May 8th Hog Hunt in SC

[badfaulkner]

A buddy and I went after pigs in the low country of SC on Saturday. Heat wasn't too bad, bugs weren't too bad, but the wind constantly swirled. Saw at least four pigs running from our smell, having never even seen us, one of which was a bruiser.

We split up for the evening hunt, figuring the wind couldn't bust us both and my buddy connected on this young boar at about 7:30 Saturday night. It was good to get out into the woods.

We saw six deer, twelve hogs, a cottonmouth, a corn snake, and three gators, all in all, together and apart from each other combined.

Check out the size of the cypress knees in one of the pics!!! Pretty woods for sure.

[Singing Bridge]

We saw six deer, twelve hogs, a cottonmouth, a corn snake, and three gators, all in all, together and apart from each other combined.

Awesome, sounds like a great hunt! Did the cottonmouth or gators give you any trouble? Congrats to your bud on his hog, too!

[dan]

Awesome!
How you guys hunting the pigs? Bait? Trail sitting???

[badfaulkner]

Singing bridge,

We saw the gators in the water way before daylight paddling in. Their eyes glow red by flashlight. They gave us no trouble and we definitely weren't asking for any. I have loads of respect for those big reptiles, let me tell you. My buddy in these pics has loads of experience hunting lowcountry swamps and he said that gators turn up pretty far from the river when the hunting gives them a reason to travel a bit (flooded timber, a river out of its channel, etc, etc).

The cottonmouth opened his mouth and thumped his tail but giving him a wide berth was all it took to avoid trouble. I've been involved with three cottonmouths on three different occasions: twice they moved or swam away from me, this time they issued a warning rather than just striking. I've heard they're really not aggressive unless you meddle with them and then they become The Terminator. LOL.

Dan,

We were sliphunting on the edge of thick hummocks in the swamp. The pigs were sleeping on the hummocks and moving from these tiny patches of high ground through the wet places into the dry sloughs to uncover acorns, etc. They're just as fat as they were in the fall, my buddy said, after he skinned "brother Red" out that night back at his house. Tons of naturally occurring forage in that region.

My buddy in these pics is teaching me; he's really good at finding deer in the fall and pigs (spring or fall).

Thanks for reading guys.

What's going up there in the state of the Wisconsin Badgers, Green Bay Packers, awesome beer, and dairy farming (not to mention heavy-antlered deer)?

[dan]

Pretty boring up here Bad... Just finishing up the turkey seasons and the carp are starting to spawn which is getting the bowfishing started...

Excuse my Yankee ignorance, but whats a "hummock" ?
It must be a southern term..

[badfaulkner]

A hummock is just a really small hill in a swamp that's very fertile. Loaded with palm fronds and cover as well as oak trees, etc. And of course, they're surrounded by low-lying leads or draws full of water. Cypresses, overcup oaks, tupelos all in the water, and then on the hummocks you'll have laurel oaks, water oaks, swamp chestnut oaks, cane...

Hummocks and leads full of water makes for great edge habitats one after the other for pigs and deer. You can literally come face to face with game slip hunting in the swamps. The water can be your ally if you move slowly and don't pick your feet up.

[dan]

I hunt a lot of swamps here, but I don't have poisonous snakes and gators to contend with.

[Bigdaddy-yoyo]

nice job, cool reading about other parts of the country

[badfaulkner]

Well the "good" thing is that swamps that feral pigs call home are limited in the snake department. Good in the sense that you seldome see one poisonous or otherwise but I do realize from an ecosystem standpoint that they are necessary to keep the vermin population down, so it's probably not good in the "big picture" sense. They have their place and I've evolved over the years from killing poisonous ones on sight to live and let live when I'm in their living rooms and not vice-versa.

I'll bet Wisconsin swamps are teeming with big hoofed wild animals. IMO they make the perfect whitetail habitat. Lots of cover near lots of food. Deer can die of old age in a good swamp. A lot of hunters like dry feet and short walks to hunting sites and avoid swamps completely. But good things await those who "dive in."

[Singing Bridge]

Man, I had a great response typed out for Dan not knowing what a hummock was! It had a wheel of cheese and ... never mind.

[dan]

Live and let live... Good way to look at things. Everything has its place and reason for being here. I was told some stats in my 1st responder training that made me kind of chuckle. It was somewhere around 99% of snake bite victims were messing with the snake when they got bit, and of those 70% were intoxicated. If you leave them alone, generally they leave you alone.

[lungbuster]

You do any turkey hunting in the Low country? I hear it's full of birds.

[badfaulkner]

lungbuster,

No, I never have. I pretty much stay up in northeastern coastal areas of SC.