The Cypress Creek Skinning Shed

A big boar grabs a bite at 2:17pm over on the bow camp; and check out the stand right behind the hog... it's waiting for YOU!

While most of our Cypress Creek Skinning Shed readers sit in the AC at work and dream about their fall hunts with us, we continue to work hard to prepare our lands for the opening day of deer season… which starts now in just over 6 weeks!

Bubba and Henry have been working just about every day checking and fixing stands, cleaning out wasp nests, adding pull ropes (where the old ones went, we don’t know) and trimming shooting lanes while Danny bush hogs the roads and plows the food plots to get them ready for the beans and peas that the deer love in August. And me, well I have helped with a little bit of it all, but I must admit that I don’t mind the days that I get to sit in the AC working on the website

And with all of this work, the bow camp is now ready to go! We have the cabin in great shape, the pond cleaned out, the stands and feeders up and the food plots plowed. Now we just need to the hogs and deer to cooperate and show up during daylight hours during opening week like they have been this summer… check out the big hog stopping by the feeder for a snack in the 100 degree heat at 2pm that our new cuddieback captured last week!

We are now moving over to Pleasant Hill Plantation to prepare our trophy deer hunting tract for August 15th. And when we do, we will put up a couple of cameras over there so that we can show everyone some of the great bucks that survived last season so that our guests could shoot them now that they are even bigger this year. So make sure and keep checking back.

PS: We didn’t have any die hard hog hunters this week that were willing to tackle the swarms of bugs in the unbearable heat to try and kill a wild pig, so no new kill shots here at the Skinning Shed. However we have a group coming in on Thursday - so we should have a few new pictures on Monday if the heat does not keep the hogs from moving- because with no hunters over the last two weeks, hunting pressure sure won’t be the cause if our hunters do not get an opportunity.

Jeff

Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge is very fortunate to have many friends that film shows for the Outdoor Channel, and one of them is Steve Gruber from Wolf Creek and Trijicon’s Outdoor America. Steve comes down periodically with another good friend of ours, cameraman Craig “Sweetpea” Pond, to relax in the lowcountry and attempt to kill a big South Carolina hog, deer or turkey.

Well, during a visit a couple of years ago in which Steve had already killed a giant hog, he picked up the camera so Craig could take a turn as the trigger man. And as they walked in to their stand during an afternoon hunt, a big pack of hogs were already in the area, so Steve quickly turned on the camera and captured Craig shooting a nice boar. Steve then filmed Craig, I mean SweatPea, CAREFULLY following our old head guide Mike R. into the bush to retrieve it. … Great stuff, so check out the video clip to see the hunt and to find out how Craig earned his nickname :)   And as a bonus, right after the hog hunt, you will also get to watch Craig shoot a beautiful South Carolina buck in velvet.

Jared with his first hog

Speaking of big bucks in velvet, opening day is exactly two months away now! If you haven’t booked yet, please get in touch with Becky as soon as possible to reserve your spot. We only have a few spots left during those last 15 days of August when your chances are super high on shooting a monster velvet buck on our trophy land. And hunters are almost guaranteed to harvest a buck (if not more than one) over on our any-legal-buck land if you are more interested in putting meat in the freezer instead of a head on the wall. However since the bucks haven’t had any pressure in 6 months, there are good chances at shooting a monster on those tracts as well! So get yourself some warm weather clothes, a thermocell and come join us for some of the best hunting in the South.

As for our summer hog hunting, our guests are still having good success even in the unbearable heat. I told you how we had a group down last weekend that saw tons of hogs, killed two hogs, missed two hogs and hit two more that we couldn’t find. Well, I haven’t gotten any pictures from them yet. But I do have some great pics of Tim and his two sons Jake and Jared. They came down from Ohio for a few days of hunting and bonding, and what a time they had with us. Tim shared his stand with Jared, and Tim shot a beautiful coyote behind the lodge on a morning hunt while Jared shot his first hog ever over on the River. Jake also got in on the action by watching tons of deer just feet from him and then sticking a big hog with his bow and arrow; unfortunately he hit it a bit back, and we couldn’t find it in the dense cover that surrounds the River tract… But that is hunting, and if it wasn’t difficult, it wouldn’t be any fun!

Jeff

I have continued to work on getting the original Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge video cut up and posted here to the Skinning Shed. And we are now ready to show off a couple of more great clips from it.

First we have a super informative video of how to hunt hogs with Danny Harrell showing hunters what sign they should be looking for and in what habitat when pursuing hogs. He also talks about how hogs live and what they do so that hunters understand these creatures better, and therefore are more knowledgeable when hunting them. This is a real must-see if you are new to hog hunting, especially South Carolina hog hunting!

Second we have a neat clip of a great South Carolina hog hunt with a bow. Ferrell L. of North Carolina sits quietly while a nice pack of meat hogs pile into the bottom he is hunting, then sticks a nice one.

The third video clip is of Ron Tabor, Cypress Creek’s old marketing/media coordinator, shooting a monster buck here in the lowcountry of South Carolina. Ron was even filming himself when he shot this great 8 point during the peak of the rut.

And forth we have one of Cypress Creek’s many lady hunters taking a beautiful doe. Marcey H. hides patiently in one of our big tower stands and then whacks a big skinhead.

So there, four big clips to keep everyone’s hunting itch scratched until you can make it down and hit the woods with us. And speaking of hitting the woods with us, we had a small group in camp this past weekend, and I have been told that they were covered up in hogs: killing two, wounding two and missing two more.  And this was all on top of seeing lots more!

Unfortunately I was off this past weekend, so I don’t have any pictures yet. However they took a bunch and have promised to email us copies. Of course, I will get them up along with more details of their hunt as soon as I get them. I should also have some great new trailcam pics from our new Cuddieback over on the Bow Camp too.

Jeff