The Cypress Creek Skinning Shed

Big pack of River tract hogs

A torrential downpour Saturday here in Hampton County washed out our hunter’s Saturday hunt, but it didn’t dampen their spirits or keep them from having a good time with us. While we needed the rain, I wish that it had either stopped before dark or waited until after dark to start since the heavy rain kept most of the hogs from moving on the River tract. However some of the hunters did still see a few small hogs even in the horrible weather while one missed a 75 pounder and another couldn’t get a shot at a monster boar right at dark.

Pig Road stand

The 7 outdoorsmen down from North Carolina with their buddy and our good friend Joe for just a one day hunt fortunately had better conditions for their Sunday morning sit, and quite a few hogs were seen at Boggy Creek and Sandy Run. Unfortunately most of those were as they entered and left the woods, but Joe saw the most from the stand. He had several monster hogs at his feeder right at daylight, and he was just waiting until he could see better before shooting when they spooked and ran off… once again, proving that free range hogs are not the easiest animal in the woods to kill.

And while our NC group went home without a hog, Joe’s friends, who were first time visitors, had a fantastic time with us. As a matter of fact, they have already booked another hunt with us in June. We can’t wait for them to return and give us another shot at putting them on some big pigs like those that were seen on our trailcam on the River tract over the last 10 days. Check out some of the giant hogs that would have shown up if not for the weather… Also, check out the different view on each shot. The camera was in the same spot for the entire time, but the hogs kept rubbing on the tree that it was tied to thereby moving it in a 360 degree circle and getting some different, cool shots. In one you can see the top of a coon’s head and the Pig Road stand in the background while in another you get the hogs coming to the feeder instead of under it.

I also want to let everyone know about some cool new features that will soon be coming to the Skinning Shed. I have just upgraded my computer system as well as added high-speed internet out here in the boonies, so I am experimenting with getting our many hunting videos loaded on to my computer and uploaded to the site. Please check out our new page called Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge Video to see a 2.5 minute clip of some great footage with kill shots from our first Cypress Creek Hunting DVD. It is under the PAGES tab on the top right of this site, and it has a watermark in it for now, but if it works correctly, I will go back and get that off of there and then upload some more from that great video made about 5 years ago! I will then start working on getting some of our recent footage uploaded… So please let us know if it works for you and how you like it…

Jeff

Eric with his daughter and her first hog

We knew it couldn’t last forever… our nice, cool Spring here in the lowcountry has finally given way to the hot, buggy weather of summer. And like I talked about in our last post, so has our summer hunting slow down.

We just had two small groups hunting with us this past weekend, and between the lack of rain, the intense heat and the high water in the swamp pushing the hogs to higher ground, the movement wasn’t great. We did have one good hog killed, one missed and one coyote shot. Gary, down from Pittsburgh, killed the beautiful young song dog while Lee, visiting from Tennessee, hammered the nice hog.

Lee, down from Tennessee, with his River tract hog

We also haven’t had many hunters the last two weekends, but one of the ones we did have was Eric over from Grays Court, South Carolina with his daughter to see if she couldn’t get her first wild pig. She missed one, but did get to take another home! We truly congratulate her on her first hog as well as her dad for taking the time to introduce another young hunter to our great sport.

As for us here at Cypress Creek, we are already using our summer slowdown to our best advantage. Danny has just gotten us a couple of new tracks of land for this coming deer season, so we are working hard right now on getting their roads cleaned up, the stands set up, feeders hung up and shooting lanes trimmed. And on these new tracks we will be hunting and shooting any legal buck, so they will work great for those hunters looking to take a lot of tasty venison home starting August 15th.

Gary, down from Pennsylvania, with his young coyote

We are also still working on our bowhunting-only camp, and it is really coming along as well. We now have the pond-side cabin in great shape, stands out and the feeders up and running. As a matter of fact, we saw quite a few hogs over there the other day just waiting for our first hunters to give them a try with their stick and string.

Other than working on all of our vehicles and equipment, our other big project is getting Pleasant Hill Plantation, our 3000 acre trophy property, ready to go for opening day. And now that turkey season is over, and we can put out corn again, we are working on getting all of the feeders hung back up and slinging those golden nuggets out for our monster bucks.

We still have a some openings at the lodge for the first two weeks of the season, so please call Becky at 1-877-520-2245 to find out exactly what dates we have left and on which tracts. We would love for you to join us in pursuing bucks with velvet-covered horns, especially since they travel in bachelor groups for those first two weeks. Therefore when you see one buck, you normally see several. These bucks on their summer travel patterns also tend to move quite a bit during daylight hours, making them easier to harvest… and what hunter doesn’t like those improved odds?

Jeff

Brett with his monster Lowcountry boar

All of us here at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge have had an amazing time showing our guests the best of our Lowcountry this Spring during our hog and turkey hunts. So it is with mixed emotions that we wrap up our Spring turkey season and throttle back on our hog hunting.

We still have some groups booked for hog hunting adventures this summer. However not only do we have less hardcore hunters looking to sit in the 100 degree heat with mosquitoes the size of crows, but we use the summer months to prepare our lands for the fall. There is just so much to do before August’s opening of deer season including building and repairing stands, planting food plots and servicing all of our vehicles including our vans, 4 wheeler, 6 wheeler, golf cart and tractor; they just all take such a beating during most of the year that there is not one of them that isn’t ready for some TLC!

However while we will be working getting ready for this fall, we would still love to have anyone down that would like a good hog hunt. Like I said, it will be hot and a bit buggy, but with so few hunters in the woods during this time, it makes for a great opportunity to get after hogs with little pressure. We are also booking right up for our velvet buck hunts, so make sure and reserve your spot ASAP if you are planning on joining us… And remember that we have deer hunts where you can shoot any legal buck, trophy lands where we have lots of monsters and our bow hunting-only camp where NO guns are allowed - so we have no shortage of great early-season hunts for our guests.

The PA group: Peter, Joe, Brent and Scott

And like I talked about before, those guests will then become friends like Scott who just emailed us and included a few pictures of his friend Brett…

Danny and Becky –

Our group had a wonderful time with you last week.  You run a first class organization, and your assistance with our fallen cousin was truly appreciated.  Hunting in the south is different — very good different.  You are an organization of gentlemen.

We look forward to coming back and hunting with you.  It was a blast.

--
Scott M. Amori, Esq

Cal and Harrison (left) with their friends and Boggy Creek hogs from a March hunt

PS: We have been so busy this Spring, and with guests leaving at all hours, we haven’t gotten pictures of every hog that we have harvested. So if you have any pictures of your group’s kills, please email it to us along with any of the details of the hunt. We would love to include everyone on here!

Thanks,  Jeff

Ken with a lowcountry double

We are fortunate to have lots of friends who hunt with us every year here at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge. We even have some friends who hunt with us several times a year, and one of them is our buddy Ken from Florida.

You should recognize Ken because he has been featured several times here at the Cypress Creek Skinning Shed in just the last few months, once for his great velvet buck from this past August and once from late October when he shot a good buck in rut. Well, he has just been back to the lowcountry where he first shot a monster boar over on Boggy Creek, then killed a giant longbeard with Bubba at Roebuck Plantation. Congratulations to him on another great trip, and we are already looking forward to his next visit.

And that brings me to the point of this post. We truly enjoy each and every guest that we get to hunt with here in the lowcountry, and most of those guests we now consider friends, just like Ken. Friends that we look forward to sharing our woods with whenever they can get away for a few days and join us for some great South Carolina hunting.

Lem with his good boar off the River

That is also why we love to get emails like the one we received a while back from Scott out of Virginia talking about how much he and his friend Lem loved their visit, and how they would be back. Again, visited as a guest and will now be returning as a friend.

Danny,

Just thought I would share that. And a big thank you to everyone that comes back time and time again to “pursue the experience”.

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

Cypress Creek's new bow camp

That’s right. Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge now offers a bowhunting-only camp here in South Carolina for our stick and string shooters!

We have always had a lot of bow hunters that stayed with us, and they generally had great success while hunting our deer and hogs off of the same lands our gun-toting guests use. However, as any hunter can tell you, hunting pressure can have a huge affect on their success rate. And of course the loud report of a gun always does more damage to the tranquility of the woods than does the quiet release of an arrow from a bow. Couple this with the fact that it is just MUCH harder to get any animal within the magic 30 yard window most bowhunters are comfortable taking a shot in, and a hunter using a bow has really set him or herself up against some tough odds on any piece of hunting ground.

However as committed bow hunters know, removing all of the gun-hunting pressure from the woods can really aid in keeping deer and wild boar moving freely and a little easier to coax into that 30 yard window of opportunity. And we have now done that with our new bowhunting-only camp located on 400 acres of beautiful lowcountry woods that sits right off of the Savannah River and is loaded with big deer and hogs.

Up to 4 guests who come to hunt this pristine new area will have sole access to this tract as well as to the unique, quaint old cabin that not only sits on the property, but directly on a beautiful 22 acre pond. Hunters will also have the option of bringing/preparing their own food or joining us over at our Luray lodge just minutes down the road for their meals. And no vehicle traffic will be allowed either - just a quiet electric golf cart to navigate the property or the hunters’ feet. And when you combine these restrictions with the fact that this tract has not been hunted at all in the last 3 years and only hunted before that by special guests of the owner who also owns the 4000 acres next door, you have the makings of a bowhunters dream hunt in the South Carolina lowcountry.

Please call Becky at 1-877-520-2245 if you have any questions about our new bowhunting camp or to be first to book a hunt at it.

PS: While he didn’t get it on our new bow-only tract, check out our good friend Justin with his nice 100 lb boar that he shot Monday afternoon with his bow over on our River tract - his first wild hog kill with his archery tackle. Congratulations Justin!

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

The Virginia Crew with Danny, Bubba and I

Our lowcountry weather has been pretty cool lately, and that has really helped the hog movement for our guests.

Two groups that benefited from the pigs moving so well during shooting hours were a married couple from North Carolina along with a great crew of Virginians who visited us last weekend. David and Tracy, our NC couple, and most of the Virginia group have hunted with us for the last couple of years, so they were looking forward to spending some time down on the River tract. And they were

Ricky with his monster boar

Bruce and his roaster pig

not disappointed when their time in the stand paid off with 7 good hogs and one huge 275 lbs warrior. Their two groups also had lots of sightings of sows with piglets in addition to several misses and missed opportunities when shooter hogs didn’t stop long enough for a good shot.

Ricky got things started Saturday night with his 275 pound monster at the Red Bank stand. Bruce and his dad, Donnie, then chipped in with a couple of good hogs to bring the group’s total to 3. Not content with his giant boar, Ricky then knocked down 2 more meat hogs Sunday evening when our NC

Mr. Donnie with a good-eating pig

couple shot a good-eating pig as well. Charles then capped off their 3 day trip over on our Telfair Plantation tract by shooting two nice hogs to bring their total to 7. Everyone in Stanley’s group then left with a ton of fresh pork and a lot of great memories… I may even have to tell one of them soon in its own post!

Charles with two Telfair Plantation hogsFinally on the 3rd afternoon, Charles dropped two nice pigs over on Telfair Plantation to bring their total to 7.

I also don’t want to leave out Washington Wizards basketball player Darius Songaila. He and his father-in-law were in just before the Virginia crew showed up to reek havoc on our hogs, and Darius shot a nice sized sow out of the cut over stand on the River. His hunt was then capped

Washington Wizard Darius Songaila with his nice sow

off by watching Bubba run his wounded hog down (while I ran behind him providing the light to see) and dispatch it! Darius said that even if he hadn’t shot a hog, his trip would have been worth it just to see us at play… I mean work

After such a busy, long holiday weekend of hunting, it was then time for a couple of days rest - for us and our properties! But then it was time to get back to work and put our hunters on some pigs, and we did. We had 8 hunters from Maryland join us here in the lowcountry this week, and they racked up the hogs too. However you will have to check in on Tuesday to see the results of their hunt…

Also, Everyone here at Cypress Creek would like to send a huge Congratulations out to our great hunting guide Henry and his wife. They just had their second baby boy!

The last week has been a busy one for our hog hunters at Cypress Creek, and I am just now getting a chance to get caught up here on The Skinning Shed with all of their ups and downs, kills, misses and sightings!

Tommy with his great boar

Last Sunday through Tuesday we had a group of 8 hunters down from Virginia, and they were covered up in hogs. The final tally was 3 down, but they sure had plenty of opportunities to harvest many, many more. As a matter of fact their group took a total of 20 shots during their stay which included the

Black Coyote From Behind The Lodge

harvest of one beautiful black coyote from behind the lodge as well as their pigs. And out of their kills, Tommy won their group’s big hog contest with his great boar off of the River.

After the VA group, we had a great couple of guys down from Pennsylvania, and they knocked down 4 hogs between the 5 of them. John and Jason both shot

Pennsylvania group

nice hogs over on Boggy Creek while Lamar killed two good eaters over on Telfair Plantation.

Then for this past weekend’s hunt, we had two small groups in camp, one from Tennessee and the other from North Carolina, that had quite a lot of opportunities as well. And this was despite the extreme warm spell that showed up with them! There were several misses, one wound, one kill and tons of sightings of pigs either running by or of big sows with lots of young piglets. Kent with the NC group was the lone gunman that made his shot count down on the River.

Note: We discourage the killing of our sows with very young piglets that will not survive without their mother and then leave it up to the individual hunter if the piglets are older. Most of our hunters choose to pass these as well since sows that are still nursing do not provide the best-eating pork, and many of them are looking for a monster boar anyway!

So, as you can see, the pigs keep moving and our hunters keep knocking them down. And now with a few days off and no in at the lodge, we have some time to let all of our properties rest so that we can keep up the number of opportunities our hunters will get during their stay with us. Now we just need the cold weather to return to help push the hogs to the corn.

Kent with his hog

We have truly been blessed this Winter with some great hunting for our guests, but we have been even more blessed to have such great people hunt with us. We look forward to having more of them in camp, and I look forward to sharing their stories here.

Jeff