http://www.northcarolinasportsman.com/details.php?id=5036

Ok folks, I know I'm not the only one that was in a tree Saturday morning! Where are those stories and pictures.

I managed to squeak out a doe around 8:30am in the rain. It wasn't pretty she had her head in a bush at 35 yards. The arrow deflected just as it got to her and hit her high in the backbone. I hate when that happens but, no tracking in the rain. I watched her for 40 minutes and had I waited a little longer I could have gotten a clearer shot. All on Video.

Twas' the night before bow season and all through the house, everyone was scurrying, even the mouse! The washer was washing the hunting clothes to kill scent and mom was wondering where the money all went. As I nervously replied that it went for some hunting stuff, she turned away without even a huff! She to remembered September last year, when I started bringing home all kinds of deer. Back straps and jerky and bratwurst too, will soon fill the freezer for me and for you! So wax your bow string and pack all your gear...deer season is opening for yet another year!
----Jeff Huggins

Cool picture my sister shared with me. Ghost Buck.

Hey folks if anyone out there has a family member or friend suffering from ALS that would like to go on a filmed Hunt with John Paul MacPherson and the 704 Outdoors TV crew. Please contact John Paul MacPherson through his Facebook page or by their web site http://704outdoors.com/

Well, just 53 days and counting before Bow Season begins....but who's counting? I sure am!!!!! I haven't been out scouting very much what little I have done, the deer are locked in their summer patterns and are easy to find early mornings and late afternoons.

Let's see some views from your favorite stand locations! Here is one that I have a lot of success from with easy access. Last year it was covered in beans.....this year peanuts. There's nothing like peanut butter flavored venison.....lol!

Took a day off to go surf fishing. We didn't get what we were after (red fish) but, I did get a great fight out of this shark on light tackle with 15 pound test line and a 7 foot medium action rod.

A couple more trips like this and I'll be ready for bow season to start.

Have a great 4th of July and enjoy your summer.

It's Coming......4 short months and Bow season will be here for deer. Time to clear those trails and shooting lanes, hang those stands. Who's READY?

Tagged Out! God was good this year and blessed me with 2 nice Tom's. Both were epic spot and stalks. The Tom's were tight lipped and would hang up everytime. I guess I was hunting educated birds. I'm kind of glad my hunts worked out the way they did because putting a stalk on a wise Tom was an exciting challenge! I know 'Creek' was crawling every inch with me while I was wearing 'Papa Bill's' old fishing hat. Miss they both.

Friday Morning I tried to set up on 3 Tom's my cousin and I had at 75 yards on Monday afternoon. The rancher had a dead baby calf in the back of his truck he found killed by Coyotes on Sunday night.

I figured I would set up at the far corner end of the pasture. One side bordered by short pines and the other by mature pines.

I set the Avian 30 yards inside the pasture and tucked back in the tall pines, long before sun up. Once the sky started getting pink, I could hear the Tom's on the roost at the far left end of the pasture 7 or 800 yards away.

I broke cover and grabbed the decoy and started walking to the Tom's gobbles. All of the sudden 350 yards out in the pasture I see something crossing. I throw the binoculars up and low and behold it's a coyote. The sky still fairly dark.

I jumped back into the edge of the tall pines, into a big bush and started making wounded rabbit calls with my mouth. At first he couldn't hear me over the morning breeze that was hitting me in the face. I yelp called real loud with my diaphragm call and he stopped in his tracks. Now facing me, I started the wounded rabbit call again. he started coming my way as if on a string. At a slow trot he closed the distance, 350 yards, 300, 250, 200, 150.....he was on the string. I kept calling and even moved the bushes to make sure he'd come straight in. Armed only with number 5's in 12 gauge, I wasn't sure if it would be enough to knock him down. I let him walk within about 25 yards, where he stopped with head up looking hard into the bush. Green, glowing sight bead on his nose, I pulled the trigger and he went down like I had hit him with a 300 mag.

No Tom's that day but a bonus coyote, my second ever, I wasn't complaining and the Rancher was happy. I guess I just anchored my invite to this property for years to come.

My Step-Father as we called him, Papa Bill. Passed away June 9th 2012. I told my mom that I wanted his fishing hat for the fishing memories. I saw his hat hanging in my office before my hunt so I decided to bring it and him along with me for luck.

Early Saturday morning with a crescent moon and one bright star rising in the eastern sky, I let out a couple of yelps. Right off 2 gobblers on the roost cracked the silence and only 1000 yards away.

Inferno4me and I quickly closed the 1000 yards and set out a single Avian Hen decoy in a small green patch in the bend of the old dirt road and tucked under an overhanging bush and just sat on the ground. As the sun began to brighten the dark sky, we yelped again. Gobbles from both Tom's, still on the roost, one behind us and the other in front of us. This set off an amazing dueling of gobbles that lasted 30 minutes. Then we heard the first Tom fly down, but he was headed behind us. The second Tom stayed on the roost for at least another 25 minutes before he like the first bird, headed behind us. Inferno4me looks over and says, I know where they are going. To a food plot behind us about 300 yards.

Jumping up and leaving the decoy behind we worked our way around the corner of the dirt road and downhill through the standing pines, as the sun was now visible low on the horizon. The road led to a bottom with a small creek running across it before winding uphill to our left, to a large opening with a stand of large oaks. Before reaching the bottom, Inferno4me spotted the Tom across the ridge, 150 yards or so. He was in full-strut almost motionless and in the company of 3 hens, at the top right hand corner of the opening. They were busily scratching around at the base of a massive oak in the leaves for acorns, the second Tom nowhere in sight. This would be our chance.

The noisy scratching would be our sound cover however, we had very little sight cover as we belly-crawled around to the right along the creek and up the ridge through the sparsely spaced oaks. I was in the lead with Inferno4me on my heals.

We got within 50 yards of the group still on our bellies, as I peeked under the floppy billed hat, still downhill from what would be my only cover, a 15 inch trunk of an oak tree still 8 yards away. To my left at 30 yards was a hen feeding my way. to the right at about 35 yards, another hen feeding towards the first hen and 50 yards between them, the Tom; still in full-strut with the third hen. I was thinking this was not good. after about 5 minutes the hens changed direction which gave me the chance to close the final 8 yards to the tree. I got up on my elbows and peered around the tree to the left, hen number 1 now 50 yards away. I peered around to the right as hen number 2, 35 yards away walked out of my sight to the left, blocked by the small oak. Hen number 3 started walking straight to me with Tom in tow and full-strut. It's now or never I was thinking as I raised the Remington to my shoulder and aligned the glowing, green bead on the barrel to the Tom's head, now 42 yards away. The hen now sees me and breaks to the left as I push the safety off, the Tom breaks down his strut but to late.....Bang, Flop, as wing beats fill the morning air. Mission accomplished.

Thank God for a great experience and keeping me from having a heart attack. Thank Inferno4me for the greatest hunt ever. A memory I'll remember forever. Thanks Papa Bill for leaving some luck in the old hat!

\'Creek\' I got you one brother!

It is in great sadness that I pass this information. One of our moderates and a very dear friend to many on this site. Jeffrey T. Smith of Kannapolis has lost his short 3 months battle with cancer this morning around 11am.

R.I.P. My dear friend. You fought a great battle. 3 months is hard to understand but I know you are a great Christian man and God must have needed you in Heaven. We WILL hunt again.

Hey folks. Please be in prayer for a very, very dear friend of mine and this website. His name is Jeff Smith AKA Creek07. He is one of the moderators for us. Jeff is 42 years old and his Birthday is next Saturday.
He came down with symptoms of cancer of the esophagus, while on a Kansas muzzle loader hunt back in September of this year. He is home now with Hospice and not doing very well. Only God, prayers and a miracle can save him right now. He is married for 24 years and has a 10 year old daughter that he took turkey hunting for the first time this past season. Life isn't fair sometimes. Just pray.

Doubled Down on these two bucks an hour apart. A heavy 8 pointer and a wide 6. November 25th has always been lucky for me. I have been blessed!

Well the weatherman is saying those two words we all love to hear....COLD WEATHER. It's going to be near freezing this coming week-end and with the lunar move times the major moves this Friday and Saturday are hitting at morning and afternoon. Deer will be on their feet should be a great week-end. Everyone get out there and be safe but most of all......the pre-rut is in full swing here in the southeast. Get a big one.

It's that time again. Pre-Rut is here. Thought I'd share a Jerky recipe with you!

Deer Jerky by Jeff
An awesome venison jerky that you can make and be the envy of your friends in your food dehydrator, you can dry the jerky @ 155 degrees for 4 ½ hours. ________________________________________
2 venison hams / roast
16 tablespoons soy sauce
16 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
8 tablespoons liquid smoke flavoring
4 tablespoons barbecue sauce 2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons crushed red peppers
2 teaspoon Chipotle Chile Pepper

Note: double receipt for 4 deer hams

Directions
1 Slice meat into long strips, 1 to 2 inch wide and 1/4 inch
thick. In a large pot, combine all the above ingredients
Refrigerate for 48 hours. Stir occasionally, to evenly distribute marinade.
2 Set dehydrator to 155 degrees.
3 Place meat strips on a rack so that they do not touch
each other, and dehydrate for 4 1/2 to 5 hours in the dehydrator, or
until desired texture and moisture content is achieved.

Once this is complete: reload gun to fight off “moochers”!

Note: This can also be done in your oven at its lowest setting. You might have to shorten the cook time.

This is a video that I shot and edited. Before anyone says anything, I will be the first to say this is not a shot to take unless you are dead confident with your abilities. This is a shot taken and discussed in a few archery circles. This is very educational for beginner archers, because you can see how easy it is to miss this shot. This doe was double lunged and shot through the heart.

Some say speed of your bow doesn't matter. Ask yourself that after watching the reaction time of this doe in 1/8 of a second slow motion. A broadside deer at ground level has a target window of 100%. When you change the angle to the target and or shoot from an elevated platform the target window closes down. This 'quartering towards' shot has a shot window of 35%. Not the best shot but possible.

Please Pray for 'Creek07' and his family.

I don't know if you have ever checked out the harvest reports that State Game Officials put out each year but, here is a link:

http://www.ncwildlife.org/Portals/0/Hunting/Documents/Harv_Digest12-ByYear.pdf

I was looking at the Harvest reports for the state which give you total deer harvested by Buck, Button Buck or Doe. It also gives you the other references pages for harvest by type of hunting, weapon choice and so forth.

On the link that I referenced above there is a column that shows antlered Bucks per square mile for each county of the state. If you look at it some counties just pop out especially North Hampton. The only thing that puzzled me was the counties that stand out are not in one region of the state, yet they are spaced out. So why do they have such high numbers of bucks?

I started comparing and crunching the numbers and the overwhelming factor for each of these counties is....their buck to doe harvest numbers are almost balanced. In every other county with lower buck numbers the Buck harvest are over overwhelmingly 'OUT' of balance.

It goes to show it's not where you live and hunt, it's how you manage your herds (DOE POPULATION). Everyone wants a wall hanger so the best way to get that is conservation through herd management.

Everyone be safe out there and drop some of them does!

Well today was opening day of gun season here in the southeast and once again I found myself helping get the population under control on this farm. Wildlife officials say that 50 deer need to go. I've been blessed with 7 of them so far and they won't go to waist, that's for sure.
I shot the first one with the bow and on film for a very good friend that is having some serious medical issues and cannot hunt right now. Please keep him in your Prayers. He asked me to shoot one for him today before the hunt. I told him I would and try to get it on film, thank God for the opportunity, I'll be e-mailing him the video. The other two fell prey to the .270WSM and all were shot in a period of about an hour and a half.

This second picture is one that literally got a 'Parking Ticket'. It scared the mess out of me when I found it in the dark. I thought it was still on it's feet! Bases Loaded today!

I just wanted to share a heart felt story about a kid that is dieing to go hunting!

I have a friend from many years ago, 31 years ago to be exact. Who's grandson has been sick for the last couple of years. The doctors could not find out what was wrong with him until they took him to a specialist. His diagnosis was 'Pandas disease'. This boy is 10 years old. Every day last year he would get up early and practice with his bow in hopes that his papa would take him hunting with him. Yet everytime, papa would drive off to hunt with out this young man.

His Grandma my friend of many years contacted me about taking him hunting a few days ago. I told he wasn't old enough to bow hunt with the poundage he shoots but, come November I would try to get him in a shooting house kind of setup where he could shoot a deer with a rifle.

God works in mysterious ways because I came home tonight and was checking out Facebook and I saw a friend of mine on facebook had a request for anyone that knew of a kid that wanted to go on a hunt. That friend was Dennis Prigdon of Part Time Whitetails. I sent Dennis a private message that I had just gotten such a request 2 days ago and I think I had a candidate for him. Dennis responded in just a couple of minutes.

Since then Dennis has contacted the boys grand-ma and they are planning a hunt sometime in November. Folks God works in mysterious ways but this was truly a connection this boy needs.

I have to give it up for Team Part Time Whitetails and their efforts to give back what God has given them and to take time to spend with a 10 year old boy that has little hope. Dennis Prigdon, God will bless you! Thank you so much for responding to call and being a 'REAL HUNTER'! https://www.facebook.com/TeamPartTimeWhitetails