blackbeard island huntalong

[eman614]

well, the first morning was quite active. at 7:15 i had an animal come in behind my stand. it got within 15yds of me but i never caught a glimpse of the animal. the palmettos were so thick i couldn't see the ground in most spots. about 15min later another animal came in on a little different trail. i pretty sure this was a pig. i could hear it grunting. it was getting closer, and about the time i thought i would be able to start seeing it the wind changed. game over. this is the ares that the animals came in.   you can see why it was so hard to see them. not much activity after that. lots of birds though. they make alot of racket in the palmettos. i learned quickly that if the palmettos weren't shaking then there was no reason to get real excited.

went back to camp around 9:30  to meet up with my sisters boyfriend and cook breakfast. we planed on walking around the south en of the island and hopefully find a good spot to sit for the evening.

more to come.

[Terry Green]

   

[Chris Surtees]

   

[eman614]

on the way back from my stand i ran into this doe that was standing no less than twenty yards from someones tent. she worked her way into the bushes and i figured what the heck i'll give her a try. i snuck to the spot i had seen her go into, and was making my way around the first turn when i spotted her not ten yards away. she wasn't looking at me, but i think she knew something was up. i was at about half draw when someone back at the campsites banged some pots or something, and she took off.

headed back to camp to cook breakfast and meet up with trey, my sisters boyfriend. we had eggs and bacon and waited for the others to come back to see if they needed any help finding an animal. as it had it, it was a pretty eventful morning for most. trey had not seen anything, but had heard what he thought to be pigs grunting just out of sight. my uncle tim missed a doe at 7yds and o nice 6 pointer at 20yds. my smart a$$ asked how you miss at 7yds. i found out later, but thats another story.  the only wheelie guy in the crowd saw a 150plus lbs hog at what he said was less than 5 yds and a spike at just over that. he said they were too close, and that he couldn't draw.  my other uncle tom was the only one that didn't see or hear anything.

trey and i headed south at about 11:30. we walked the west wilderness trail, and never saw a single animal. we came across a couple of spots where pigs had been recently, and while walking around checking these spot out we spooked animals on two different occasions. about the biggest game we saw were these banana spiders. (will have to post a pic later can't find it now) anyhow these suckers are huge. legs and all they are nearly the size of the palm of my hand, and i got big hands. we never found anything that was great down south so we took the trail around to the beach and walked it back. while on the beach we saw a couple sets of hog tracks walking on the beach as well. from the looks of the tracks they were pretty nice pigs. trey and i decided to walk back to camp and hunt our stands that evening. this turned out to be a good decision. i'll get to that another time. the whole trip around the wilderness area took us 4 hours, and we kept a fairly brisk pace most of the time.  there is a lot of walking to be dome on the island, so for anyone planning on hunting here i would suggest a good pair of shoes.

more later. we're just fixin to get to the good stuff.

[Pat B]

A friend that lives at Richmond Hill told me he talked to a ranger and 85 deer were taken and 4 hogs. Sounds like a good weekend.
  We usually hunted to the north. And surprisingly, during hunting hours, there were plenty of deer in camp. I shot a 6 pointer not 100 yards north of camp but lost it somewhere in the savanna between the trail and the beach. This was in the early 80's.

[eman614]

trey and i made it back to camp around 3:30 that afternoon which gave us about an hour and a quarter to get to the stands. luckily for us both of our stands were no more than a 7 minute walk from camp. we relaxed for about an hour and then headed to our stands. there was a tone of bird activity around my stand, that kept me on my toes. then at around 6:30 i heard another "bird" but i noticed that this bird was moving a large grape vine back behind me. i slowly stood to see if i could get a better view. by 6:50 it had closed the distance from 40yds to about 12 and i still had not seen the animal. it was starting to get real dark. legal shooting hours ended at 7:15 so i was getting short on time. it about 7yds i cought  a glimpse of legs.and then the lower half of the deers chest under the palmettos. i raised my bow drew came to anchor and released. there was nothing but a dull thud, the deer didn't even move. so i grabbed another arrow as quickly and quietly as i could. about the time i got the arrow nockedthe deer began to move. it was coming straight for the base of my tree. there was one opening that it would have to go through, so i got ready. when i saw its nose enter the hole i drew my bow picked a spot between its shoulders and let it rip. the arrow hit just where i was looking and the deer made a ten yard dash and piled up in the palmettos. here is the only good pic of the blood trail i got as you can see finding him was no problem. i was kinda surprised to see how small it was. i was also surprised to see that it was a button buck. niether of these things made me any less proud. this was my first trad buck, and only my second trad deer. i also shot it with a d/r longbow that i made. that was pretty cool also. here is a pic of the monster. don't laugh too hard it weighed 34# field dressed wich was about average for the yearling deer killed on this hunt.

back at camp trey walked in with a broken arrow and a story to tell also. apparently he had shot a hog that was no more than ten yards from his stand. he said that he hit it right in the shoulder, which might not have been a problem for his 59# bamboo long hunter on a deer, but this must have been a pretty nice hog, cause the arrow had broke just passed the broad head. he said that it broke immediately after impact, so we figured he must of hit the shield or one of the bones in the shoulder. none the less we looked for the pig for about two hours and only found 4 drops of blood. trey lookde the next morning after we were allowed off stand and found nothing.
as for the rest of our group. they saw nothing that evening. trey and i had brunswick stew for dinner, that tim and i had made this past spring. it was quick and easy. perfect for after a long day of walking and looking for animals.we had a couple of beverages around the campfire, and hit the sack not long after.