Hunting
South Carolina is one of the most popular places in North America to go hunting, and the reasons why South Carolina is a great place to hunt are many. For one thing, South Carolina is a rather diversified state in terms of its natural habitats for game and wildlife. Within its borders there are more than 31,000 square miles of land that includes mountainous areas, wooded flatlands, swamps, and marshy coastal regions. Native animals and birds include bears, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, deer, boar, turkey, duck, goose, quail, dove, and grouse.
Plus the climate in the Palmetto State is mild, with short winters and long growing seasons. That means that the wildlife in the state of South Carolina has a longer window of opportunity for feeding, which makes for a healthier and more populated selection of wild game. You can even hunt for more exotic prey such as rattlesnake, crocodile, and alligator while in South Carolina. Alligators as long as 13 feet have been found within the South Carolina swamps, and a 6-foot crocodile washed up in the surf along the coast of South Carolina not too long ago – after what wildlife experts believe was the crocodile’s migration up the coast from Florida. Hunters who are interested in tracking deer in South Carolina find many happy hunting grounds, both for sportsmen who prefer firearms as well as for those who hunt with a bow and arrow or a crossbow. Within the rice fields and other watery areas of South Carolina farmland it is possible to hunt for waterfowl, alligator, various kinds of birds, and the rather vicious and formidable South Carolina wild boar.
Or you can head toward drier woodlands like those farther inland where much of the state’s cotton, corn, and tobacco crops are grown. There you will find many hunters and guides who prefer to stalk coveys of quail, doves, rabbits, and other prey common to those areas where there are dry meadows skirted by piney woods. There are also many ponds in those same places where ducks and geese can be hunted during duck hunting season, and many hunters prefer to go hunting for that kind of winged game by boat. Of course if you like to fish you can use the same boat to fish for bass and other delicious fish, and South Carolina offers some of the best fresh water and saltwater fishing in the country.
To learn more about what kinds of hunting the state of South Carolina offers – or where to find experienced local hunting guides or tracts of land that are available for sport hunting – just contact the South Carolina Wildlife Commission or state tourism department. With so many reasons to go hunting in South Carolina, hunting has become a major pastime for tourists and visitors to the Palmetto State as well as for local residents and natives of S.C. Plan a trip to South Carolina when hunting season is in full swing and you are sure to be rewarded with lots of great hunting for whatever kind of animals, birds, and other prey the state offers that you enjoy tracking and hunting.
Having decided to hunt in South Carolina, you must determine what it is that you wish to accomplish. Some initiates begin their hunt with chief emphasis on the deer’s food value. Indeed the majority of new hunters just go after a deer, period. The primary motivation may be recreation, fellowship, a soul search, or a trophy. Reasons for the hunt may overlap one another and are vastly susceptible to spontaneous change. For example, a hunter simply intent upon bringing a deer home by shooting the first one seen may catch a glimpse of a monster trophy buck and subsequently spend the rest of the season pursuing that animal and desiring to accept nothing else.
Often “What you see is what you get.” Use your wonderful, inborn creative imagination to envision your quarry from the beginning. There is something magically positive about this thought process in the hunt. Not only will this skill assist the hunter in developing hunter strategy by eliminating unnecessary steps, it may be the key to success. Knowing exactly what you are after may help you to more readily identify it when it actually appears before you. What happens inside the head is something difficult to talk about, but any hunter who has been at it a while will tell you that there is something going on there. The continually successful hunters just have it together to be winners, and this is a total mind set and not just blind luck or the ingenious employment of techniques.
A legal doe or smaller buck may be your tender quarry. You may choose an area to hunt where doe populations are relatively high and fill your freezer with comparative ease. Leave the big antlers to grow larger for the trophy seekers. These genetically superior bucks make the best breeders in the herd. Take a spike antlered deer or a puny racked deer. These are the ones that usually don’t achieve big, wide antlers anyway. You don’t eat antlers. The well-balanced deer herd requires some culling by meat-hunting outdoorsmen-the hunters who should be honored, rather than belittled by their peers. Given the choice of shooting two, side-by-side deer, one with puny, bent spikes and the other with well-shaped forks, the conscientious hunter should choose the lesser animal and allow the better formed one to go on to maturity.
The hunter who enters the South Carolina woods with a defeated attitude usually leaves the wilds that way. If the voice of truth inside you tells you that you are not going to get a deer that day, you may as well stay home and do some needed chores. Save your deer-hunting energy for another day. Separate and heed your intuitions. The positive, confident hunter has a much higher productivity level than the one who really doesn’t believe he will score. If you think you are unlucky, then you will be unlucky. Have confidence, have faith, and listen to your inner self.
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