St. Jude's Hunt with Tippit

[smokin joe]

I was very lucky. I won the St. Jude's Hog Hunt with Tippit (Jeff Springer) at The Paradise.

When Jeff listed the hunt on the auction page, he also said that if the bid got high enough he would include one of his hand forged knives. Well, I have plenty of knives, but I thought that another custom knife couldn't hurt -- so I put in a big enough bid to trigger the knife offer.

I had no idea how terrific this entire experience would be.

[smokin joe]

I sent Jeff some dates that I knew I could get away from work this spring, and he replied that if I came down a day early he would let me be part of the making process of my own knife.

I thought that maybe that would be a bit of an imposition on his time, but I learned that he was sincere in his offer, so we set them dates for the knife building and for the hunt.

I left my home in North Carolina early on a Sunday morning and drove to Jeff's place in Aiken, South Carolina. Jeff came out to meet me when I pulled onto his beautiful property. He has about 10 acres with a house, guest cottage, horse stable, and paddocks. He also has a shop where he crafts hand-forged knives.

Jeff and I have much more in common than I knew. We are both trad bow aficionados, of course -- but, we are both also fly fishermen and are interested in fine side-by-side classic shotguns.

Jeff led me to his shop and explained the knife-making process. He then showed me some of his knives. I was like a kid in a candy store. His knives are really wonderful. He has an eye for proportion and configuration that makes the lines of his knives flow into one another with grace and beauty.

He told me we would be making a simple pack knife. After showing me a few examples to gauge my preferences, he fired up the forge and got started.

[smokin joe]

The knife after heating and hammering into shape.

[smokin joe]

Jeff doing some final shaping.

[smokin joe]

The final knife, perfectly fitted to my own hand. By the way, Jeff let me do some of the work, and that was lots of fun.

[smokin joe]

That evening I had a wonderful dinner with Jeff and his lovely wife Molly. Lots of good conversation and food. Then a good night's sleep. On Monday morning we packed up and headed for The Paradise for a few days of hunting hogs.

[4dogs]

 

[Macatawa]

That evening I had a wonderful dinner with Jeff and his lovely wife Molly. Lots of good conversation and food. Then a good night's sleep. On Monday morning we packed up and headed for The Paradise for a few days of hunting hogs.

Joe
Cool ... absolutely!
I live in Fort Mill SC and can imagine that awesome experience...good stuff!

[LC]

Cool

[Thadbow]

Sounds like a wonderful trip, I will be looking at this very hard if its available next year!

[Charlie Lamb]

They don't come any better than Jeff. One of my favorite people in the world. I'm the proud owner of one of his fine steel creations and they don't  come any better either.  I envy your hunt buddy. Bring it on.

[Chumster]

This is what it's should be and is all about!!

Thanks for sharing.

[smokin joe]

I got to my little ground blind at about 4:00 PM or a bit before that. I have a little folding tripod chair that I like for ground blinds, so I brought that along.

The section I was in is called The Garden and it is very pretty there. The feeder went off at %:05 PM and again at 5:25 PM. Sunset was going to be at about 6:30. I sat there quietly and at about 6:20 I saw a nice black boar cross the field from west to east about 75 yards to my right. He was moving along at a relaxed trot. Once he got into the woods to my right I could hear him moving along and veering to the south. He was obviously going to get down wind of the feeder to check it, and I wondered why he would even bother to do that. After all, boars there have no enemies other than hunters, and we just got there. So far he was up wind and had no reason to think he was being hunted.

As he worked his way south to get down wind of the feeder he would also get behind me and get my scent -- and that is exactly what happened. I could see him working his way through the woods and then he stopped and froze directly down wind. He took a few more steps and then turned ant trotted away.

I stayed in  my blind until dark and no other hogs came by. I headed back to camp for dinner.

[Sockrsblur]

  Absolutely wonderful! Keep it coming 

[Terry Green]

Right stuff Joe, its a wonderful place.... So glad you got to experience it sir.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

 Good stuff Joe, keep it coming.

[Thadbow]

Oh Joe, I have sat in that spot and reading this took me right back there... Thank you!

[tippit]

Just saw this thread come up.  Joe is a true gentleman and now a friend.  We certainly have a number of common interests beyond traditional bows and hunting.  I'm going to have to be mostly on the side lines as my phone/camera decide to stop working once we arrived at the Paradise.  It was a cold week in southern Georgia and the rains had flooded a good part of the lease...but the pigs were out every day.

[tippit]

Joe showed me some new twists to hog hunting.  I have sat in the dark many a night over a feeder with my red sniper hog light on my bow.  It seemed to work better on a lease I had on the Savanah River in SC but at the Paradise it was spooking hogs as I think it was too bright.  Joe showed me The Kill Light from Elusive Wildlife that attaches to the bottom of a metal feeder with magnets.  This is the simple model that will come on by itself as the light fades.  Most importantly it comes on very gradually so not to spook any hogs already at the feeder.  It is also green.  So I tried it the first night.  Just before total darkness, I saw a very large hog coming into the feeder.  It stopped 20 yards out when it noticed the light under the feeder.  Wheezing and grunting, I thought another spooked hog...but it slowly approached the feeder and started to feed as if nothing was wrong.  From the hogs size well over 150# and a pot belly, I was pretty sure she was a pregnant sow.  We try Not to shoot pregnant or nursing sows so I just watched her for about a 1/2 hour.  With just the Kill Light under the feeder and total darkness, I had enough light to shoot her.  Pretty impressive especially with a Big hog that are usually very weary.

[smokin joe]

On Tuesday we walked around a bit to see if we could spot any hogs to stalk. We came upon a large food plot that had 18 hogs out in it grazing like cattle. About half of the hogs were young piglets, and the other half were a mix of boars and sows. I saw that some of them were working in my general direction and I took up a spot that offered a pine sapling to block my outline. Two medium-sized boars worked their way to about 35 yards before calmly turning to graze in the other direction. Since the field was large and open, there was no way to stalk up on any of the hogs. The only option was the one I took, that is to take up a position and see if any of them walked close enough for a shot. The wind was in my favor the whole time, but with so much young, tender foliage in the food plot the hogs wandered aimlessly while grazing, and they never got close to me.

We took a look at a couple of feeders and saw that the hogs had hit them overnight.