Pointed South

Buffalobob

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2001
Messages
5,099
Location
Potomac River
It has been a long snowy winter with little hunting the last couple of months. In desperation for something to do I am heading down to Palachucola WMA on the South Carolina and Georgia line to see if there are actually pigs there. Its about a 10 hour drive and the season is only Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The best I can say is that it is better than sitting around home waiting for Turkey season.

All the gear has been sorted out and the truck is ready to roll. My hope is that I will find some good places and then when the season opens up for three more days in May that I will have enough knowledge of the area to actually kill something.

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Let us know. Seems all us VA Lrh.com guys are looking for hogs as we're all in the sane boat. Long winter with nothing to hunt till turkey season.

Trebark and I are following up some leads in culpepper, I'm flying to Texas next Tuesday for 5daya of hog hunting and my dad has given up, he's importing pure bred Russian boars from Michigan, in 3 months tops we will have hog hunting on our fenced 200acre farm, may not be a true wild hunt, but it's 40minutes from DC.

Hey if you need a spotter on one of your trips, let me know!


Looks like you'll have a great trip. Definetely beats sitting at home!! Good luck hopefully you see some piggies.
 
Hey BB...have a great trip and whack some hogs. I keep seeing this TV show which claims that the hogs are takin over the world down south. Hope you get a shot! In California, all my hogs go to Dave's meat in Modesto...he makes some excellent medium spice Italian sausage. He mixes in some domestic pork fat and those sausages are tasty...I'm making myself hungry...think I'll go cook some up right now....BE safe! 30-338
 
If we kill more than 3 or 4 at a time we will put chains around the head to pull them into an open field so the buzzards can see them!! If you can always shoot the sows and if they have little piglets with them all the better because they will stay wil mom and you can get rid of them as well. We use pistols to make it sporting on the piglets.

The Speedy built Warp 7 kills yet another of the vermin----this was a point bank shot a little over 400 yards.

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Not thread hijack...thread expansion!

If we kill more than 3 or 4 at a time we will put chains around the head to pull them into an open field so the buzzards can see them!! If you can always shoot the sows and if they have little piglets with them all the better because they will stay wil mom and you can get rid of them as well. We use pistols to make it sporting on the piglets.

The Speedy built Warp 7 kills yet another of the vermin----this was a point bank shot a little over 400 yards.

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Boss...Never heard of the Warp7. But being a hog hunter, the point blank range zeroing is very useful for these critters...seems like they are always "bobbin and weavin" What is the speed of the Warp 7, which bullet do you use and what is your zero?
 
Got your PM-----With the load development I have done so far the 150 SMK avg 3290----will check my logs but that load has less than 10fps for 5 shots and has never shot worse than .5 nor better than .2.

Everything that has ever had a 150SMK launched towards it has died!
 
Got your PM-----With the load development I have done so far the 150 SMK avg 3290----will check my logs but that load has less than 10fps for 5 shots and has never shot worse than .5 nor better than .2.

Everything that has ever had a 150SMK launched towards it has died!

Fast, accurate, consistent, decent BC ( the speed certainly compensates ) Sounds pretty nice to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 30-338
One last thing...What is your zero???
Thanks
 
Fast, accurate, consistent, decent BC ( the speed certainly compensates ) Sounds pretty nice to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 30-338
One last thing...What is your zero???
Thanks

Sorry--300 yards---send me your email addy and I will send you my Excel export of my BC Chart that even includes moving target lead. My USO scopes have .17 MOA clicks (long story because the first one was a custom that had to use a different componet and that was what it subtended to and so I keep them all the same but am using the last drum Arnold has for my current scope build) and I like everything to be the same my 300 Jarrett that we built a couple of months ago.

Here are a few in process pics of my latest done this past New Years Eve Eve---notice he starts with chambering the barrel/cutting threads see the daylight in the window, making the dies complete with perfect knurling, making a seating gauge out of the end of the barrel we cut off with the finish reamer, making the stock absolutely perfect. After a lunch and talking to Chuck Grace (builds my wood rifles) who stopped by to give me a inlet job to take back to Texas for another Smith prepped the action and barrel for bedding, no pictures of the nightmare fitting of the HS detachable box mag (I bead blasted it as well as the action, rings bases and applied the spider web finish) and the Jewell trigger.

All of this in 1 day! That's right start to finish in 1 day and everything is absolutely perfect which is much more than I can say about my crap Picture taking. Very few people can build to the level of precision that Speedy can much less do it in 1 freaking day!

For those of you who say nae nae he has done this before but faster----I left the shop about 6:30 on a Friday night (this was in Texas) and we were shooting in a match the next day and I was picking him up at 6:00 the next morning. When I left was a un-inletted SGY F-Class Stock (Speedy glues his actions in), Barrel Blank un fluted, BAT Action, no brake made or ammo loaded…

Next morning ---- The Freaking Rifle is finished FLUTED, polished spider webbed barrel, Brake, Ammo loaded and the SOB went to TAC-PRO and kicked but in the 400yd clay pigeon shoot out hell he even beat me! That is one thing that if I did not see it with my own eyes I would call BS without question.

I always say bo big or go home LOL!!!!!!

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OK---NOW you have made me MAD!!!!! That is Speedy---I am Slowpoke! I am much better looking than that reprobate.

I am not a HOF Member or set World Reacords---------yet!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!!
 
Hog hunting at the South Carolina Wildlife management areas was an educational experience. In terms of learning processes it ranks right up there with sticking your hand in the fire to see if it is hot or hitting your thumb with a hammer. Painfully informative.

What follows is a semi humorous castigation of SC DNR and the story of an unsuccessful hunt. Usually if one of my hunts is unsuccessful I can blame it on myself for being too lazy to hunt hard. This story is not worth reading unless you actually are thinking about hunting in SC or else have totally nothing else to do for the next 20 minutes

First of all one should realize that there is something in the water in SC and one should not drink any of it while there. Whatever the substance is in the water that caused the SC governor to fly to South America to see the senorita also afflicts most of SC Department of Natural Resources. There seems to be a consistent pattern of loony behavior that they view as normal behavior. My first clue that something was amiss in their intellectual process was when I down loaded the form to mail in for a licenses and sent it in. I had carefully filled in every blank on the form and double checked it and enclosed the check of the correct amount. So a few days before leaving an envelope arrives from SCDNR which I believe contains my license. I open it to find my application form, my check and a form from them with the box checked that I ahd not included my Social Security number on my application form. I looked over the form twice and could not find any blank spaces for the SSN but I did note that I had included my telephone number and they could have called me to obtain my SSN instead of returning my application. I immediately sent them and email stating that he SC hunting season was ten months along and only two months left and that surely they knew they had a defective form on their website. They responded that yes they know and were trying to fix it. I did not bother to ask how many months they thought it would take to fix it.

I arrived in Ridgeland SC about 2 PM on Tuesday and went to the local hunting shop to buy a license. Much like SC DNR Ii was unable to buy a license because the only guy who knew how to run the computer was not there. Ii was sent across the road to the local Feed and Seed. I parked and walked toward the store entrance and a guy asked me if he could help me so I told him I needed a hunting license. He said he couldn't do that but go inside and someone would help me. So I went inside and immediately another guy asked if he could help me. I told him I needed a hunting license and he said he did not do that but to wait and the owner would be around in a minute. So I stood there and waited and a woman asked me if she could help me so I told her I wanted a hunting license and she said she didn't do that but that the owner would be around in a minute. Sure enough in a few minutes a guy came around to the counter with a customer he was helping. Out of four people the only guy who was actually working was the only guy who knew what to do. Finally this guy is free and begins to help me with a hunting license. He asked to see my drivers license and noticed it was a District of Columbia drivers license. Even though my address is clearly printed on it he asked me where in Maryland I lived. I told him that contrary to popular belief that there are actually regular types of [people who have homes and live inside Washington DC. This was news to him. He was a nice guy and I shouldn't make fun of him but it is such a common reaction by people when they see my plates or drivers license. So anyway I paid my $70 for a WMA permit and $40 for a 3 day small game license which is how pigs are classified in SC.

I then drove down to the WMAs which are all adjacent to each Palachucola, Webb, and Hamilton Ridge. It is unclear to me why they have three names for what is essentially one continuous unit. Webb has a lodge which was not open and the other two have camping areas, hog cleaning facilities and walk in coolers. Of course at Hamilton Ridge there were human feces on the floor of the check in house and all over the insides of the two portta potties. Apparently the hound hunters drink a lot of water and couldn't figure out what the hole was for in the portta pottie and if they were occupied then they just acted like they were at home and took a crap in the middle of the floor of the hog processing building. The fact that there were water faucets and hoses available did not induce the SC DNR employees to make any attempt to clean up the facilities before we arrived to hunt.

So I drove around the dirt roads and scouted for fresh hog sign and found none at Palalchucola which was a shame being as it had a nice campsite and clean facilities which should have a been a clue. I found a few places on Webb where there had been a few pigs recently and marked those on my map. At Hamilton Ridge I found good bit of sign and one place where there had been a good sized herd of hogs within the last 24 hours. So I set up my tent at the Hamilton Ridge campground despite the general lack of sanitation. The use of the word campground is used loosely as it is simply a large mowed area with two signs. One says "Camping Area" and the other is on a water faucet that says "Danger non Potable Water Do Not Drink". The second sign was unnecessary as I had no intention of drinking the water.

Thursday morning was the first day of hunting and I got up early and fixed my coffee and cream of wheat and headed out to the field with the fresh hog sign. AS soon as it got light enough to shoot I eased into the field and began slowly moving along the field with my 460 S&W ready. After about 20 minutes I was about half way through the field and I heard two boars fighting about 200 yards away down in the palmetto swamp. I didn't think there was much likelihood that I could move quietly enough in the swamp to get within visual range of the pigs and decided it would be better to not risk spooking them and just leave them in peace and they would come back out into the field in the evening. My mistake, the pigs had not been drinking the water and were nowhere near to being loony. I waited on those pigs for three mornings and two evenings and they never ever came out into the open during shooting hours. The only pigs killed by anyone were the four killed on the first day. One guy got one and two guys hunting together got three out of a herd they saw. So for maybe 200 hunter days of effort 4 pigs were killed over three days.

Noon on Saturday the SC DNR LE set up a hunter checking station and began giving out tickets for guns uncased and guns loaded and no hunting licenses. They did a good job of trying to fill the SC state coffers. Fortunately my pistol was down on the floor board of the passenger seat and out of sight and the rifle which was never ever uncased was obvious to the LE. The LE had never ever seen a hunter from DC before and decided to tell me how sad that I had come all this way to hunt. He said the two previous weekends the area had been open for hunting hogs with hounds and the there had been at least forty packs of hounds running for each of the three days of the two hunts. They had reported 89 hogs killed and there were probably at least as many killed by dogs in the swamps that were never recovered. He said every pig had been chased off and only a few had moved back in since the hound hunters had left.

Under the category of the grass is always greener elsewhere I met a guy who claimed to be a retired ranger. He said I should have driven on down to Ft Stewart that there were lots of pigs and the season was always open and no dogs were allowed. To his credit he pulled out topo maps and showed me which areas had the most pigs. I refrained from asking him why he had driven up to SC and bought an expensive nonresident license when he could have hunted from home at Ft Stewart. I just figured he had been drinking the water.
I met a second guy who said the best place to hunt pigs was down the road at the Savannah Wild Life Refuge. He said it was free and had a really nice campground and no dogs were allowed. And best of all there were lots of pigs there. He even gave me a brochure for registering to hunt there. I once again refrained from asking him why he was at Hamilton Ridge when he could have been down at Savannah killing pigs.

I have used the term WMA several times and in most states is means Wildlife Management Area however once you cross into South Carolina it means Tree Farm. Apparently, there is some kind of animosity by DNR toward oak trees and acorns and every time they find one growing on their land they cut it down and replace it with rows and rows of pine trees. This appears to be a method of reducing the amount of wildlife by reducing their food sources and then the hunters do not have to works so hard to reduce the animals populations because DNR has already done that by staving them to death. Any animals that are left are then burned to death every two or three years by the SC DNR controlled burns.

I might go back down again in May for the next three day hunt. There will be no more hound dog hunts before then and maybe there will be some pigs to hunt. I suspect I will also run on down to Savannah Wildlife Refuge and give it a try and maybe go on over to Ft Stewart. It all depends on how much time I have on my hands. I might try Ft Stewart in July being as I will be down in that general area then anyway.

After having run a state agency for fish and environmental quality for a quarter of a century and having hunted many different states, I can only say that SC DNR is simply not anywhere near the top of my list of DNRs.

A word about gun selection. The average range of a shot will be about 50 yards or less and there will be a serious issue if the animal does not fall quickly. Tracking through pine straw or wet swamp will not be very easy. Large caliber, short barrel, low magnification seems to be called for. Perhaps the best choice might be a 20 ga auto with a red dot sight. I hunted with the 460 S&W with open sights zeroed at 100 yards.

Here are some pictures of my tent and the campground and pig cleaning building.

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Thanks for the story and pics. Doesn't sound like the kind of fun I'd be up for.
 
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