Lowcountry’s Cold Weather Hog Hunting Turns Wet

The South Carolina lowcountry’s cold weather turned wet over the last two weeks when the rain came and turned our hog hunting into a muddy, cold mess with slow pig movement. Fortunately we also had a few days here and there when the rain held off and gave the pigs a chance to move into the cross hairs of our hunters.

Rob, Steve and Jason from VA  joined us for three days last week, and they were definitely ready to hunt hard despite the tough weather. So they decided to do an all-day sit at the River on their first day hunting (the one and only day we could get them in due to the bad roads), and it paid off when Rob got covered up at dark with hogs and shot two good pigs. His 145lb boar had nice cutters and the sow tipped the scales at about 100 pounds. Unfortunately the next day was a complete rain out for them, but things lightened up for their 3rd day, and Steve was able to shoot a good 145lb boar with great 3inch teeth.

Last week we also had two new hog hunters looking for their 1st pigs ever, John and Gloria. And with only one day to get it done, a brief stint of nice weather helped them to have hot stands and roll up a hog a piece. Mike’s kill was a good 110lb red meat hog while Gloria’s was a 165lb boar that dwarfed it, and boy did she not let him forget it either 🙂 We also had Brian and Johnny join us for a short hunt this week, and Brian harvested a nice 75lb meat hog.

Quite a few of our other guests also saw game despite the weather including lots of deer and turkeys with some sows with piglets to keep their hunts entertaining. We also had quite a few hunters that saw shootable hogs but didn’t get to take one home due to: just quick glimpses of hogs trotting by, low light keeping them from finding them in the cross hairs, spooking them, missing them and of course wounding them.  But that is REAL fair chase hunting!

However hunters coming to the South Carolina lowcountry for a hog hunt can learn from other guest’s mistakes to up their chances of bagging a big pig by being ready at ALL TIMES, bringing the best light-gathering scope that you can afford, practicing shooting offhand (not just from a bench) and picking their aiming spots precisely (below the ear always works!). So congratulations to all those that got the job done and took fresh, wild pork home, and a big thank you to ALL that hunt with us: We  hope that everyone will have better weather and better luck when they return.

This week I also want to introduce and new feature for our posts: a Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge story. And as anyone that has hunted with us knows, we are not short on them around here – especially funny ones. So I think I am going to start ending each week’s post with one of the dinning room table favorites. And for this week’s yarn to get things started, I believe I will recount the time that a sow-in-heat pig bomb went off in the van…

It was a freezing morning, and Henry and I had picked up a group of hunters and were headed back to the lodge via  the shooting range road. This group of hunters had come prepared with a case of sow-in-heat pig bombs, and one of the hunters had picked his up from in front of his stand so as to not leave any trash. Well, that was all fine and good, but some of the contents had frozen in the can, and as the pig bomb started to thaw out in the heated van, the pressurized contents started spewing out inside the van …. And as soon as the van started filling with the putrid stench of hog in heat, everyone pushed for the doors in an effort to get out and away from the stench. Henry and I, riding in the front, hopped right out and easily ran for clean, fresh air. And we assumed that everyone else would be right behind us. However we had forgotten about the broken handle on the inside of the back doors, making it only possible to get out when someone opened the door from the outside. So when we finished gagging, we turned around to find the hunters trapped inside the van with their faces pressed up against the windows’ small openings for clean air while they tried to find a way out. So in between laughing fits, we grabbed the handle and let them out… We have since fixed the van’s door handle, and we are now always on the look out for hunters carrying pig bombs during cold weather!