doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Favorite Game/Gun Picture - 2019 Hunting Season

There's not much overlap - I have a sora hole that gets loaded about the same time every year and it's very fresh albeit tidal water. I shoot a few just to say I've done it then leave the rest.

The Clappers are usually in the spartina flats much closer to the coast.

My son coming back to the boat with a clapper and a Citori...

How has the Francis Marion National Forest recovered since Hugo, in '89? I drove through from Moncks Corner to McClellanvile in April of '90 and I can still remember the devastation to those beautiful pine forests. I was competing in the SC Muzzleloading Championship in McClellanville when i passed through and saw that. It was "other worldly". I've not been through there in so many years, Is Awendaw still there?

SRH

Hugo broke my heart but other than the wild turkey and white-breasted nuthatch numbers still being low, just about everything is back like it was. Poor management of the FMNF has done way more damage than Hugo.

That's saying something. Hugo was a bad blow.

Best wishes, SRH

Here's a photo of hunting marsh hen hunting in the Georgia Sea Islands. On the back of the photo: "12/9/1928". For those not familiar with marsh hen shooting, marsh hen shooting is the edible version of shooting mylar balloons. They are abundant in the spartina fields of Georgia's and SC's coast where half the remaining spartina marshland exists on the Eastern coast.

Seems a lot of us were in FMNF after Hugo. I was there within a week. It was quite the mess. I am curious to learn the details of how it has been mismanaged.

First let me position myself - I'm a hunter and have killed just about every game species in the forest except for deer. The list includes wild turkey, woodcock, snipe, squirrel, fox squirrel (when they were legal), dove, bobwhite and wood ducks. It's one of the few places where I know I can reliably catch a redfin pickerel. I'm also an avid bird watcher and saw my first Red-cockaded woodpecker and Bachman's sparrows in the FMNF. I'm a long-distance hiker that has hiked the entire Palmetto Trail section that runs through the FMNF from Awendaw to Bonneau. And, I�m a native plant enthusiast and there�s about a half dozen really unique wildflowers that I have only ever found in the FMNF. I say all of this I�m a big supporter of multi-use management.

The biggest single management misstep, in my opinion, is infrequent or miss-timed control burns. Example: back in the heyday of the FMNF they never burned when wild turkey were on the nest�now it�s an all-too-common facebook rant is someone finding a burned up turkey nest. Areas that used to be havens for both flora and fauna are impenetrable thickets devoid of avian chirps or whistles. I don�t know if it goes back to funding or whether the �new� management techniques are not working but something is different and not in a good way�

FMNF Pine Lily:



FMNF Black-eye Suzie:

Gorgeous photos, Rubberhead.

I was in FMNF for both RCWs and Bachman's Sparrows. The old pines snapped right at the RCW's nest cavity as often as not. It was a surreal landscape.

All the NF's in the SE were shifting to managing for more open, not less open understory. Largely due to RCWs but also other species of plants and animals. However, their abilities to burn have been dramatically hampered by climate change. The number of days that meet safe burning conditions is much less than it used to be. At least that was the case when I left that part of the world for the last time.

Hugo blew the roof off of FMNF and with that, a lot of light started hitting the forest floor, so dog hair thickets and worse were to be expected. There was no way they could manage to make it what it was when the whole architecture of the place changed overnight.

I wasn't at FMNF much. Most of my time was further inland on the bomb plant.

Oldest son and I broke out the Elsie's for a duck hunt.

I finally found something that is perfect for wild turkey legs. A slow-cooked carnitas recipe. Unbelievably tasty.