ATV plows..., his very own GroundHog MAX ATV plow. Keith is from Georgia and is an avid hunter. Keith invented the GroundHog MAX ATV plow while thinking of creative ways to get food plots in those remote places where the big bucks hide out. The GroundHog MAX ATV plow is owned by Monroe Tufline. Keith is also knowledgeable about tractors & tractor parts. QDMA Representative ? The QDMA representative will discuss the following:
Mike Lee ? Mike is the Southeast Territory Manager for Tecomate Seed and hails from Alabama. Mike is very knowledgeable about all things food plots! Mike has years of experience planting food plots of all types and has an in depth understanding of how it all works.
Event Summary Event: Hunters Night Out Location: First Baptist Church Fellowship Hall, Pageland SC ? Google Map to Location Time: 5:30 Cost: Free Featured Speakers: Mike Lee (Tecomate Seed), Keith Frachiseur (GroundHog MAX), & a QDMA representative Subjects Covered: Food Plot Creation + Game Management Event Contact: Adam Smith ([email protected])
If you plan on attending the event, please submit the form on the Hunter's Night Out page so we can get a head count on the # of people so that we can have the correct amount of food on hand! - Tell Us You're Coming Here
The WeHuntSC.com team is excited to announce that Thermacell is sponsoring this year?s ?Turkey Video Hunt of the Year Competition?. If you hunt turkeys in South Carolina and don?t know about Thermacell, then you need to be introduced? that is unless you just like to get bitten by mosquitoes. Thermacells are a must have to hunt in any warm weather period of the year. We use them during turkey season and early parts of deer season.
This year Thermacell is releasing a new product called the Thermacell lantern which is what the competition will get along with a thermacell! Here is an excerpt from Thermacell?s web site about their newly released lantern:
The Outdoor Lantern has many updated features: eight LEDs offer twice as much light as earlier ThermaCELL models; the easy-grip handle makes the lantern easy to carry or hang, and the lantern weight, at under a pound, makes transport a breeze. In addition, the lantern and mosquito repellent can be used separately or together. ?We have created a more rugged lantern for outdoor enthusiasts who want a portable, light-weight solution to mosquitoes. By offering customers a dual function lantern that has a highly effective repellent as well as illumination options, we are making outdoor activities safer and more enjoyable,? said Bill Schawbel, president of The Schawbel Corporation. The ThermaCELL Outdoor Lantern operates on a single butane cartridge, which heats a mat releasing allethrin, a synthetic copy of a natural insecticide found in pyrethrum flowers, creating a 15 x 15 foot comfort zone. Each repellent mat provides up to four hours of protection and each butane cartridge provides up to 12 hours of operation. The new ThermaCELL Outdoor Lantern features:
Eight LED lights, with two illumination settings
Twice as much light as previous ThermaCELL lanterns
Up to 98% protection from mosquitoes, black flies and no-see-ums
15 x 15 foot comfort zone
Easy grip handle
Rugged outdoor structure
Lightweight - 13oz
Mosquito repellent operates on a single butane cartridge
Light operates on four AA batteries (not included)
Available February 2010
MSRP: $29.99
If you follow the site, then you know that Thermacell has been with us since day one and we?re happy that they are sponsoring this year?s Turkey Video Competition. To learn more about Thermacell, just jump on over to their web site at www.mosquitorepellent.com.
We are excited to announce that GearFrenzy has partnered with us to sponsor this year?s ?Turkey of the Year Competition?! GearFrenzy is an up and coming online marketplace for all things hunting gear. GearFrenzy has a lot of video from some of the outdoor pros on their site and they specifically talk about the products they use within the site. If you haven?t checked out their site, you should give it a look at www.GearFrenzy.com An excerpt from the GearFrenzy web page:
At Gear Frenzy, we believe choosing the right gear shouldn?t be hard, but with so many options, it can be difficult to know exactly what to buy!
To help you get ready for your next trip, we are teaming up with the best hunters in the industry, bringing you expert advice straight from the people you know and trust. Not only can you see the gear they use, but you can also see firsthand how and why they use it. It?s an experience like no other.
Get invited into Michael Waddell?s hunting shed, sit in the stand next to Tiffany Lakosky and do laundry with Mark Kayser! These are just some of the experiences you will have while at Gear Frenzy. And the best thing about it? We are just getting started!
So now that you know a little bit about them, feel free buy products from their web site and tell them that WeHuntSC.com sent you!
This past weekend we took to the woods and shot some HD videos that will be edited, produced, and come to the site soon. Trying to take myself serious in front of the camera proved to be a little difficult for me (and may prove difficult for you as well). Though, one of the neat parts of how we?re working our videos at this point is that we ask site visitors to suggest video ideas and contribute information to videos that we may not have included. We ended several segments saying ?If you do it differently or have something interesting to contribute, just let us know and we may come out and film you?. As the goal of this site is to be an information hub rather than a site to promote videos of the WeHuntSC.com team, we hope to get out and around the state to get video segments from different areas and see different ways of doing things. So be sure to let us know if you have any ideas or insight for future videos. If you aren?t use to having a big microphone hanging over your head, light reflectors in your face, and a camera right on you?it can be a little intimidating. We went around and shot some videos on stand placement, stand location, trail markers, and sign in the woods! Whenever they get finished, we?ll publicize them on the site. I?m really excited to see what Jason and Yellow Cape Communications can create. I know whatever it is will be quality as I?ve seen a lot of his work before + he shot video of the WeHuntSC.com girls on the site. Hopefully he?ll reduce the glare off my bald head! With that said, all I we can do for now is wait on the edit? more to come later. Regards, Clint
The beginning of J-Duck Chronicles
The sunrise over Winyah Bay
J-Duck's setup on the coast
This weekend turned out to be a pretty good weekend of hunting. I didn't see a lot of deer, but I did have an interesting encounter.
Saturday morning I decided to get in the stand right across the road from my house. Let me take a second to describe the location and setup of this stand. The stand is a lock-on that is 16 feet high, but on the edge of a little ridge. The road to my house is literally about 60 yards behind the stand. I can watch the cars go by while in the stand. If that wasn't enough, my uncle's house is maybe 80 yards to the back right of the stand. So as I watch cars go by, I can also watch what's going on at my uncle's house. Before leaving to go get in my stand, I chained my dog up (more on her in a moment). I got in the stand right at 6 a.m. Not long after getting in the stand, I thought I heard some deer blowing at me off in the distance. I thought to myself, "There is no way these deer are winding me". The only way I hunt in that stand is if there is a Northern wind, which means the wind is blowing in my face toward the road. Around 6:30 a.m. I hear deer blowing, only this time they are not far in front of me down the ridge. I thought my hunt was over, which sucked because I expected the rut was on. After hearing the deer blow a few times, I remembered something I read in a book called 101 Deer Hunting Tips: Practical Advice from a Master Hunter (Peter Fiduccia). In the book, Peter talks about what to do if a deer starts blowing at you. He says you can blow back at the deer. If I knew where my book was I would quote the actual sequence. The gist is that you let the deer blow twice and you blow back once, something to that effect. I blew back at the deer after it blew several times. I traded a few more blows and the deer finally quit. Shortly after, I heard a deer grunting and caught a glimpse of a deer moving through and opening in front of me. I peered through the binoculars and could see horns on the deer's head, but couldn't tell how big it was because it was standing broadside. While maintaining visual of the deer with the binoculars, I reached in my pocket, pulled out a primos estruous can, and let out at few bleats. The buck did nothing. I tried the grunt call, still nothing. He just stood there broadside and eventually walked behind some trees and I thought he had left the scene. Soon as he disappeared behind the trees I saw a doe cross the opening. Right after she left, the buck crossed on her trail trotting and grunting. That was the coolest thing I have ever seen. As much as I have hunted, I had never seen a buck chasing a doe and grunting. Unfortunately, that was my only encounter with deer for the rest of the morning. When I got out of the stand, I quietly went and grabbed my camera that was down by the little ridge. I check my camera and found that my dog, Daisy, has been going down to my corn pile pretty much on a daily basis. On top of the corn, I poured a couple of bags of Buck Grub and apparently Daisy likes it as much as the deer. However, her visits to the corn pile didn't deter the deer from visiting it as well. I got a lot of pictures of yearling bucks with does coming out between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., which is a positive sign for hunting the middle of the day. I only had one picture of a decent size buck, but it was taken at night time. Let me take a minute to say that even though I only had one picture of a bigger buck at night, it doesn't mean he wasn't out there with the other deer during the middle of the day. It just means that the bigger buck didn't happen to walk by the camera.
Saturday evening, I went and sat in the stand overlooking the 2 acre food plot of Biologic. I had a deer wind me right before stepping out into the plot and ran off. That was the only deer for the evening. That night, I met up with Clint and Will to do some brainstorming. While we chatted, Clint and I drank us a Wild Life Energy Drink. I thought it tasted good and it definitely gives you some energy. I think I drank it around 9 p.m. and couldn't get wound down until close to 1 a.m.
Sunday was just a wash, literally. I sat in the rain and cold all evening and didn't see anything. My mom and dad think I'm crazy for sitting out in the rain like that, but you can't see the deer if you ain't out there. So it doesn't matter what kind of weather it is, I'm going to be in the stand! Even though I didn't see but two deer, I had a blast hunting. Anytime I can spend out in the woods is a blessing to me, deer or no deer. I hope to get a lot of hunting done between this coming Thursday and Sunday. Hopefully my next blog will be me telling you about the monster buck I killed, but we'll see. One can only hope. I did get my camera back out and I still have my other camera out that I haven't checked. Maybe I will have some pictures I think are worth sharing next time.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Adam
This past weekend we were in the woods a lot. We hunted, scouted some new land, and moved two stands. The Solunar calendar forecasted this weekend to ?Average?, but I think the fact that we?ve had a few days of cold weather made this weekend better than ?Average?.
Friday morning I was in the woods before daylight and the moon was so bright that the trees were actually casting shadows in the forest. It was neat to see. It was crisp and cold out. The weather was perfect. I didn?t see any deer, but I did see some squirrels and a wood pecker. That woodpecker had the brightest red head I?ve seen. Our corn is still sitting out there not being eaten too much at this point. There are still tons of acorns out and about for the deer to munch on. About 3:30 on Friday afternoon I went walking in another section of woods that we hunt on and I found 2 good rubs. I bent down to take a picture of the first rub when I heard a loud blowing sound. I looked up and all I saw was white! There was a deer about 50 yards from me up the hills in the woods. I couldn?t see if it was a buck or a doe, but I do know that it was big enough to be shot! I couldn?t believe that a deer was out there walking around at this time of the day?but then again maybe it was bedded down and I jumped it. With two rubs, multiple scraps, and seeing a deer at 3:30 in the afternoon, all signs pointed to this being a good location.
Saturday morning I was back in the woods at a different stand in some thick woods on another ridge between pines and oaks. About 30 minutes after daylight I had a small bodied deer come ?sprint-jogging? through the woods. He wasn?t burning through there, but he wasn?t just trotting either. He had his nose down and was on a mission as if he was going somewhere. I believe he was trailing a doe and he didn?t care who knew it. I heard him from way out as he didn?t have his mind on being stealth or quiet. He passed through the woods very loudly crackling leaves as he went by. He came by about 40 yards out from me and never raised his head. He stopped for a split second behind a tree and then kept on trucking. I only got to see him for a few seconds, but he was so small I wouldn?t have shot him ( or better said? shot at him) if I could have. Though, it was good to see some action in the woods. I grunted a few times later on with no luck or response from other deer in the area.
Then we all met up and started working in the woods. We took 2 stands and 2 corn feeders down and moved them to new locations. We always say that we don?t do enough of this kind of stuff?scouting out areas and putting stands in new positions that is. I think it?s true too! We ought to work harder and be more persistent with it, but we just get busy with other things in life and let it slide. So as we were putting the second stand out we walked through the woods in an area that has some steep hills. This was back near the area where I jumped the deer on Friday. Though this time we walked and scouted a whole lot more area than I initially had on Friday. We crossed a creek and went up to another side of the hill when we found a nice rub on a large tree. No small buck did this. I took a picture of it and we continued scouting. We?ve got a stand not too far from that area so we are still trying to figure out what to do with that area of the woods.
Saturday afternoon we went back out in the woods on a totally different track of land where we frequently see coyotes and foxes. We had 3 people and we didn?t see anything. We did see a huge track in the sand as we walked in though. It was a bit warmer on Saturday afternoon. When it got dark we went to leave and we stopped by the game-cam to see what had been going on by the climbing stand. The climbing stand is positioned in some planted pines and there are two huge scrapes right beside it. After taking the card out of the game-cam, we now know what is making those scraps. This buck or (bucks) is working this scrap line. Will thinks that these are two different bucks, but I think the images are of the same buck. What do you think? So thanks to Bushnell, we know that there are some quality deer working the area.
Sunday afternoon I was back in Pageland on a different stand. I sat there and heard acorn after acorn fall to the ground and the squirrels were having a field day. Right as the sunlight started fading, I saw a flicker of white up the hill from me about 60 yards out. It was a deer, but I couldn?t tell if it was a buck or a doe due to the dense forest between us. I have a ?gun-cam? strapped to my gun and the first thing I did was to turn it on. The lens is strapped to the barrel of the gun and the actual recording unit is inside of my pocket. That deer stood in one spot on the hill for about 10 minutes before it moved. It was moving its head up and down, up and down, up and down. I think it was rubbing on a little tree over there. Finally, the deer started heading into the clearing where I was. This deer had a dark coat on him in comparison to the ones I had seen previously this year. It was a small 4-point buck. I knew I wasn?t going to shoot him, but hoped for at least some good video footage to put on the site. So I put my gun up and followed him through the woods. He walked 5 yards behind our pile of corn and didn?t even give it a thought. He went out of one thicket, through the clearing, into another thicket and he was gone. I filmed him for 4 minutes and 15 seconds. When I got home I looked at the footage and he was too far out for the gun-cam to get a clear shot of him. I?m going to zoom in some more on that camera and hope for a better video shoot next time.
So that was the weekend in a nutshell?oh and we did win our 1st round playoff game against Mid-Carolina. All in all I think the cold weather has the bucks out and about more now than in the past. Hopefully we can catch that big one out during the day time at some point.
It seems I?ve been hunting a lot so far this year, but don?t have anything to show for it. Missing a doe, letting small does & fawns walk, and letting a few young bucks stroll through makes for exciting times in the woods, but doesn?t help my freezer out. Can anybody else feel my pain?