Family Traditions – Rabbit Hunting in the Deep South

February 25, 2012

Brewton, Alabama

I have dreamed about this hunt since I was a young boy. I remember going to Christmas parties when I was a child and hearing about all of the exciting and funny stories that my dad and granddad told of the days they spent rabbit hunting. My granddad owned a pack of beagles when my dad was growing up. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of every hunter to stretch the truth about the quality of their hunting dogs but my granddad will still to this day tell you that they were they best rabbit dogs in Jefferson County. These stories got me more and more excited about going on a rabbit hunt. I remember telling my granddad that I was going to go on a rabbit hunt and how excited I was about continuing a family tradition.

I started my third generation rabbit hunt early in the morning at a gas station near Brewton, Alabama. I rode into the hunting property with my co-worker, Johnny. We let the dogs out of their boxes and I loaded my granddad’s browning auto 5 while the dogs patrolled the nearby woods for rabbit scent. The shotgun I was using had been passed down from my granddad to my brother, Garrett. Garrett was generous enough to let me borrow the gun so I would get the whole experience of what my family has done for generations. We were hunting a pine cutover; we walked the roads while the dogs dug through the underbrush. We had a few false alarms as the dogs picked up on old rabbit trails. Then finally, the dogs jumped a rabbit and chased it out of hearing range. Johnny, knowing that I had never been rabbit hunting told me to get set up on the road exactly where the dogs found the rabbit. Rabbit’s do something very unusual, when being chased by dogs, they will run in a large circle and will run back to spot where they started. 

I got set up on the road and listened as the dogs left hearing range, shortly after I caught the sound of the pack as they had made the turn and were headed back my way. I waited and listened as the sound of the pack got closer; listening even closer for any sounds of the rabbit that would surely be out front of the pack. Then I heard what I was waiting for, a broken branch about 30 yards away. The rabbit jumped onto the road almost landing on the end of my shotgun. He took a quick bounce and started hopping down the road. I put the bead of my granddad’s browning on the rabbit and made the gun a third generation rabbit killer. I bagged the rabbit and got the nickname ‘no miss’ Nick. No one expected me to be able to hit a rabbit on my first shot. That was the only rabbit that we shot that day but we had several races throughout the morning. We stopped by a nearby creek on the way home and Johnny showed me how to clean the rabbit. It was a nice south Alabama cottontail. 

Brown n' Down

January 31, 2012

Brewton, Alabama

Hunting in South Alabama is very different than the hunting I an accustomed to in central Alabama. The deer population is much more dense in the lower part of the state. This hunt started when Dylan and myself made a deal with a local land owner to help manage his property in exchange for hunting rights during the hunting season. 

This property was split into two sections. We hunted one section during bow season and the second section during gun season. The second section of the property had two food plots that neighbored each other along a single access road. This was the perfect set up for two hunters. We would get off work and ride to the same section of the property and sit on the two fields during the afternoon. I was able to kill a deer on the last afternoon of the last day of the season. I was sitting in a blind at last light and three doe popped into the far corner of the field. I knew this was our last chance at success on the property so I put the cross hairs on the most mature animal and squeezed the trigger. 

We took the deer to the landowners house in order to clean the deer. This was the most efficient and unique process I have ever used to skin a deer. We hung the deer from the tractor and made an quick cut around the deer's neck. We then used the tractor's hydraulics and a cable to pull the skin off in one motion. We had the deer skinned in less than 10 minutes. We processed the deer for the meat which provided meals for us for the next several months.

Finding Success While Hunting Public Property

Central Alabama

Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area

Hunting public management are in Alabama is very challenging. Most of the hunting property in the state is personally owned and leased. Majority of hunters can’t afford to pay the high fees of a hunting lease and resort to hunting publicly managed properties. Most public management areas are severely over hunted and lack the proper management to grow trophy animals. Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area is an exception because it has a unique strategy for managing its deer population on its 35,000 acres. The state only permits bow hunting on this property with the exception of a few days where gun hunting is allowed. These gun hunts attract hunters from all over the state to try their luck on a low pressure, public hunting property. I have had decent success during one of these gun hunts and here is the story.  

November 25, 2011

We had an entire hunting party in the woods this morning. Jonathan, one of his family members, Jake, and I all went on the November 25th gun hunt this morning. I took Jake to one of my favorite hunting spots on the management area called one shot. I shot a 98 pound button buck at 7:00 AM. My 270 caliber Winchester Ballistic Silvertip did its work on the animal and he did not take another step after the shot rang through the woods. Jake was hunting close to me so I went and guided him for the rest of the morning. I was able to put him on a doe walking through a hardwood bottom shortly after killed my deer. He managed to make a great shot on one of the branches but not the deer.

Jonathan's girlfriend, now wife, let us bring her dad and brother along with us for the hunt. No one saw any deer except Jake and myself. We took my deer back to Whitney's house and processed it for the meat. The hunt continued that afternoon at a different part of the management area. This marks one of the best days that I have had hunting on the Mulberry Fork property. Jonathan and I split up on the same hunting spot and Jonathan was able to kill a big, cow-horn spike right before dark. It is a rare day to shoot a double on public property but we were able to pull it off. The success we had today was due to a combination of preparation and opportunity. We spent countless hours scouting this property, finding the best hunting spots and mapping the deer activity. We also spent countless hours in the deer stand waiting for shot opportunities on these deer.

Commitment to the Outdoors

Tuskegee, Alabama

Every outdoorsman that takes on the adventure of college enjoys the challenge of finding time to stay outdoors. For me, this was a very hard challenge. There were limited ways to fish and even less public property to hunt. Towards the end of my college years, I found the time to check out the local public hunting property at the Tuskegee National Forest. Here are a few of my stories from the Tuskegee National Forest. I was not able to take a deer or turkey on the property but I had several encounters with both.

November 6, 2011

After an unsuccessful start to my bow season back home I decided to begin hunting at the Tuskegee National Forest. The conception of any hunting strategy for an unfamiliar property begins with scouting and studying. While I was scouting the new property I was able to find a couple of fresh deer scrapes.

November 10, 2011

I decided to go back to the creek bottom where I found the fresh scrape a few days earlier. I got in the woods around 3:15 PM and the deer trail that I was hunting was so heavily used that it smelled of deer. The leaves were still wet from a rainstorm the night before and provided ideal conditions for a ground stalk. I moved east, up the creek bottom and spotted three doe. One of the deer spotted me and quickly ran through the leaf litter making no noise. I stood there motionless watching the remaining deer quickly work into the thick underbrush and out of sight. 

November 11, 2011

I went back to the creek bottom at the national forest this afternoon after school. I backtracked the doe that I saw yesterday which led me to an area of the national forest that I had not yet explored. I found an area where there was high grass creating a boundary between a swamp and a strip of hardwoods. This swamp was heavily traveled and I thought I could easily spot deer moving out of the swamp and into the strip of hardwoods at this location. I found a nice 60 yard shooting lane and began my hunt. At 5:00 PM it was too dark for a shot but I had a deer working in on me through the high grass. My ScentLok clothing allowed the deer to get within 30 yards when I had to leave. I stood up and the deer ran then stopped and looked back. I took one more step, the deer blew once and bounced out of hearing distance.

November 17, 2011

I went down to what became my favorite creek bottom this afternoon. We had a pretty bad storm yesterday afternoon and it brought colder weather with it. I thought with the falling temperature that the deer would move. I was wrong. The large temperature change brought high winds with it. The wind was swirling in the bottom all afternoon. I was fortunate to have it blowing in my face most of the time. Unfortunately, the high winds had the deer in the their beds all afternoon. I was able to spot a flock of turkeys on my hike out.

Hunting public land can be challenging and requires a commitment to the outdoors in order to become successful. 

Quality Deer Management

Sylvan Springs, Alabama

I had the privilege of managing a small hunting property back in 2009. It was a small property near highway 269 which is close the home where I was raised. This property was owned by a local land owner, R. B. Stevens, and an old family relationship granted my best friend and myself the opportunity to manage the property. We started managing the property by scouting, photographing the deer herd and building food plots. This small, 40 acre plot of land was under tremendous hunting pressure as you can see from the aerial photo. There were four neighboring food plots that were all within a half mile of our land.

October 1, 2011

Jonathan, and I planted two fields to attract deer to our land. We decided to plant one of the fields this year with BioLogic's Full Draw. The purpose of the Full Draw product was to attract deer from the nearby over-hunted lease property. The Full Draw product is a blend of New Zealand brassicas, clover, wheat and special grains. This seed blend is designed to attract deer in the early season and provide nourishment for deer in the late winter months. We thought if we could establish an early season pattern that it would pay off with deer activity all season.

The small, concealed food plots along with the attractiveness of the Full Draw brought deer to our property throughout deer season. We had consistent sightings of several doe, a big 6 and a mature 4-point. The second picture summarizes what would eventually be the reason that we quit managing the property. This deer herd showed very little movement during the day and our food plots turned out to be the perfect spot for the majority of their late night activity. We used several different trail cameras over the years and we were never able to beat the affordability and performance of the Stealth Cam. 

Both the big 6 and the mature 4-point made it through the 2009-2010 season and we were able to track some of the antler development into the next season. One observation that we made in the 2009-2010 season was that the deer activity slowed down when the food plots became overgrown. 

In 2011, we were not able to get any good pictures of the bucks we saw in previous years. We observed that the bucks preferred the back field due to the cover it provided. The front field provided less cover and we were only able to get pictures of the more trusting doe herd. I compiled all of the pictures that we collected from the Stealth Cam and analyzed the deer activity. We found that 77% of our deer activity was occurring at night. This was due to the tremendous hunting pressure that was on this deer population. Of the 47 camera events, we were only able to capture 1 picture of a buck during daytime hours. This shows the importance of quality deer management and what hunting pressure can do to your deer activity. We stopped managing the property after the 2011 season.

Offshore Beginnings: Snapper Fishing in the Gulf

July 19, 2008

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Zeke's Lady

My first offshore fishing trip! My dad, my brother, Joseph, and my best friend, Jonathan, made the trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama and booked our first offshore fishing trip on the marina's group fishing boat, Zeke's Lady. We were nervous and full of Dramamine when we started the trip before dawn. We caught several red snapper that day and we were addicted to the offshore fishing experience when we made it back to the dock. We decided to make it a tradition to take at least one offshore fishing trip every year - usually during our annual family beach vacation.

Hometown Trophy

December 17, 2006

Sylvan Springs, Alabama

December is my favorite month of the year; December is the month of my birthday, Christmas and the first rut for the southeastern deer herd. December 2006 was a special month because I was able to land an incredible hunting opportunity for my dad, my Jonathan, and myself. I got a weekend pass to a hunting property that had just been became available for public hunting. Needless to say, the deer population on this property was not under any hunting pressure which is rare for Alabama. 

The hunt started well before daylight as my dad woke me up. Dad was always the first person awake. He would usually wake me up at least fifteen minutes before my alarm and I never knew why. We would then spend the next fifteen minutes putting on our hunting gear, making sure we had ammunition for our rifles and checking the weather. This was normally all completed in silence because we didn't want to wake anyone in the house. We stood there waiting in the driveway until we could hear Jonathan’s truck roaring down the highway towards our house. Our morning ride consisted of strategizing where the best hunting locations would be based on the weather and our scouting information. We didn't have much scouting information because the property had never been open to public hunting before this season. In this type of hunting situation we always preferred to hunt pieces of the property that offered the most visibility. We all three sat on different power lines in the morning with no luck. We all three met back around 10 AM and decided to go scout one last piece of the property for an afternoon hunt. We crept down an overgrown red dirt road that led to a ridge where we could oversee the northern property line. Who knew, as soon as we reached the vantage point we spotted three doe. I quickly knelt down and let Jonathan use my shoulder as a gun rest so he could take a shot at one of the deer. The deer spotted us and darted into the woods before he could make the shot.

I decided to hunt this location in the afternoon because I thought the doe activity in the morning may be promising for some buck activity in the afternoon. Jonathan had to work that afternoon and dad decided to stay home. I went back to the same ridge that we had found that morning and set up my chair where I could see most of the valley below. This ridge funneled and amplified all of the sounds coming out surrounding woods. This land feature made if very easy to hear the leaves crunching as the deer moved through the surrounding hardwoods.  

It was a hot day in December and I was sitting in the direct sunlight – perfect for an afternoon nap. So I dozed in and out and then I finally fell completely asleep only to be woken up by a crashing noise. The ridge had funneled the sound of a large buck crashing through the brush at 300 yards which was enough to wake me from my afternoon nap. The buck worked across the power line and I only had a few seconds to judge the large rack and flip my chair to make a shooting rest. The buck’s nose was touching the tree line by the time I was able to put the cross hairs on his shoulder. I knew I didn’t have much time so I squeezed the trigger and the deer instantly disappeared. I listened for a few minutes and never heard anything - not a sound. I called my dad and told him I had put a shot on the biggest deer I had ever seen. He told me he was on his way to come help me find the deer and I left to go search the valley for the monster.

I came to the place where I thought the deer was standing when I shot. To my surprise, there was no blood – not one drop. I searched the area and began sweating in the December heat. I sat down in the middle of a kudzu patch and tried to think of how to find this deer. I decided to search the area where I thought the deer would be if he was injured. There was a dense creek bottom inside the tree line not far from where the deer was standing when I made the shot. I walked the creek bottom and noticed the rack lying beside the creek. The deer hadn’t made it 20 yards before he collapsed! I safely ensured that the deer was dead and inspected the body for the kill shot. The rifle bullet had entered his rib cage and splintered on one of his bones leaving no exit wound, a very small entry wound and no blood trail. This deer was enormous. He was a very traditional, typical 8-point. 

Dad arrived and we starting pulling the deer up the ridge towards the truck. We made it about half way up the ridge when we realized there was no way that the two of us could pull this 200 pound animal up this bluff by ourselves. We made a call to my granddad and he brought my brother to help. The four of us were able to drag the deer to the top of the ridge with the help of a winch. 

My mom had several pictures of the deer developed for my birthday the following day. It took several months to have a local taxidermist complete the mount for the deer. It turned out the be a great, hometown trophy and has stayed on my wall until this day. I took the mount to Birmingham's Deer and Turkey Expo the following year and put it in the big buck completion. The deer scored 136 Boone and Crockett and won a prize for “Big 8” in the youth category. I will never forget this hunt or the people that were involved.