Wildlife

During last deer season and again this spring turkey season, the places where I hunt have been hard hit by feral hogs. These animals, simply put, are creating havoc with our food plots and in an overall sense; they are destroying a lot of the land where we hunt.

I recently had a good conversation with a couple of gobbler chasers about turkey hunting and the question of ‘scoring’ a longbeard came up. They asked did the state keep records on such, as they do with trophy deer. After checking, I cannot find where the SCDNR keeps a scoring record on turkeys but the National Wild Turkey Federation does have a scoring system that can rate a gobbler in terms of trophy potential much as the Boone and Crockett system does for big bucks.

Between all the changing weather systems we’ve already experienced in February and through last weekend, from cold, to warm, to cool to rain, I managed to sneak in a little bit of crappie fishing recently. Based on the fact we are now in mid-March it comes as no shock that the crappie are biting and beginning to make a good move to the shallows. As many experienced crappie fishermen have learned, not all the crappie move to the shallows at the same time. So fishing the mid-depths to deep water will remain productive even with the frequent cold front systems that will blow through the area this month. But occasional shallow crappie flings will occur and when they do, you need to be ready.

One thing is for sure, time changes everything and our treasured lakes Marion and Moultrie are no exception to this rule.