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Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew


Guest Blog: I Found Love through a Rifle Scope

The below is a guest blog submitted by Dan Berkholder

I have a kind of funny story to tell. My wife and I have been married for a long time. We have met a lot of new people, and it seems like every time we meet someone, they ask us how we met. Each time this happens, we kind of look at each other, and wait for the other person to pipe up first. We didn?t meet in the most normal of ways.

I was out hunting with a few of my friends. We were all dressed in our  camo and blaze  looking for deer in the early part of the season. We had hiked in to this area four or five miles with our packs on, and thought that there was no chance we?d run into anybody else.

We came up on some deer tracks and followed them deeper into a thick wooded area. As we followed the tracks, they became fresher. We knew we were getting close. Not long after, we had found him. This deer was going to be the next trophy of someone in the group. Only 75 yards out she stood. I looked down my rifle scope, and began to line up my shot. Before I could get my crosshairs on the deer, I heard a gun shot.

The shot didn?t sound close enough to be anyone I was with, but it wasn?t far away, either. I looked around at my friends. Nobody even had their guns in their hands. I asked if any of them took a shot, and they all said they were waiting for me. I looked back down my scope at where the deer had stood. He had dropped. Someone else had taken my deer out. I was furious.

As I continued to stare in disbelief through the scope on my rifle, I watched two other hunters walk into the clearing and examine the shot. As I realized I was looking at another human being down my scope, I decided to put my gun away and pull out my binoculars. I wasn?t able to see much, so I decided I?d go and give those hunters a piece of my mind.

When I got to the hunters, I realized I wasn?t going to be able to say anything rude. The one who had taken the shot was a girl about my age. She was hunting with her father and couldn?t be more proud of her kill. I congratulated her on the kill, even though I was quite spiteful, and told her that I could have taken that deer out with my eyes closed. She said ?You?ll have to show me that next time we go hunt together.?

The rest, as they say, is history. We are now happily married with two children. Our relationship was built on hunting, and it?s a tradition we?ve kept alive. We take our kids hunting with us as often as possible.

Author Bio: Dan Berkholder is the Online Hunting Product Manager at  Sportsman's Warehouse. He enjoys edible landscaping, and is a devoted big game hunter.
 


Guest Blog: Jimmy Bradley?s Iowa Hunt at Southeast Iowa Outfitters

The below blog entry was submitted by Jimmy Bradley of Pageland, SC

   WeHuntSC.com - Southeast Iowa Outfitters Lodge
   

I?m like many people reading this blog entry. I?m just a good ?ol country boy from a small town and I love to hunt. I spend my time chasing deer, turkeys, and everything else around South Carolina. I?ve hunted in South Carolina all my life and I?ve never paid to go on a guided hunt before, but my recent trip to Iowa was my first exception. I was really excited to be going and, as you may imagine, I also had a lot of concerns because I had no idea what I was getting into.

It was a long trip to arrive to Iowa, but the whole time my mind was thinking of the hunts that potentially lied just ahead of me. When we arrived to the lodge I was very pleased with the place, it looked like a picture out of a magazine! The rooms had two bunk beds along with two private showers and a bathroom. I looked at the craftsmanship of the beds and noticed that they were uniquely built. An Amish guy local to the area of the hunt had built the beds and he also built a huge dining table along with a lot of trim work on the inside. The hand crafted wood work was really nice, almost to the point of artwork. As one would imagine, there were plenty of nice deer heads on the wall and around the fire place too. It was what you would imagine in a quality hunting lodge.

WeHuntSC.com - The crew at Southeast Iowa Outfitters lodge   
   

Tom Bomell was our guide and he was also the main person who set up all the trail cameras on the property. He did plenty of scouting and research and had several monster bucks on film for us to look at on the computer before we even arrived to the lodge. It was very important for us to know what animals were on each farm so we could look for specific deer. Tom worked very hard taking us out to the stands and picking us up after the hunts. He was also a very big part of why our trip was so nice! On a side note Tom was very proud of some of the nice bucks his son has taken. He showed us some pictures of two awesome bucks that his son had recently taken one. He son shot a really nice buck with his bow. I can?t blame him for being proud about those and I?m glad he shared those images with us.

Our host was a gentleman named Brenton Clark along with his wife Rachel. They were very friendly and were always ready to help us in any way they could! Brenton really takes pride in getting his guests trophy bucks and he and his wife do everything possible to ensure guests have a good experience. Their hospitality was part of what made our trip special.

  WeHuntSC.com - Snowfield at Southeast Iowa Outfitters
   

Every morning we had a buffet breakfast usually consisting of eggs, bacon, ham or sausage, and pancakes. They made sure we didn?t hunt on an empty stomach! For lunch we would have a lighter sandwich type meal. Since we hunted from day light to dark we carried our lunch with us out on the hunt.  At supper time we returned back to the lodge and met in the dining room for another great meal and everyone talked about the day?s hunt. We all discussed what happened on our hunts and we usually had a lot to talk about!

The hunting was as good as it gets. We hunted out of nice, huge box blinds with heaters in them. These stands overlooked corn fields, soybean fields, and several types of planted food plots. It was not uncommon to see 30 + deer a night in these fields! After being in a stand for the first 30 minutes of the first day, I knew I wasn?t on my typical kind of South Carolina hunts.

They also had ladder stands and lock-on stands that overlooked trails and food plots. The guide took us in every morning and he would either pick us up at lunch or at night depending on whether you wanted to hunt all day or not. I wanted to get the most out of my trip so I hunted all day long on 4 of the 5 days we were there.

There were a total of 13 guys in two different camps and we had 5 deer killed over 140 inches and one that went 166! Then we had another 2 guys miss and one made a bad shot and just winged the front leg on another buck. Some great deer were harvested while we were there.

WeHuntSC.com - A large whitetail buck taken at the Southeast Iowa Outfitters

I should mention that we also had a camera man with us at the lodge. One of the best parts of my our trip was meeting editor and camera man Nathan Delong! He works with Lee and Tiffany Lakosky and the show ?The Crush? with Lee and Tiffany! Nate lived only a half a mile from the lodge we stayed in and was like one of the family there. It was a pleasure to meet him and he gave his testimony with us and shared his story of how he became a part of the show. He also told us all about Lee and Tiffany and how hard they work to make their farms so good. He told us how they work from day light to dark on their food plots and also how strict they are on what they shoot! He told us about the various food plots they plant. He also told us that Blake Shelton is a hoot in camp and always ready to make you laugh! My friend Tony said he could have sat and talked to Nate all day!

WeHuntSC.com - A huge whitetail buck harvested in Southeast Iowa   
   

I saw 16 deer the first day of my hunt, 3 of which were good bucks, and I was in hog heaven. I saw 3 bucks and 2 does the second day and on third day I saw 21 deer! The third day brought 5 bucks and 2 of those were over 140 class, but I could not get a shot! On the fourth day I saw 15 deer and had a nice 130 class 8 point walk by me at 30 yards! On the final day I saw one doe on the morning hunt then we changed farms and went to one that had not been hunted for the afternoon hunt. This location had two stands on it and I went to the bottom stand and at 4:15 had a 170 class buck called the ?Big 10? come out 40 yards from the other ladder in the field! Yes I was SICK!!!!!! He never came my way though because he got busy chasing a doe and left with her! My heart was in my throat. It was an awesome experience in the woods.

Over the course of my trip I never pulled the trigger. Even though I did not kill a deer this was still the greatest time I have ever had deer hunting! It was so amazing to sit in a stand and know at any time you could see the deer of a lifetime. The owner and his wife made every effort to see that I killed a deer and it just didn?t come together. The food, the lodge, the hunts, and the hospitality was awesome and I?m already scheduling my trip back next year. If you are looking for a hunt let me know they only take a certain amount of hunters and it fills up fast. The cost to hunt is $3,500.00 and the tag is like $590.00. Yes, it is a lot of money, but it is also a chance to have a hunt of a lifetime.

Going on a guided hunt to somewhere you have never been is hard and it keeps you wondering the whole time did I make the right decision? Well I can honestly say in my case I did and I was very pleased with the whole experience!

For more information check out http://www.seiaoutfitters.com
 


Guest Blog - Gifford Watkins' Hunting Adventure

The below entry is a guest blog from a friend of mine from Nova Scotia, Mr. Gifford Watkins

When I was a seminary student at Southwestern Baptist Theological School (Fort Worth) I took at job as an intern at Park Cities Baptist Church.  After working there a few weeks I got to know the mailman, who said due to his recent divorce he had extra room in his house.  I thought since most of my life was in North Dallas it would be a good idea so I moved in.  My fiance at the time thought it would be ideal for us to spend Thanksgiving at their ranch in South Texas.  As I packed a weekend bag, I heard the door slam and the footfalls of my new housemate.  I really didn't know that much about him at the time, but after I mentioned heading to a ranch for the weekend, he asked if I was going hunting.  I said I was not planning to, I didn't have a gun, or bullets, or a license to hunt in Texas, to which he said, "Puh, you don't need a license, do you want to borrow a gun?"  I asked what sort of gun and that was when the fun began.  His name was Troy.  Troy led me to a wall in the living room where he pushed and out came a door; the door to his cache. A huge steel cabinet with decals I cannot describe (Death from Above might ring a bell with some) was unlocked and inside, was well, the inside.  I chose a Smith and Wesson .41 caliber hand cannon with a scope and 6 bullets; three hollow points and three full metal jackets. I loaded these into a stainless steel carrying case and headed out the door.

 
The ranch was 100+ acres of Texas scrub; mule deer and turkeys ran rampant as I surveyed the surrounds looking for the right place to hunker down the next day.  Train tracks ran through about 300 yards away from the ranch house and I thought it a good vantage point being about 15 feet above the fenced fields to the south, so I returned to the ranch, sat with the family and drank with the grownups til twilight.  It was time.  I grabbed my silver kit and headed toward the tracks, taking a round about route so I could approach downwind North.  I loaded the cylinder and sat down to wait.  Within a half hour I heard the pift, pift, pift of footsteps approaching down below west of the open fields.  The gradient slope down from the tracks was heavily grassed breaking only at the nearest fence line, about 150 yards away.  A small rack of horns emerged and out stepped a mule deer about 140 pounds or so.  I braced off, still sitting, one knee up to rest my right elbow and sighted in.  Not wanting to spoil the kill I took aim at the front of the right shoulder and drew in a breath, held it, waited for the lilt and gently squeezed. The recoil was enough to jumpstart my heart and the sight of the buck dropping enough to move my legs into action. Running with the .41, I scrambled down the hill, through the tall grass, grabbed a post with one hand and hopped the fence (feeling a little bit like Mel Gibson in one of his crazy cop movies), eager to investigate the damage.  In a few seconds I was next to the deer kneeling down.  I put my index finger into the hole as far as I could and grinned wide looking around to see if anyone had seen this magnificent feat.  I didn't have a holster so I transferred the .41 to my left hand and grabbed the horns.  With about 250 yards to drag, I started lugging the carcass to the ranch.  Still trembling, excited, and glad to have something to show the freezer at home, I dug deep and pulled and pulled until I was about 100 yards out still hugging the fence line.
 
Suddenly, and I mean in a split second, I wasn't dragging the buck... it was dragging me; I held on for a few seconds before realizing what was happening and let go. Now I was on the ground and the deer was above me, disoriented and panicked. I tried crabbing backwards but the buck was running round in circles and the .41 was near useless as I tried to sight it in at 5 yards BAM miss, 10 yards BAM miss, back to 5 yards BAM another miss; I was now a Nova Scotian matador with nothing to hide behind.  Finally it straightened out ran full tilt into the barbed wire fence, toppling upside down and if it could have been any more panicked, it was, as it bolted up and over the train tracks where I had just been lying 5 minutes ago.  I stood in my place alone, not grinning, so glad there was no one around to witness this horrible twist of fate.  I hung my head, walked back to the tracks looking for blood, but found nothing except the case I had left behind; the walk back to the ranch was very long and as I approached folks came out to see what I had accomplished on my outing.  My fiance said, "So how did my hunter man make out this morning, we heard shots fired."  I held up one bloody finger and said, "I got one, I was dragging it home when it got up, scared me and ran away."  The seasoned hunters were soon laughing so hard that my ears burned, my face reddened and my shoulders slumped even more.  They didn't have a good dog, so tracking was out of the question.  As the laughter died down, I said, "Well, I shot the thing, other than that what was I supposed to do?" The response: "gut it." But I didn't have a knife.
 
That Christmas as we opened gifts, I was surprised to see a box from the soon to be in-laws. Pulling off the wrapping paper revealed a tidy brown box with gold embossed letters: KASUNA. Inside was a buck knife.
 
Thinking back on that day I can only offer one explanation.  The first bullet out of the chamber must have been a full metal jacket, a bullet that passed right through the neck of a 120 pound 6 point buck.  It was a great shot indeed, but unfortunately the wrong ammunition.  I did go out later that day (in the evening) and bag a 100 pound doe; this time I aimed behind the right shoulder from high atop a tree.  It seemed completely uneventful after the morning's incident though.  I returned home to Dallas and every time I opened the freezer, thought about the buck that got away.
 
The moral of the story is... don't borrow a gun from a disgruntled, divorced, African-American Viet Nam vet turned disgruntled postal worker. Just my humble opinion. Happy hunting South Carolina :)
 
Gifford

Guest Blog - Pee Dee Gobblers
The below is a guest blog submitted by Andy Belk
 
Armed with my vest of tricks and my trusty old 835 I coined "mule" due its ability to dislocate shoulders, I found myself in a familiar spot at daybreak with the first bird gobbling on cue right where expected (or hoped). I slipped around the edge of large oak/cypress stand bordering a cutover, finally stopping in front of a large wide bottom popular tree surrounded by budding iron wood trees. After several minutes of the gobbler sounding off at every crow and owl vocalizations, I gave a soft yelp to present my location also. He responded so my plan was to sit tight and quiet until fly down before engaging in any further turkey dialogue with the single gobbler, until another bird gobbled behind me spoiled that plan. In an attempt to be greedy I turned my head and gave a louder yelp in the direction of the new player, which responded with an approval gobble. With the two very vocal birds still safely on a tree limb and me setup close things seem to be shaping up to be a classic hunt when I noticed the familiar sight of a white head sneaking through the swamp paralleling my location, ?ahh?, the typical silent 2 year old gobblers attempting to beat the boss gobbler to a lonely hen. Sneaky walked to within 50 yards of my setup to take a peek but wasn't content not seeing a hen and continued on his search for love. Right behind him was another white head in tow also showing little interest in the ghost hen. As he passed, I let out a yelp followed with a soft purr. He returned to take a closer look hopping up on a deadfall for a better view, I quickly contemplated the range, "45-50 yards, gosh dang", as much I wanted I could not close the distance or increase shotgun range with telepathy alone. As a bowhunter I should know this well by now. I made the correct, albeit difficult decision, not to squeeze off. Nothing was left to do but watch the lonely gobbler wander back in the same direction he came.
 
As I sit thinking of what could have been, a group of crows harassing a hawk provoked the first cold shoulder gobbler into hammering out a gobble. He was now a couple hundred yards away, overcoming the anxiety of a boss gobbler in the area he gobbled once more, then again. He was obviously now strutting on an old logging road behind me. I gave another soft yelp and he responded. This correspondence of calls lasted 15 minutes with neither of us budging. With the situation not evolving I abandoned my favorite tactic of passive and sparingly calling and I threw out a hard cut to the locked up gobbler. He responded with a gobble, then another, and the second gobble was much closer. I gave one more loud cut with the same eagerness to hear a response. I readied the gun. I knew he was committed and within minutes a white head appeared. He was coming closer but attempting to swing in behind me. As I followed him with a bead drawn the increasing extreme angle to my left continued to pull the gun off my shoulder onto my bicep. As he stopped to look for his lady, I was well aware of the whollop that "mule" packs even in the midst of the excitement. Knowing unavoidable immense pain was in my immediate future as I squeezed off, the 2 year old gobbler flopped at the kaboom and I scrambled to my feet. I felt blood dripping from my nose, but no time for minor issues like loss of blood because the battered gobbler was attempting to regain his feet...and I was too! As he stumbled to his feet to make 3 or 4 more steps a second round from the mule out ran him to seal the deal. 13#, 9.5" beard and 1/2" spurs. (Those deep river swamp birds seem to weigh on average 4-5lbs less than field birds and even Piedmont birds).
 
WeHuntSC.com - Andy Belk's 1st Turkey
 
 
But the story continues.......
 
After breasting out the first turkey, there was no need to head home so early. It seemed as many of the hens were nesting and the boys were out looking for love so I headed to one of prettiest river flats in SC. This area is a favorite hangout for turkeys and hunters. Waking slow and deliberately, I allowed the live crows the due diligence of locating turkeys as not to "bugger up" turkeys by blind calling in a location fellow club members will certainly hunt later on.  However, 300 yards from the river I decided to toss out just one yelp since the pesky crows were drawing very little attention from any nearby toms.  I was answered by a turkey across the slough about 400-500 yards east, right where I began my search for a love sick gobbler.  As I rapidly moved back up the slough, the crows keep the gobblers pinpointed.  All they needed was a little sweet talk to overcome their case of late morning lockjaw. There was no way to avoid wading across the slough with snake boots that lost the waterproofing many miles ago.  A little murky water and wet feet was certainly not a valid reason to miss out on a chance for another Pee Dee gobbler.
 
I made my way across the slough and setup beside a large cypress which casted the perfect shadow to conceal my outline. The swamp looked almost magical in a sense; it is simply a beautiful place to be especially on a spring morning.  After another yelp from the diaphragm there was a quick answer from an old tom seeking a date for brunch. He was coming closer with each gobble then suddenly became silent which is often the tale-tale sign a weary bird is sneaking in.  Twenty minutes passed in a standoff of silence.  Finally, I saw a red head 60 yards out.  He was looking desperately, but seemed disappointed to not see his lady. I gave a soft purr, but with no visual he was not committing so he moved on angling away.  I was quite dejected at what transpired, until the obvious pounded me over the head. The younger bird at daybreak required aggressive calling to close the deal.  With hindsight fresh on my mind, I mustarded up the best sounding cut I am capable of producing and my effort was rewarded with not only a double gobble, but a gobble from two toms.  I replied again and they responded with the same enthusiasm.  Just like the first turkey, nothing to do now but allow them to make the final decisions. The next few minutes seemed like hours, and then finally I saw the same red head appear through the tall swamp grass.  It was too late this time, his eagerness had drawn him within too may footsteps. I had the gun shouldered and resting on my knee. I squeezed off with both beads of the barreled aligned on his neck.  At the blast my turkey sprung to the air, followed by his partner in crime.  An instant thought of "How in the heck, there's no way", then Flip, flop, there was my bird anchored like I expected.  My disheartened surprise soon changed to a much better surprise of realizing 3 gobblers were hanging out together rather than two, my target was DOA.
 
WeHuntSC.com - Andy Belk's 2nd turkey
15.5#, 1-1/16? spurs, 10.5? beard
 
 
With a two bird limit in that county, my season was finished in less than 3 hours. Next time down I will have the luxury of working a call only, but there are 3 tags left for other counties, if time will allow. 
 
Every day is a blessing, but considering some of the personal trials over the two previous springs kept me from the "spring turkey woods", I can't help but to believe the Lord smiled down me this one day and allowed me to take home two of his creatures and provided an awesome day in His creation.
 
 
Guest Blog by: Andy Belk, Lancaster SC
 

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