The Way East.... another bowhunting journey.

[Guru]

I'm with Chad...looking forward to more...great group..none better!!

Chad,when's Charlie getting to your place.Anyone else huntin' with ya??

[cjones]

Curt,
Charlie will be coming in on sunday the 5th. Vance will be making the trip from WY. Big Dick will be down a day or two. Mickey said he is going to come up at least one day.  Should be alot of fun!! Now i just need to get you down here sometime.

[the Ferret]

Good stuff fellas. Looking forward to the get together up at Chads.

[Glenn29]

Great pics!

What state is "Paradise" located?

[Terry Green]

GA

[knife river]

Chad, bid away for that hunt -- it's a bargain at any price.  The hunting was outstanding, but the folks that were there made it priceless.    

[IB]

Hell"O"....Mr.Walker..Rob..Charles...JC....Terry      

[cjones]

They sure ain't saying much, Vance!

[IB]

Must be sleepin off the meals  

[cjones]

I sent ya an email Vance!

[Guru]

Chad, That sounds like an awesome time with those boys!!!  One of these days I'll get to your place...hopefully

Come'on guys,ya gotta have something for us from last weekend.....

[Rob DiStefano]

To say I had a GREAT time at Paradise would be a major understatement!  Though no critters were harvested, the folks, the Paradise, the hunt adventure - all were top notch.  

On the road to Paradise - Terry at the wheel, Charlie riding shotgun ...
   

Charlie settling into Terry's "chalet" ...
   

A gourmet meal at the Pardise lodge, exclusively prepared by master chef Terry Green - them grilled buffalo bugers and antelope steaks were OUT OF THIS WORLD GOOD!  Left to right - Joe (JC), Bob, Woody, Terry, Charlie ...
   

A walk off the road and into the thicket ...
   

... destination - the hardwood hollow ...
   

My first morning's still hunt location, behind some downed logs just off the trail (at 9:30am a non-typical chocolate 6 point buck grazed 40 yards in front of me, through the hardwoods) ..
   

At 7am on Saturday morning I returned to the hollow and hunkered down behind a large tree stump, about 30 yards before my first still hunt location (shown above).  At 8am NINE golden hued and fat does GALLOPED down the "V" trail, into the hardwoods, about 45 yards away!  They slowed down and started to graze on acorns, still keeping a good 45 to 60 yard distance.  Behind my loction was a cane thicket about 4 feet high and behind that was a number of oaks.  While watching the does prance around and feed, I heard some shuffling noises behind me and I made out the form of a doe feeding under one of the oaks, 20 yards behind me - no chance for a shot as the choke of canes barely allowed me to see her form.  Wow!  Deer all around me - but it gets better!  TWO more does gallop down the trail and join the eatin' party.  I watched this action for about 15 minutes, thinking "man! if I only went back to my first spot, I have 15 to 20 yard shots at LOTS of deer!"  In short order all the does slowly walked back out the trail, out of the hardwoods. I HAD to move to a better location!  So I slowly picked up my gear and moved over to edge of the trail the deer had used and parked myself behind a large chestnut oak tree, and kept an eye on the trail, off the right side of the tree ...    
   

Within 20 minutes, a gorgeous amber racked 6 point buck materializes outta thin air 35 yards to my right, within the hardwoods, feeding on acorns - and very slowly moving towards me!  There were lotsa saplings and brush 'tween me and him, no chance to bust a shot so I knelt down behind the tree, Horne longbow and WW tipped AD Trad carbon at the ready, hoping he'd pass in front of my tree and come out the left side where there was plenty of clear room for a shot at less than 20 yards. 30 yards, 25 yards, finally 20 yards away and YES! he's gonna cross in front of my tree!!!  Then I see his head and rack nudge past the tree and into my view, the bow is fully drawn, I'm sighting down the shaft, it'll be a sucker shot at maybe 17 yards ... whooeeee this ol' boy's gonna be MINE! ... THEN, with just a front leg showing past the tree, HE QUICKLY TROTS OFF INTO THE THICKET!  WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?  No white flag, no snorts - heck, I wasn't busted.  Go figure.  I'm still replaying that moment in time and space to this very day.  Ack!!!  In the pic below, you can see the view at the left of my tree, and the downed pine that the buck trotted past ...        
   

That one Saturday morning, within an hour and a half I'd see 13 deer up close and personal.  Wow.  Only at the Paradise!  

I also got to meet some of the other Paradise members - Matt, Danny, Tom, Keith - all really super swell fellers.  What a GREAT place for huntin' - and folks!!!  

Thank you Terry!!!

[cjones]

Nice pics Rob. Looks like you had a good hunt to me.

[Terry Green]

I'd found a place about 3 years ago, and been meaning to hunt there ever since, but since I always had 'good sign' in all my regular places, I never hunted that place I found till this hunt rolled around.

BTW...This is the St Judes Hunt we are talking about,  Woody Blackwell and Bob Walker were the winning bidders.....and we'd like to thank them for their bidding on the St Jude's Auction....thanks guys.

Anyhow, I got all the hunters out Friday AM, and got into my area about 3 minutes after daylight.....climbed a tree, got my bow up, turned around and leaned back against the tree......looked over my shoulder, and here came a big buck       that he will change course a bit and start closing that 60 yard gap.  It didn't happen, he went to 'the other tree'....which happened quite a few times on this hunt.

See this little guy----->         He has now been deemed the 'Rob at Paradise' smilie     :D

[IB]

Is that California Cammo that Mr. Coots is wearing    

Don't weakin boys were all "EYEs" on this trip.


Thanks fer the adventure

[Charlie Lamb]

Looks like we're starting to come back from the dead!    
I found out a long time ago, that it's not always the size of the mountain that wears you out, but the intensity of the hunting.

When you put a guy in terrain that is different than anything he's use to it can really be a drain on the old energy banks!

I'd been wanting to get back to south Georgia for a while now. It had been a couple of years since I'd last roamed among her cypress swamps and reveled in her wildness.

The country can be bright and airy or dark and forboding and do both in very short order depending on the weather. We'd experience both on this hunt.

I'm not sure we'd even gone to camp first before we were striking off into the pine thickets and hardwood flats looking for sign.

I'd chosen to revisit an area that I'd hunted on my first trip. It had a special feel and I knew from Terry's reports that it could give a man all he wanted in a hunt.
Hogs and deer both frequented the area.

Terry had called it the "Bathtub" because of a bathtub shaped wallow that exists there.

You come off the main road (there are plenty of roads on the 4000 acres, but most are gated to allow foot traffic only) and enter a long narrow food plot. At it's end a narrow trail winds off down the ridge (possibly 10 feet higher than the "low ground")through pines and brambles.

Just as you bottom out, you pass the "bathtub" and the timber becomes scattered hardwoods with palmettoes growing in emerald green patches throughout.

I stepped into this open to find the bathtub dry and the "swamp" in the same condition. As one of the guys so aptly put, "hell, there's stuff growing on the bottom of the sloughs!"

I wondered how the lack of water would affect game movement.

Finding sign where I'd found it the last time, I set up a ground blind in a favorable wind position and got out of there.

[JC]

I had to leave town right before the hunt for a funeral so I spent all of yesterday trying to dig my way out of the pile of work that I found when I came back. I'll post some of my pics tonight.

It was a fantastic time. As usual, my time in camp with Terry, Charlie, and Bob was a pleasure. It was my first time to meet woody in person, but he's certainly as fine a feller as anyone could share a camp with...and felt like I'd known him as long as the rest of the crew by the time he had to leave. Now, if we could just get him to quit talking for a minute...  :rolleyes:  

Vance, I took a shower that night and actually changed into some flannel sleepin britches...I'd been goin on about 4hrs/night for the previous 3 nights to that pic and about to fall into my plate.

I saw a bunch of deer....all just out of my preferred range. It's tough setting up on a spot, blind in the dark, trying to find food/trails....then they come through and you realize you were close, but maybe 15-20 yards too far.

It was probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever hunted. And it was a real treat to hunt deer that didn't walk through the woods looking up into the trees searching for treestands like mine do here at home.

More story and pics to come as I catch up on work...

[Charlie Lamb]

Our permits (the non resident guys) didn't start until the following morning, so we got back to camp and set up.

We had a bunk house, Terry's pop up camper (very cool)and Cabin for sleeping.

With camp set we had nothing to do but eat and relax with old and new frieds. Pretty good stuff any way you cut it.
   
That's Rob DiStefano up front...kinda looks stunned by Terry's cookin, don't he?  :D  

   

From left to right... JC (Joe Coots),Terry Green, Bob Walker.

[knife river]

In the top photo of Charlie's last post you can see a large black and white aerial photo of the Paradise.  The bottom left corner is torn off.  An accident?  Hmmmm....  I don't think any of us hunted there, either...  Double hmmmm....      

Honestly, it's been a long time since I saw so much sign.  Joe and I hunted a 100 yard stretch of old logging road with about nine hot scrapes on it.  I hunted another place with five scrapes I could see from my ground blind:  there were more a few steps down the trail in some dog-hair thick pines.  But my favorite spot was by the two big chestnut oaks with the two scrapes under them next to a truck-sized hog wallow.  

THAT much sign, THAT much activity, SO many deer seen -- how did we NOT kill a deer?  Better call Ripley's.  I don't know if they'll believe it or not.    :confused:  

Joe, did I really talk that much?  I went there intending to be in "shut up, listen, and learn" mode.  We should have had a tape recorder or video camera to capture some of those great stories!  

[JC]

That was a joke brother Woody  :D  , I wish I could listen half as well as you do. But I was hoping I'd get to hear more of your stories. Next camp, Okay?