SC Living Outdoors
Well-known member
As hard as I hunt across the west, I hunt every bit as hard in South Carolina. I go deer hunting about 3 days a week from Aug 15 - Sep 15. Then about 6 times a week for 3 months unless I’m out of town. I shoot deer for family, coworkers, friends and friends of friends. I hunt some private and a lot of public. Probably 3-1 public to private. I am fortunate to have a few friends that let me hunt.
Last year was awesome. I saw a ton of deer overall. Maybe more than I ever have seen before and I killed some deer one of which was a really pretty 8 point. My confidence was pretty high going into the season, and it started off well in terms of numbers of deer seen, but in late September, Hurricane Helene came through South Carolina and North Carolina, and absolutely wrecked part of my state and NC. One of the areas that got tons of damage was around my house and some of the public land that’s about 30 minutes away. Parts of the public I hunt a lot just got destroyed. It was really sad to see. A lot of 40 to 70 year old pine and oak trees down everywhere. In some places more than 70% of the trees laying on the ground. This completely screwed up the deer hunting. Which I know in the grand scheme of things is not important, but it did get frustrating after a while when you’re used to seeing deer and you’re just not seeing them.
Whitetail frustrate me more than any other animal I hunt. Before this weekend, I had killed three whitetail so far this season. All of which I’d given away. However, I still wasn’t seeing many deer. I got home from my western road trip and began hunting and it was pretty frustrating. I’ve been hunting almost every day and had 14 sits over 2 1/2 weeks all over the place not overhunting a specific area and mixing public and private. I’d seen two deer. I decided to switch it up and head up to the mountains. In South Carolina the majority of the rut takes place from October 20 through November 10. However, up in the mountains the rut is a month later. So, depending on where you live, if you’re willing to travel a little bit, you can usually hunt the rut for a while. The mountains are two hours from my house. About five years ago I became friends with a guy whose family owns some land in the upstate pretty close to North Carolina. He’s always super kind and lets me come and hunt handful of times late season during the rut. He’s not really hung up on antler sizes much but he really does want to shoot mature deer 4 1/2 or older. If someone is kind enough to let me hunt their property, I follow their rules. Over the last five years or so I’ve passed multiple bucks not seeing the quality of buck that he wants to harvest even though I know they are up there. He runs a lot of cameras and is consistently getting pictures of all kinds of different mature deer, especially during the rut.
I had not even caught a glimpse of a mature buck all year. When you hunt as much as I do that can get pretty frustrating, but I know you can’t kill them sitting at home so I decided that over Thanksgiving break from work and the following weekend I was going to head up to the mountains and hunt. Friday morning I headed up to friends place for a 1/2 day hunt before having to be home that evening for some family Thanksgiving festivities. On Friday I sat on a food plot that had not been hunted this year and saw a smaller eight point that I knew was not 4 1/2 years old so I let him go. My buddy thanked me for following his rules and told me I could come back the following day if I wanted to. Saturday morning I was on the road at 330 making the drive up into the mountains. I was going to sit on a different food plot that was up on top of the ridge where there has been a lot of action the previous 24 hours with bucks chasing does. I parked my truck and hiked up the ridge for 45 minutes to get in the stand to begin my all day sit. After a couple hours the wind began to swirl that made me nervous. A little after 12pm a small buck out and fed into the food plot. He stayed for 40 minutes or so. Around 2 o’clock my buddy texted me and said “You’re not going believe this, but a big buck showed up on the food plot You sat on yesterday at 9:30am this morning”. “You have got to be kidding me!” I looked at the wind, and it was correct for the stand down in the bottom so I told him I was going to switch and move down The ridge to the other stand in hopes, the big buck would come back through. There was plenty of sign where I was, but the swirling wind was not giving me confidence.
I got up the tree and was situated by 3:15pm after an hour hike down off the ridge and up the creek to the plot. I decided I was not going to call or rattle and hoped a big buck would come through looking for/trailing a doe. By 5 o’clock I had not seen a thing and I was chalking up the day as another loss because that’s just kind of how it felt like it’s been in the whitetail woods. Then at 5:20pm I caught some movement on the right side of the food plot as I saw a big deer jump over a log landing in the food plot and starting to walk out. I could immediately tell it was a big body. One glance through my binoculars told me it was a darn good buck. I slowly raised my gun as he walked away from me up the food plot. About 10 seconds later, he turned broadside stopping at 120yds. It was very clear that he was a mature deer. I squeezed off my 300 I felt the recoil and saw the buck lock up and drop where he stood. I was so happy. Finally, A mature buck. It only took 4 months of hunting hard, haha.
The buck that came out was the one that showed up at 9:30am that morning on camera. My friend runs a lot of cameras and has a lot of deer that he knows and keeps tabs on, but this was a new buck that had just shown up during the rut. He’s a big old mature buck that won’t score a whole lot but he’s got some cool character and I’m happy to have him. My friend was really happy for me and I am super appreciative of him giving me permission to hunt. This buck will go to a lady at my church that requested a deer if I was able to get her one. I’m still hopeful I’ll be able to kill one or two more for people that have made requests, but now I feel like the season has been topped off. Who knows but the month of December holds, but it’s been a pretty good year.
Last year was awesome. I saw a ton of deer overall. Maybe more than I ever have seen before and I killed some deer one of which was a really pretty 8 point. My confidence was pretty high going into the season, and it started off well in terms of numbers of deer seen, but in late September, Hurricane Helene came through South Carolina and North Carolina, and absolutely wrecked part of my state and NC. One of the areas that got tons of damage was around my house and some of the public land that’s about 30 minutes away. Parts of the public I hunt a lot just got destroyed. It was really sad to see. A lot of 40 to 70 year old pine and oak trees down everywhere. In some places more than 70% of the trees laying on the ground. This completely screwed up the deer hunting. Which I know in the grand scheme of things is not important, but it did get frustrating after a while when you’re used to seeing deer and you’re just not seeing them.
Whitetail frustrate me more than any other animal I hunt. Before this weekend, I had killed three whitetail so far this season. All of which I’d given away. However, I still wasn’t seeing many deer. I got home from my western road trip and began hunting and it was pretty frustrating. I’ve been hunting almost every day and had 14 sits over 2 1/2 weeks all over the place not overhunting a specific area and mixing public and private. I’d seen two deer. I decided to switch it up and head up to the mountains. In South Carolina the majority of the rut takes place from October 20 through November 10. However, up in the mountains the rut is a month later. So, depending on where you live, if you’re willing to travel a little bit, you can usually hunt the rut for a while. The mountains are two hours from my house. About five years ago I became friends with a guy whose family owns some land in the upstate pretty close to North Carolina. He’s always super kind and lets me come and hunt handful of times late season during the rut. He’s not really hung up on antler sizes much but he really does want to shoot mature deer 4 1/2 or older. If someone is kind enough to let me hunt their property, I follow their rules. Over the last five years or so I’ve passed multiple bucks not seeing the quality of buck that he wants to harvest even though I know they are up there. He runs a lot of cameras and is consistently getting pictures of all kinds of different mature deer, especially during the rut.
I had not even caught a glimpse of a mature buck all year. When you hunt as much as I do that can get pretty frustrating, but I know you can’t kill them sitting at home so I decided that over Thanksgiving break from work and the following weekend I was going to head up to the mountains and hunt. Friday morning I headed up to friends place for a 1/2 day hunt before having to be home that evening for some family Thanksgiving festivities. On Friday I sat on a food plot that had not been hunted this year and saw a smaller eight point that I knew was not 4 1/2 years old so I let him go. My buddy thanked me for following his rules and told me I could come back the following day if I wanted to. Saturday morning I was on the road at 330 making the drive up into the mountains. I was going to sit on a different food plot that was up on top of the ridge where there has been a lot of action the previous 24 hours with bucks chasing does. I parked my truck and hiked up the ridge for 45 minutes to get in the stand to begin my all day sit. After a couple hours the wind began to swirl that made me nervous. A little after 12pm a small buck out and fed into the food plot. He stayed for 40 minutes or so. Around 2 o’clock my buddy texted me and said “You’re not going believe this, but a big buck showed up on the food plot You sat on yesterday at 9:30am this morning”. “You have got to be kidding me!” I looked at the wind, and it was correct for the stand down in the bottom so I told him I was going to switch and move down The ridge to the other stand in hopes, the big buck would come back through. There was plenty of sign where I was, but the swirling wind was not giving me confidence.
I got up the tree and was situated by 3:15pm after an hour hike down off the ridge and up the creek to the plot. I decided I was not going to call or rattle and hoped a big buck would come through looking for/trailing a doe. By 5 o’clock I had not seen a thing and I was chalking up the day as another loss because that’s just kind of how it felt like it’s been in the whitetail woods. Then at 5:20pm I caught some movement on the right side of the food plot as I saw a big deer jump over a log landing in the food plot and starting to walk out. I could immediately tell it was a big body. One glance through my binoculars told me it was a darn good buck. I slowly raised my gun as he walked away from me up the food plot. About 10 seconds later, he turned broadside stopping at 120yds. It was very clear that he was a mature deer. I squeezed off my 300 I felt the recoil and saw the buck lock up and drop where he stood. I was so happy. Finally, A mature buck. It only took 4 months of hunting hard, haha.
The buck that came out was the one that showed up at 9:30am that morning on camera. My friend runs a lot of cameras and has a lot of deer that he knows and keeps tabs on, but this was a new buck that had just shown up during the rut. He’s a big old mature buck that won’t score a whole lot but he’s got some cool character and I’m happy to have him. My friend was really happy for me and I am super appreciative of him giving me permission to hunt. This buck will go to a lady at my church that requested a deer if I was able to get her one. I’m still hopeful I’ll be able to kill one or two more for people that have made requests, but now I feel like the season has been topped off. Who knows but the month of December holds, but it’s been a pretty good year.
