2003 Deer Hunting Journal-Well, this is year three for my online hunting journals. If you're reading this, thanks. For my part, I'm sure enjoying putting it all together... almost as much as I'm enjoying the hunts that make it up. I suppose the original intent, to collect data and identify trends (such as weather patterns and moon phases) has kind of gone by the wayside. Most of the time, the weather during the CA deer seasons is pretty much identical anyway. |
This season promises to be a busy one for hunting. First and foremost, I managed to draw an X3-A tag for California. That'll put me in some prime mule deer habitat. I've been working with a friend on a 7000 acre ranch in that zone, and that's where we'll be hunting. That hunt begins on October 4. The X zone hunt overlaps another major hunt, a Colorado elk trip that begins on October 11. I'm planning to leave directly from the X zone hunt to make the Colorado trip. That means I need to score early in X zone, in order to have time to drive to CO without marathon driving. Finally, I chose an Archery Only tag for my second CA deer tag. This gives me access to the A zone, B zone, and all D zones, both during archery and rifle season. Essentially this means I could potentially hunt from July 16 through the first week of November. As a surprise, I also got the opportunity to go to South Carolina for the deer opener to bowhunt deer and hogs at the Bostick Plantation. So here goes! |
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August 15-17 - Bostick Plantation Estill, South Carolina Day 3 After the closest thing to a full night's sleep I've had in a while, the alarm doesn't seem quite so intrusive this morning. It's Scott's turn to make breakfast, so I relax in bed while he cooks. There's not a lot of room to move around when someone is in the galley anyway. We finish eating, and I'm actually on my second cup of coffee when Ab pulls in. He's not in such a hurry today. Two of the other hunters have decided to pack it in for the morning, so there are only eight of us loading up in the truck. This is much more comfortable, and the pace seems quite relaxed. The air is decidedly cooler this morning as well, and we're all looking forward to a good hunt. Ab is going to put Scott and myself back in the same stands again this morning. Scott saw two does and a hog from his stand before the storm last night, and after all the sign I saw around my stand, we're both pretty excited about the idea. Everyone else has picked their stands for the morning, so the anticipation is pretty electric. Instead of driving almost up to my stand, Ab drops me off at the turn where Scott will go in. I have about a thousand yard walk along the sorghum field, and enjoy the cool morning air as I slip in. The ground is soaked and quiet, and the wind is in my face. As I near my stand, I hear movement and stop for a moment. There are deer in the corn, so close I can hear them munching on the kernels. I take another step, and my shoe squishes into a muddy pocket. At the sound the deer take off, crashing into the thicket. Well, nothing to do about that. I go on in, break a few more branches for cover on the stand, and climb up. Have I mentioned the mosquitos? They're quite ingenious. First of all, I decided to apply the spray to my skin, underneath my shirt this time. I'm wearing a shirt made with "Contain" scent supprescent, so I'm hoping that the stink of the bug spray will be held in. Unfortunately, it seems that the mosquitos will bite first, before encountering the spray. They also find where my pants are tight across my kneecaps, and they can sink their probiscus (probiscii?) right through. For days after this trip, my knees look like I have measles! To keep the mosquitos off of my face, I broke off a small switch from a maple. With the slightest movement of my fingertips, I can swish the branch across my face, keeping the little beasts from landing on my eyes. As ready as I can be, I sit back and wait for sunrise. Shortly after the sun comes up, I can see the gaps in my camoflage. The storm blew some of the branches down and ripped of the leaves. I start to adjust the remaining branches, but notice that I'm spooking squirrels. If the squirrels are scared, the deer will be scared, so I decide to just sit still and think invisible. A half hour or so after sunrise, I see a deer working his way into the clearing. He's following the funnel just as I'd hoped, and my heart jumps. He comes a bit closer, though, and I can see that he's just a little button buck. He comes in, browses around the edges of the clearing, and eventually moves off into the woods. At different points, I imagine the various shot opportunities. If that backwoods voodoo worked, I'd have turned him into a 10 pointer and shot him clean. Oh well. The morning heats up quickly, and the rainy ground adds to the sauna-like humidity. Still, I've already seen one deer and my optimism is still high. As I'm looking around, I catch movement on the trail where it comes out of the swamp. I pick out one, then two, then three sets of red-furred legs coming along the trail. I ease around and get comfortable. The deer will come in from my left, which is perfect for setting up a bowshot. The first deer hits the clearing, a doe, and her eyes go directly to me and the treestand. It's pretty obvious she knows something isn't right. I freeze, and the mosquitos take advantage of the lack of movement to swarm into my face. I can scarcely stand it, but I remain still. The doe looks at me and bobs her head, trying to figure me out. Then she lowers her head, as if to eat, snatching it back up to catch me moving. But I master my impulses and remain frozen stiff. Finally, she decides I'm just a funny looking knot on the tree, and comes on into the clearing. I'm waiting, ready for Mr. Big to step out, as the other two deer come through the bushes. They're just babies, though, a tiny buck and doe, still in spots. Once they're feeding, I can use my mosquito switch to get the bugs out of my eyes. The deer don't even notice the tiny movement. I enjoy the show as the little family browses for nearly a half hour before some distant noise brings the doe back to full alert. I'm hoping the distraction is a big buck, coming down the trail, but I never get the opportunity to see. The doe eventually has had enough of whatever it is, and gathers her youngsters to slink back into the swamp. It seems hardly an hour later when I hear Ab's truck coming down the road to collect me. This is when I find out some disturbing information. Apparently Joe has had the guides spread corn all around the edges of his field. This means that game which would ordinarily follow the natural funnels is more dispersed. It's entirely possible that there had been a big buck out there, but there was no reason for him to come to my stand when there was so much feed available everywhere else. I'm a little bummed to find this out, especially after spending two hunts in this stand. Still, I saw deer, well within range, for extended periods. That's a successful hunt in my book, even without meat on the pole. After rounding up the other hunters, the tally for the morning is one more hog, taken by the same guy who shot the eight-pointer the evening before. Several hunters saw game, including a huge, light-colored hog, but there were no more shot opportunities. Four hunters packed it in for the weekend, leaving only six of us for the evening hunt. For the evening hunt, Ab wanted to put us all back over by the swamp. There had been a lot of hog sightings in the area, as well as several deer. I'm always as happy to take a hog as a deer, so the plan sounded great to me. At the trailhead leading to my stand, the road was covered with hog tracks. Several very well-defined hog trails also led through the woods around my stand. Unfortunately, once again, the stand was a brand new ladder stand, set up in the open with no cover around it. After ten minutes or so, I figured I had caused enough ruckus breaking branches, so I covered the stand as well as possible and made myself comfortable. At around 1930 or so, two does came strolling along the trail toward my stand. I kept watching for Mr. Big to join them, but the rut is still two months out so my hopes weren't real high. About 25 yards from my stand, just at the edge of the clearing, the lead doe stopped and stared directly at me. I froze until she relaxed, then enjoyed the show as they browsed in the area. The mosquitos were driving the deer about as nutty as they were me, and I watched with a smile as the smaller of the two crawled into a briar thicket and used the greenery to scratch her whole body. After a few minutes, the lead doe suddenly perked up her ears and looked back out toward the road. I followed her gaze, and watched in dismay as three nice-sized hogs strolled right down the middle of the road! I kept hoping they'd turn and come to the corn, but they continued down the road out of sight. That was close enough for the two does, though, and they trotted off in the opposite direction. Just as light was fading, movement in the brush to my left caused me to raise the bow and check my arrow. Suddenly, four small pigs, each about 30 lbs., made a beeline for the cornpile. I waited for mom or grandma... or even an elder uncle... to come out and join them, but they appeared to be alone. I settled back and watched for the remainder of shooting light, about 20 minutes, as the four little pigs made, well, pigs of themselves. They wallowed in the muddy puddle and munched on corn until it was nearly too dark to see them anymore. At that point, I quietly released my safety harness, slipped down the ladder, then leapt into the middle of the feeding piglets with a loud "BOO!" The four piglets scattered like marbles! I laughed long and loud as I packed my gear and walked back out to the road. At the end of the evening, the crossbows had scored again with a three point ( 1x2 and barely legal as a cull deer). Just after shooting the three pointer, the hunter said a nice eight pointer had come under his stand, but you're only allowed to shoot one deer per hunt so he had no choice but to watch it walk. He said he tried to scare it back to one of the other hunters, but it ran the other way. Finale - All in all, the Bostick Plantation is an awesome place. I enjoyed the experience, but would have to say there are several issues that the management should address. First of all, there were too many hunters for a single guide. With so many of us to deal with, it was difficult for Ab to personalize the trip. There was no room in the truck for us to carry our climbing stands, which meant that we were limited to using the "permanent" stands which were set out ahead of time. When all 10 of us were in the truck together, one rider had to hang on a platform off the tailgate... hardly a safe or preferable way to travel over some of those rough roads. So many hunters to a single guide also meant that it took extra time to get everyone set into position. On the last evening, with only six hunters, we were able to take a more leisurely pace getting out, didn't have to go out so early, and were able to work a more organized hunt. I'd say five to six hunters to a guide would be much more efficient, and would keep hunters and guides a little happier. Ideally, of course, it would be best to keep the numbers to two hunters per guide. This would allow the guide to tailor the hunt to the individuals. For example, I would have very much preferred someone to help me setup back in the swamp, away from the corn piles and rifle hunters. I think there's plenty of awesome habitat back there, and having a guide who could work with you to get into the ugly stuff would have been the perfect setup. As to the permanent stands, some of them were in good locations. Others weren't very well located, either due to predominant wind (southwesterly in the early fall) or because they were too close to the bait. I realize that bowhunters need close shots, but having bait right around the base of the stand is too close. Stands which are placed right on the roads are also questionable for bowhunting. The older stands were fairly well covered, although a little more cover would have been great on the ones I used. It wouldn't hurt for the lock-ons to be a little higher, in general as well. Most of them were barely 16 feet up, and without cover around them, they were very easy for deer to spot. The most successful stands over the weekend appeared to be the older lock-ons. While I saw a lot of game from the exposed ladder stands, it was also very obvious that the deer saw me. I have serious doubts that a buck that had lived long enough to become a trophy would be stupid enough to come out within bow range of these stands. I also had some issues with the baiting. First of all, I don't like hunting over bait piles. It simply isn't my bag. But I'm obviously not so opposed as to cancel the trip. Also, my experience with baiting suggests that your mature bucks aren't likely to come to an exposed bait pile when there's natural food available. They don't grow those big racks being dumb. Bait piles are great for attracting deer, and if you want to shoot does and youngsters you can do OK, but it's just not the best ploy for the big boys. Small, natural food plots situated away from the main roads would have been preferable. The area had been logged by the paper companies, and as such, underbrush wasn't a big problem. I'd say that with all that open understory, a little work could produce some awesome plots for clover, grasses, and other foods. Not only would these types of plots be more attractive to big bucks, they'd suit my hunting a little better than simply sitting on top of a corn pile. I'm sure other hunters who don't care to hunt over bait would feel the same way. Once again, though, I believe this comes back to the need to have a smaller hunter-to-guide ratio. If Ab hadn't been so occupied just trying to get all ten of us set up, I think he'd have been perfectly happy to help me find good territory away from the bait. As it was, it was all he could do to get everybody a safe stand, with active sign, and have us set up before prime shoot time. On a couple of websites, I've read some negative feedback about the Bostick Plantation operation. A recurrent theme is that the accomodations were poor, and that the hunters didn't get game. To this, I can only say that the Bostick Plantation staff were perfectly honest with us about the quality of the Bowhunters' Cabin. Scott and I were under no misapprehension about the place, and it was actually nicer than I'd been led to expect. I didn't stay at the main camp, but from hanging out there during the storm on Saturday, I'd say it seemed pretty comfortable. As to not getting any game, well... that's hunting. If you want to go to a game ranch for a 100% success, that's certainly an opportunity. Bostick offers a hog hunt with hounds that also has a 100% success guarantee. If you want to go to some place and pay three to five times what we paid to hunt, then maybe you're entitled to expect at least a shot. Even then, though, there are no guarantees. (Nor should there be.) But for $500 -$600 for a three day hunt, I think your expectations need to be more realistic. If you're half a hunter, you'll see game. Even broadly exposed as I was, I saw deer within bow range several times. Bottom line... would I go there again? I'll have to get slippery on the answer here. First of all, if I lived closer, in a place where I didn't already have hogs available, then there's no question about it. Hell yes! I would choose a date after mid-September, so that I could take a doe. I think the ideal time to bowhunt at Bostick would be during the rut, when the temps are more reasonable, the mosquitos are mostly gone, and the bucks are a little dumber. With all those does and youngsters around, you know the bucks aren't far away. From the young bucks I saw on this hunt, there's no question there's some excellent genetics in the herd. However, if you're asking if I would make the trip from California again... Well, I don't know. Our hog hunting in CA is every bit as good as I found at Bostick Plantation. There are a lot of better whitetail deer hunts you could buy, but not too many in the same price range. By the time I add in the expense of air travel, non-res license, and the hunt itself, I could go on a pretty nice western mule deer hunt (or several local pig hunts). But if I were looking for a laid back, reasonably priced hog and deer hunt, Bostick Plantation rises to the top of the list. Add to that the fact that I could hunt with my brother again, and you've sold me.
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