In 2009, I saw more deer in a single season than I ever have before.  I counted 75 deer, a record that I hope to top this year given the large number of fawns that were born last spring.  I'm anticipating that we'll still have the Liberty Hill lease, and I hear that we might add a couple of new hunters to the group this year.

My biggest goal for the season is to take a 9-point buck or better.  I've gotten a lot of 8 pointers over the years, but have never gotten a whitetail bigger than that.  I'd love to change that this season.

As always, we'll start the year off hunting predators and crows from January through early March.  We'll do some shed hunting, we'll build new stands and feeders, and will start looking for new areas to hunt.

We'll try for the turkeys in April, work the land over the summer, and be ready to go back at it hard in September when deer season comes back around.

Thanks for following along with me in my hunting journals.

Several years ago I built a pair of wood duck boxes with the intention of installing them on my father-in-law's pond in an effort to increase the duck population.  I've dreaded the job of installing them, and it turns out that it was a job well worth dreading.   My intention was to head to Lowe's this morning, get a couple of 4x4 posts and some long spikes to sink into the soft ground of the pond.   When I got in my truck to leave, all I got was the dry click of the starter.

Frustrated by that, I piddled around the house, taking care of a few chores in need of doing.  Around 1:00pm, I decided to try again, and this time I was able to get the truck started using a  jump-box that I had purchased late last year.  I drove over to Auto Zone, where they tested my battery, but it was showing that it was in good shape.  From there I went to Lowe's and got my wood, (I actually had to go to two different Lowe's stores - the first one did not have the spikes that I needed), then back to the house where I quickly attached predator guards to the 4x4s.

It was right around 4:00pm when I was done with this job, and, looking at the position of the sun, I decided I might be able to get to Gerald's house and get the boxes up before dark.  I grabbed my .223, threw some tools in the truck, and made the 30 minute drive down to Sharon, SC.   Quickly loading Gerald's little boat with my gear, I crossed the lake, dreading the job ahead of me.

 I had chosen a little corner of the lake that offered a great location for a duck nesting box.    Wearing hip waders, I stepped in the water and began hammering the first spike into the soft mud at the bottom of the pond.  The job went quickly, and before long I had the first post installed.  Things got harder from there, as there was no anchor for the boat and no line to tie it to a tree with.

Fortunately, Gerald's boat is very stable, and I was able to stand on the platform, and get the first box in place.  It was a tough job holding the boat in place, holding the drill, and holding the box, but I got it done.  It was even almost level; close enough, anyway.

The second box was a bit harder, as the spike would not go very deep no matter where I tried to put it.  With duck boxes, you should keep them out of sight of each other, so I was limited in my choices of spots for the second box.  Ultimately I got the spike about 16 inches into the ground, but I would have preferred a bit more.  I may have to move the second box in the next year or so.   This box was made a bit differently from the first, and it was harder to get it installed, but the job was finished before dark.

Having a little bit of time left, I maneuvered the boat into a spot between some trees that are out in the pond, loaded my rifle, and began to watch for beavers.  I had to choose a location where the bank in front of me was high and safe from a shot skipping off of the water, but spots like that were plentiful.  I watched for about a half hour, but saw no beavers.

Ted and I both had the day off of work today, so we used it as a chance to get together and do some shed hunting.  I got to the lease about an hour before Ted did, so I parked at the dirt pit where he could easily find me, then I made my way down into the swamp.  I searched hard, covering ground slowly and carefully, but found nothing. 

About an hour into my walk, I found a place that was torn up with buck sign, and knowing Ted should be at the lease by now, I stopped and tried calling him on my cell phone.  I couldn't get through, so I unslung my .223 and popped off a couple of rounds into a dirt mound, letting Ted know where I was.  I did this every few minutes, but never heard an answering shot or the honk of his truck horn.

So, marking my location on my GPS, I headed back out of the swamp.  A quarter of a mile later Ted and I were in shouting distance of each other.  We met up and headed back to where I had been.  We searched the area hard, but found nothing except the leg bone of a fawn deer.

From there we moved over to #11#, cutting down into the hardwoods and making a wide loop.  There wasn't much sign at all in these woods, so we curved back to the road, got in our trucks, and moved on.   I wanted to try the big swamp where I had put my feeder a couple of years earlier, down on the edge of where the logging was done, so we parked down there and headed into the woods.

The original plan was to follow the swamp almost all the way to the road, going in on one side of the valley and returning on the other.  However, as we got in, we instead branched off to the right into an area that I had never been before.  Deep in the woods we found a beautiful slab of exposed granite with a creek trickling off of it.  Sign was plentiful, but sheds were not.

Looking at my GPS, I saw that we could make our way over to #16#, meet up with the road, then make the long hike back to where we had parked.  This was easier done on the GPS screen than it was in real life.  The land was covered with deep gulleys and ravines, the brush was thick, and we were constantly moving in an uphill direction.  I found one very old squirrel chewed shed that was in such bad shape that it wasn't worth keeping.

We continued on, eventually making it to the road near #14#.   We'd had enough for one day, and we still needed to sight in Ted's .22-250, so we went out into the cutover to try to get that accomplished.   Ted took a few shots with it, but the wind was gusting too much to continue.  The day was wearing on into evening, and Ted needed to get on back home.  We parted, and I went over to the Salt Lick stand to check my trail camera.

From there I started to head home myself, but at the last minute decided to drive over to the "staging area", our largest field, and take a quick look at it.  While standing there in the field I saw several deer trails leading into the young growth of pines that surround the field, so I took a quick walk out onto one of them.  Deer sign was everywhere, and I made a quick, wide loop making one last push to find a shed.  I found nothing, but decided that this is definitely the place to focus on next time I get down there.

Randy Jordan, my taxidermist of choice, called me on Thursday to let me know that my last African trophy was finished.  Out of all of the animals that I shot in Africa, the warthog was more of a trophy class than any other animal.  He's a once-in-a-lifetime beast, and he is finally on my office wall.

We've had bad weather for three Saturdays in a row, so when the forecast for today was for a spring-like day I knew that I'd be heading down to the lease.  I've been waiting for a good day to do some shed hunting, and this was the first chance I've gotten in almost  a month.

I got to the lease by mid-morning, then parked the truck at #6#.  My plan was to head down into the swamp across from the stand, then make as big a loop as possible.  I took a backpack, some brush clippers, a rifle, and my GPS along with me.  The brush clippers make moving through the thick tangles of the swamp a heck of a lot easier, and I never go into the woods without a gun of some sort.  Never know what you'll encounter.

I made my way down the hill, slipping and sliding on the wet pine needles a few times.  The hill that leads down into the swamp is really tall, and it took me quite a bit of time just to get to the bottom.   As I approached the bottom of the hill, I made note of a large pine tree across from me with a splash of blue paint on it.  This would be the landmark for where I would head back up out of the swamp.

From there I began a long push through the swamp.  I found a great many spots where bucks had been rubbing their antlers on the trees, and within the first hour I had located this old nub of an antler:

I kept the little nub, even though there wasn't much left of it and it had obviously been there for quite some time.   I continued on, walking for a long long way until I came to a valley that I recognized.  I was over near #15#, at the base of the hill where I had shot last year's first 8 point buck.  I looked a the hill in awe, wondering how I  had managed to drag that buck up to the top of it by myself.

After a bit of rest and a drink of water, I headed back across the swamp, making my way to the tree that I had noticed on the way in.  When I got there some time later I paused, looked down, and saw a fresh shed lying on the ground near the base of it. I picked it up, feeling an incredible sense of accomplishment and joy.  To have looked so hard for one of these and to have finally found a nice one really made my whole day.

I searched the area very thoroughly looking for the matching antler, but it was nowhere to be seen.  After exiting the swamp, I did two more very small pushes through other thickets, but found thing of interest anywhere else on the lease.

I've been working some long hours over the last couple of weeks, and today I took the afternoon off to get some rest.  Leaving work around noon, I decided to spend the afternoon down on my lease.   The weather forecast was for snow and sleet, and I was hoping that the predators might be moving a bit before the storm hit.

I got down to the lease just a little after 1:00pm.  Starting at #1#, I walked way down into the swamp and from there worked my way up toward #2#.   I found lots of deer tracks and rubs, and even found a little bucket feeder that someone had recently filled with Deer Chow.  The was way down deep in the swamp, and when I saw a fresh boot print (probably club member Phil's), I decided that it was time to try somewhere else.   I made the long walk down the road back to the Jeep, then headed over to the main lease.

From there I headed over to the salt lick stand to check my trail camera.  It's been a month since I pulled any pictures off of this particular camera, and I was curious to see what was on there.  There were deer, fox, and a lot of raccoons, but the most interesting thing was that the only daylight pictures of deer were from 2 minutes before I actually drove into the field to check the camera.

Leaving my truck parked in the field, I walked through the thick stuff from the salt lick all the way down to #22#.   On the edge of one deep gulley I came across the spine and leg bone of a long-dead deer, and remembered that I had actually taken this same path through the woods before.   I made my way back up to the road, then hiked to the Jeep and decided to predator hunt until dark.

I had time to make two 30 minute stands, so I hunted #11# and then #9#.   Nothing responded at either stand, and with the temperature dropping and night falling I decided that it was time to head on home.

I was back on the water at about 6:15am this morning after picking up a freshly charged battery for the boat from Gerald's house.  I dropped off a pound of Courtney's BBQ for him, then headed out onto the lake.  Making my way across the water, I moved one of my goose decoys to a better spot, then was seated in my blind about 10 minutes before legal shooting started.

A pair of beavers splashed the water in the creek above me, and then all went silent.  Shortly after sunrise, I heard a mallard quacking on the far end of the lake, so I let loose with a hail call.  I heard no response, and all was quiet again for quite some time.  A half hour later, I heard excited quacking, then heard the mallard come off the water. 

Looking above me, I saw the duck coming overhead, and my first shot was made from a horrible angle and was a clean miss.  I spun around, got a better shot window, and squeezed off another shell.  I saw the duck twist in the air, but wasn't sure if it was a good hit or not.  A few seconds later, way up in the thicket behind me, I thought I heard something crash through the brush, followed by the sound of my shot pellets landing on the hill behind me.

I left the blind and went up into the thicket, doing a big sweep of the thick brush trying to find any sign of the duck.  I spent a half hour looking, but found nothing.  Knowing I'd try once more before leaving for the day, I went back down to the blind and hunted for another hour.   A couple of times I swore I could hear wood ducks way on the far end of the pond, so I grabbed my chair out of the blind and walked along the shore for about 50 yards, finally setting the chair in a brush pile on the edge of the lake where I could get a better look at the big water.

I sat there for a half hour, but saw and heard nothing.  I decided to go back to the blind, cutting up across the hill and into the thicket again in hopes of finding the duck I had shot at earlier.  Amazingly, I walked straight up the hill and found her immediately, a beautiful hen mallard to go with the drake from last night.

I hunted for another half hour or so, but finally gave up and headed over to Randy Jordan's taxidermy shop to drop off my birds.  Since these are my first mallards and were both in great shape I decided to mount them.  Randy promised to extract the meat for me and save it in his freezer, and we choose a really nice position to mount the birds in.

Before I left, Randy showed me my warthog, the last of my African trophies.  It's about halfway done, and he thinks he'll finish it up within the next week or so.

Knowing that I'd be going duck hunting tomorrow morning, I decided I could make it easier on myself if I went down to Gerald's house and put my decoy out tonight rather than in the morning.  With that in mind, I went over to the Carolina Sportsman store and picked up a couple of Canada goose decoys, then drove on down to Gerald's.

There were already three geese and a pair of mallards on the pond when I got there, so once I got in the boat I skirted the edge of the pond, trying my best not to flush the birds that were on the water.  The mallards did spook, but they flew in the direction of my blind, landing somewhere back up on the creek way above it. 

I got the decoys placed the way I wanted them, then settled into the blind to hunt for a bit.  The geese did come in to my calling, but I decided not to shoot, preferring to get a wood duck or a mallard tonight.   At one point I saw Todd, the game warden, drive by in his truck.  I waved at him from the blind, which is just visible from the road, then went back to hunting.

Duck hunting ends at sunset, which was 5:43pm tonight.  At about 5:30, I caught motion in the water back up on the creek above the blind.  Looking through my binoculars, I could see the two mallards were splashing about up that way.  With only a few minutes of legal shooting left, I grabbed a handful of shells and exited the blind, creeping up into the thicket behind me.

I made my way along the edge of the lake, keeping out of sight of the ducks.  When I thought I was close enough, I moved in and saw the birds at the same moment that they saw me.  They flushed, flying high into the sky.  My first shot was at the hen and was a clean miss.  Preferring to have a male to mount, I switched over to the drake and hauled him down with a 3" magnum load of #2 steel shot.   I turned back to the hen, now heading out across the pond, and tried a last shot, but the distance was too great.

I checked the time and saw that I had done all of this with 5 minutes of legal shooting time to spare.  Knowing the hunt was over, I packed up the boat, retrieved the drake, and headed back across the lake.  The battery in the boat died just as I started head back across the pond, so I had a bit of paddling to do to get back to the landing.

It's duck season, and my father-in-law has a beautiful place to hunt them just 20 minutes or so from my house.  I arrived at his land just before sunrise, got my gear loaded in the boat, and headed across the lake to my duck blind.  On the way across, I saw the v-shaped wake of a large beaver swimming in front of me, so I grabbed my shotgun and got some shells into it. 

I fired at the beaver, but he saw me just before I squeezed the trigger, and my shot hit the water where he had been seconds before.  I saw another one just after I got my decoys out and got into my blind, but it was the same situation.  He disappeared right before I shot.

I hunted ducks most of the morning without seeing anything.  At around 8:30am, however, I heard a couple of canada geese hit the water way across the lake from me.  I started calling them, and they called back.  We called back and forth to each other for more than an hour, but they were content to stay on their side of the pond.

Eventually, after a particularly plaintive series of calls from me, they flew up off of the pond and headed my way.  I stood up and got ready for the shot.  They rose quickly into the sky above me, and my #2s pierced the air behind them as I pulled off three clean misses.  They were soon out of sight, and I saw nothing else for the rest of the day.

Went back down to the lease this morning for a predator hunt after picking up my kudu mount at Randy Jordan's place last night.  I started off in #1#, but after a good hour of calling had seen nothing.  I moved over to the cliff area to hunt, where I know that there is a red fox den, but again nothing came in to the call. 

As I was hunting the cliffs, I saw Jimmy drive by in his truck, so I packed up my gear and headed over to the sign in board where I found him waiting for me.  He said that Phil, another member of the club, was supposed to come down today too.  I suggested that we go try to call up a coyote in the cutover while we waited to hear from him.  Jimmy was agreeable, so we drove down into the lease.

I put out the decoy and caller, but as I sat hunting I was sure that I could hear someone else calling over on the other side of the cutover.  I looked carefully around with my binoculars and eventually saw a truck parked way down on the far side of the valley from where Jimmy and I were.  Looking closely, we decided that it was Mike Sistare's truck, so we called him up to see if he was having any luck. 

Mike came over to where Jimmy and I were hunting and we all decided to give the crows a go.  Mike and I both started playing crow sounds on our callers, and before long we had a group of big ones come in.  I pulled down the lead bird, and the other guys missed their birds.  We chased the crows all over the lease for most of the rest of the afternoon.  Everybody eventually got at least one bird.

Since there was too much ice to hunt ducks, I went down to Liberty Hill at around lunchtime today to do some predator hunting.  I stopped at Nichol's Store on the way down and looked at their Traeger grills.  I think I'm gonna have to pick one of those up this spring.

Once I got to the lease, I started out at by doing a little bit of crow hunting at #2#, then #34# and #17#.  The only crow that came in to my calling was at #2#, and I missed him three times.

After that I did some predator hunting at several stands, but nothing came in to those calls either.

The most interesting thing was seeing that Jimmy has already started working on moving stands around.  Stand #9, one of the most popular stands on the lease, has been moved 50 yards down the road and out of a tree that had previously been struck by lightning.   The new location is not quite as good as it used to be, but the tree it was in was in such bad shape that we couldn't leave it where it was.

I haven't hunted ducks in a few years, but this year I'm planning on getting back into it.   To that end, I went down to my father-in-law Gerald's land today to see what shape my duck blind is in.  I made a long hike around the lake from his house to the blind, put some new burlap on it, brushed it in with some cedar trees, and got it back into a semblance of readiness.

I had hoped to hunt ducks tomorrow morning, but the pond has too much ice on it to get the boat out, so I gave up on that idea and decided to go predator hunting at Liberty Hill instead. 

I was also supposed to meet the game warden this afternoon to get a beaver permit; those fellows are tearing up the woods around Gerald's pond, but we missed each other.  I'll try again on that soon.

Well, another season is ahead of us.   My deer rifle is clean and locked away in my safe.  It's time to break out the .223 and try to down a few foxes and coyotes, and, if I'm really lucky, a bobcat.  We're starting to get a handle on this predator hunting stuff, and the last time I went I called in three foxes at one time. 

I know some of the areas on the lease that are holding coyotes right now, so if I can learn how to call them in we might get lucky and get one of them this season. 

We'll get back in the woods in a week or so, but now it's time to recover from the previous season and start getting ready for the next one.