The Cypress Creek Skinning Shed

Ron, Clif, Tristan and Travis with the group's two-day take

Even though we didn’t get much rain last week and the weather stayed hot, our wild hogs kept moving for the lucky hunters we had in camp last week. Our group of four down from the upstate for two days started things off by killing 4 nice pigs. Clif knocked one down while Ron stacked up two more; their friend Tristan was covered up in hogs for most of their stay, but had some problems hitting the fast moving suckers. And unfortunately the one that he did kill, we didn’t find for a few days despite a huge search for it. That left their good buddy Travis the lone man out with no pigs sighted or shot at… but as I say, that is REAL hunting. And since they are already making plans to return, we have promised to tie one up for him for his next trip We also want to wish Tristan well and thank him for his service as he heads overseas to defend our great nation!

We then had a two day break before Jeb Jr. and Sr. showed up from Virginia to try and get the younger one his first boar. And despite having only one day to do it, Jeb saw quite a few pigs and then put a great shot on his 130 pounder which dropped right in his tracks over at the Bar Pit at Boggy Creek. They took some good pictures of it, and they have promised to email us a copy, so I will get it up as soon as I do.

Clif and his pig

Next our good friend Clay from N.C. came down for two days of hog hunting with his girlfriend Cayla. And I know that they saw several hogs but couldn’t get a shot at them before they got by on their first day out. However I am still waiting for information on their second day’s sits, and hopefully they managed to watch the woods and not each other so that Clay could take home some port. And of course if he did, the pictures will be up here next week too!

Ron and his two wild hogs

So that wraps up our week’s worth of hunting, which considering how hot it is and how few hunters we have in the woods right now is pretty good. Now, since most of our food plots are in, we have another week to work on our our stands before our next big group of 12 come in. And with two weeks of no pressure on the hogs, they should put some pork on the ground while they are here too.

I also promised some new trailcam pics this week, and our new cuddeback over on our bowhunting-only tract didn’t disappoint us. We had lots of deer and hogs on it as well as a gray fox, and they all seemed to come by at all hours of the day and night. Fortunately many of the visits were during shooting hours. You can see one nice boar was at the feeder right around 6am and the start of legal shooting time while another wandered by around 7:30pm. We also had a couple of good sows with their piglets that stopped by quite frequently too - and what was neat about getting them on camera was the fact that you could see the stripped young hogs. FYI: piglets that are mostly feral are a solid, single color while those with stripes have more Eurasion hog genes in them. So obviously some good hogs over there just waiting to be stuck

So there you have it… a recap of our week of hog hunting along with some new trailcam pics. Now to get back to working on getting some more video clips up on here! See you in a few days…

Jeff

Bruce, his two birds and the turkey master

We are now about half way through our South Carolina Spring turkey hunting season, and it has been marked by lots of rain and wind. As a matter of fact, this past Thursday the lowcountry received over 6 inches that completely flooded out all of the hardwood bottoms! However, while the bad weather has made the season more difficult, it surely hasn’t kept us from killing some great gobblers and hogs. And even when the hunters came away with a close call or missed opportunity, they were all still having a fantastic time, and that is always the most important thing when hunting.

Al with his great Boggy Creek hog

As for our two Maryland turkey hunters, they struck out while visiting the lowcountry, however Lee had a good look at an old bird when he slipped in quietly to my calling and only 8 yards from his hiding spot. Unfortunately he was facing the wrong way for a shot since he was preparing for another bird that was gobbling and coming quick - but that is real turkey hunting, and sometimes your best hunt is the one where you don’t bag the bird. They also didn’t leave empty handed since Lee’s good friend Al hammered a nice hog during their stay.

Henry and Brian with the broken fan bird

Bubba then quickly got more turkey kills on the board when he first called in a nice longbeard for one of our longtime guest’s son, Jim from North Carolina, then put Bruce, down from Illinios, on two nice gobblers which he took with one shot. And talk about a great hunt, Bruce, who was down for his fifth trip to Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge, finished his visit by shooting a great hog.

Mike and I with two of the wettest birds I have ever seen

However Henry and I didn’t want to be left out of all of the action so we got hard to work for two brothers, Brian and Mike, down from upstate NY to pursue the redheads here in South Carolina along with two of their good friends who have been hunting with Cypress Creek since it opened, Tom and Walt. Tom started the group’s successful trip off by killing a HUGE boar over at Sandy Run during their first afternoon, and then Henry called in a great bird with a broken fan right across from the lodge for

The Upstate New York Crew: Walt, Mike, Tom and Brian

Brian on day two - and amazingly enough, Mike had almost killed that bird the day before. Mike and I finished their trip up by killing two birds during the storm of the century Thursday morning in which it rained so hard that you could hardly see out of the blinds and the turkeys had to turn in to it to keep it from getting under their feathers.

Bruce and his lowcountry boar

Now we have some hog hunters in camp as well as Ken from Florida who hunts with us several times a year. Ken is after a big gobbler this week, however he has already taken a great boar

Bubba and Jim with his big gobbler

over on Boggy Creek during his first afternoon hunt. And according to Danny when he called me tonight, two of the other hunters put down good pigs last night at Sandy Run. So I already have more great stories and harvest shots to share with you this week. Thanks for reading.

Jeff

Our guide Henry with a guest from last year and his big tom

Our turkey hunting season here in the South Carolina lowcountry starts up on Sunday March 15th, and we are ready to put our hunters on some big longbeards.

The birds have been gobbling off and on for the last few weeks, but with the warm weather we have had lately, they have really kicked it into gear. The big, segregated flocks of birds have finally broken up, and our hog hunters are now hearing  lots of vocal birds and seeing quite a few gobblers with hens in the food plots, around the feeders and in the freshly burned areas.

We are pretty booked up for the first couple of weeks of the South Carolina turkey hunting season. However we still have some spots later on into April, so call now if you want to get in on pursuing some of our lowcountry redheads. Please note that we will also still be offering some great hog hunts during our turkey season as well. And we do things a little bit differently than some lodges to keep our success rate up. We do this by not hunting the same areas for our hogs as we do for our turkeys. This allows us to keep corn on the ground for the hogs without breaking the no-baiting law for our turkey hunts.

As for our hog hunters, they were still putting down the pork even in the warm weather that slowed our wild hog movement last week as well as in the driving rain this past weekend. Two of the hunters in camp were teenage ladies who were looking to kill a big boar with their bows, and they both got shots at good hogs. Unfortunately we were unable to find either one due to marginal hits. We also had a group down from Maryland, and they did harvest a couple of hogs, and I am now waiting and hoping that they will send the pics on down since I was off the day they left.

We now are back into some really cold weather (it was 20 the last two mornings!), and we have 10 at the lodge this week looking to bag a big hog. Eight are from Maryland, and two are down from Pennsylvania. On Monday night they hunted Boggy Creek and Sandy Run , and several hunters saw hogs but no one took a shot. Tuesday afternoon Bubba and Henry managed to get them down to the River tract after letting the road dry out from our weekend of torrential rains, and they killed a couple of good eating size porkers. I should have the whole story and pictures in my next post. Until then, enjoy some trailcam shots of our birds from last week.

Jeff

We love helping to put our guests on a lowcountry hog during their stay with us. Unfortunately the fact is that since we only offer free-range, fair-chase hog hunting here in South Carolina, not everyone will go home with one. It is just not possible when factors outside of our control such as the weather and moon have such an important influence on our hogs’ movements. However we have found that there are 3 basic things that all of our hunters could do to GREATLY increase their odds of taking home some wild pork.

1. Don’t smoke in your stand. It doesn’t help if you smoke anytime and have that smell on your clothes (much less any other smell) when you hit the woods. However it is MUCH worse to actually smoke in the stand. We believe that smoke smell just floats all through the woods and sticks to everything. And when a hog has such a great nose, you can bet that he will pick it up pretty easily and not come in to your stand.

2. Take your first GOOD shot. It is nice when a hog comes in to feed and stands (fairly) still for an easy shot. However sometimes that hog will catch a scent he doesn’t like and run off or a big boar could be just cruising by looking for sows and not stop.  So always be ready to shoot once you see a hog, and then take the best shot you have at the very FIRST opportunity.

3. Don’t Miss. A hog can be a tough animal to hit when he is scurrying around eating, much less doing the fast trot that they do everywhere they go. So like I said in #2, take your first BEST shot. And that means standing still for most people in most conditions.

We also have had one of our trailcams out on the River tract this past week, and it caught some great hog movement so I thought I would share a few of those shots with you. It even helped one of our hunters bag his big boar when it flashed right at dark, alerting the hunter that something was there!

PS: This post is a variation of one that I wrote for my lowcountryhunting website. On the original article I cited 2 more ways to increase the chances of killing a hog here in South Carolina. However Danny, Bubba, Henry and I work hard to eliminate those for you: hunting the wrong area and putting too much pressure on a piece of property.

We are constantly scouting and moving stands to keep our hunters on top of our hogs’ changing patterns as well as leaving gaps in our booking and consistantly rotating the properties that we hunt to minimize the pressure we put on our land. I think you will agree that our success shows that we do a good job on both of those.

Jeff

Randy and his 290 lb monster boar

We had 8 hunters down from Maryland this past week, and they were excited to hit our lowcountry woods in search of some wild hogs.

Well, when the smoke cleared (literally), they had 6 good ones down. Randy stuck one good eater pig with his bow, then switched over to his muzzleloader to take a giant 290 pound boar off of the River tract. Ed, Ray, Rich and David then pitched in with good hog kills to fill their coolers with pork before leaving South Carolina. And as usual, the hunters also had lots of sightings of sows with young piglets to keep them entertained on the stand while they waited for the big boars.

Jamie with his 300 lb lowcountry boar

We also had our old marketing/media coordinator/cameraman Ron Tabor down from North Carolina along with Jamie, his good friend and bear hunting outfitter from Ontario for a few days. They had lots of hogs around their stands, and Ron ended up missing one while Jamie took home a huge 300 lb. boar from the River.

PS: Any of you that have hunted with us before and/or seen the old Cypress Creek hunting promo video should be familiar Jamie and Ron. Ron did much of the work on the video and killed a good hog and a giant buck for it while filming himself. He also caught Jamie shooting a big pig with his muzzleloader. Unfortunately he hit the boar’s thick shield, and the sabot literally bounced off! Check that footage out if you haven’t seen it…

Jeff

Kevin and Thomas with a giant lowcountry hog

This past weekend we had the first hunters of 2009 in camp, and 3 out of the 5 killed a hog - two over on the River and one at Boggy Creek.

Just check out the giant boar that Kevin, over from Beaufort with his buddy Thomas, killed on our River tract. You don’t see many old, smart boars like that moving around unless they have too! Also, check out another South Carolinian who hunts with us all of the time, Dr. Havird from Augusta, who also shot a great hog with some good cutters over off of the River tract. That is him with the cigar in one picture, and his favorite guides Bubba and Henry in the other. And while they left before I could get their picture, our two hunters from Maryland, Garcia and Thornell, shot a 100 pounder before heading back up north over on Boggy Creek.

Dr. Havird from Augusta

Guides Bubba and Henry showing off their hard work

What is amazing is the fact that we had such good hog movement even in the warm January weather. Normally their movement shuts down if it isn’t cold enough to really push them to eat. However this just shows what the right property is capable of if it is set up correctly and the pressure is managed.

And the hog hunting should just get better and better now that we have a huge cold front coming in. Our lows are supposed to be below freezing for the next 7 days, in the teens even some nights, and only in the 50’s for our highs. So now should be an excellent time to be in the South Carolina lowcountry woods in pursuit of wild hogs, and we have a lodge full coming just in time, so stay tuned… I just wish it would have been like this for the last couple of weeks of deer season!

Jeff