The Cypress Creek Skinning Shed

Rick with a great Boggy boar

It’s the end of October, and the rut really got started last weekend when we had several days of really cold temperatures. That sharp drop in temps really got the deer and hogs up and moving, and we saw a lot of new scrapes show up in the woods as well as some bucks chasing does.

We also had our good friend Ken C. up from Florida again to take advantage of those couple of cold days - and just like his last trip - he killed a 6 point and an 8 point! Congratulations to Ken on some great shooting, and we can’t wait to see what steps out in front of him when he returns again in just a week or so!

Ken with his fourth buck of the year!

We also had our good friends from North Carolina down for their monthly visit, and Rick R. put the hammer down on a great Boggy Creek boar that weighed over 300 pounds. However Rick and Ken were not the only hunters at the lodge during the cold weather, and a couple of others took some meat home too. Joe from NC killed two does and a buck while Richard up from Florida as well also killed a nice 5 point and a doe. So congratulations to everyone.

Then mid week the weather warmed back up into the 80s again, and the deer and hog movement slowed down a bit. However our group from West Virginia hunted hard, and they ended up taking 6 does and two spikes home (Ron and Tim C. killed the spikes while Mike killed one doe, Dusty killed two and Jeff killed three - including one with his bow) as well as missing five and passing up some decent bucks while waiting on a monster. Painfully, one of the misses was on a great buck chasing a doe… but that is hunting.

It is now Monday, and the weather has cooled off again this morning, so that should help push those bucks and boars to their feet again for the couple of hunters we have in camp today. Then the weather is supposed to warm back up again over the next few days, and that along with the tons of acorns in the woods right now, may keep the deer and hogs from hitting the corn as hard as they should be for this time of year. But with the peak of the rut getting closer by the day - typically around Halloween - anything can happen at any time! So come join us in our lowcountry woods during one of the best times of the year. We look forward to hunting with you!

Zack with his Pleasant Hill 8 point

I love October! It’s the time of the year when the bucks finally start to get cranked up and move around a good bit in preparation for breeding. And from the amount of scrapes and rubs that we are seeing in the woods, I would say that the bucks are definitely on their feet.

I also love October because its when hunters start to really have some good success in the woods on these traveling deer who are leaving all of that sign. And starting us off in October was the 3 man crew down from New York, Robert, Ron and Carl, who knocked down two does and a nice 8 point over on boggy Creek while also missing two. Then we had Zack from NC who followed up Danny’s good fortune on our Pleasant Hill Plantation tract by shooting a great 8 point.

Robert, Carl and Ron with a Boggy Creek buck

Another NC hunter was David, and he was down looking for either a monster gator or a smaller one that would fit in a certain space in his trophy room. Well he passed on a few monsters and ended up getting a nice 7 footer… Our lodge’s first gator ever!

David and his 7 footer

Hunting should just get better and better now that we are to the mid way point of October and the bucks continue to move more during shooting hours. And that should be welcome news to the big group of guys we have coming in this weekend looking to put some game down as well as for all of the other hunters we have booked over the next 6 to 8 weeks.

Jeff

Danny with his 267lbs buck

Word about great bucks killed in the South Carolina lowcountry travels fast! And when that buck weighs 267 pounds, that word literaly breaks the sound barrier as it spreads.

That’s right! You heard me, 267 pounds of whitetail! And to top it off, the deer sported a big, beautiful dark rack with 8 long points, including 10.5 inch G-2s, that scored around 124 inches and had a 32 inch neck. It was killed over on our trophy land by Cypress Creek’s owner Danny Harrell last week when he went to shoot a doe for some meat for the lodge when the monster stood up in the cotton field he was sitting on. And what is ironic is that this is stand that we don’t even put guests in because it sits so close to the highway where the noise of traffic takes away from the experience. Also, please note that the huge buck is also the first buck Danny has ever killed on our property in the 10 years Cypress Creek has been open. The deer are always left for guests to kill, but he said he just couldn’t pass him up when he saw how huge he was and since he was on a stand that we don’t even hunt.

And to go ahead and refute some of the stories I have heard in town already about the giant deer, I promise you that it wasn’t killed in Canada while Danny was up bear hunting and brought back; it also had testicles - huge ones at that So nothing fake about the buck or wrong with it, just simply a huge buck that was allowed to grow old under a great Quality Deer Management program. If anyone has any other questions or theories about the buck, you can call or email me since I was the one that helped load the deer.

PS: We have had several more nice bucks killed in the last few days by our guests, and I will be sharing those pictures and stories on Monday. Have a great weekend and good luck in the woods!

Jeff