2009 Deer Season gets off to a good start

Man Drivers, happy in their work, pose with my New Year's Day harvest

Lowcountry outdoors has hurdled several obstacles in early 2009 to bring you this blog, including domain registration, website development, business planning and even exploration of various social media. Now that the "technical" issues are somewhat behind us - the outdoors related community can look to this site for notable happenings and reports on current events related to our natural resources.

Hunting and fishing will be in focus during this blog and a quick review of 2009 events thus far begins with hunting. On a very cold last day of deer season I found myself on a man drive at Spring Hill Plantation in Ridgeland. Host Julian Clark delivered careful instructions about stand assignments and made sure everyone was dressed in blaze orange and was thinking safety first. This was not our first time to conduct this traditional hunt, and we were surprised when the first drive was completed that no shots had been fired. The drivers reported jumping three deer, but they did not cross the path of any standers. On the second drive of the morning, I was stationed at the "end zone" of the drive - if any deer got pushed they would likely  have to come by me. Standing very near to a cedar bush I was hidden well when two does came bounding by my stand. My 12-gauge shotgun bellowed once but the shot was errant, and I fired two more rounds of buckshot and issued a red light to the deer traffic. The other drivers soon came to my position to hear my story of woe or glory, and we made this fine photo to show that the 2009 deer season was already underway.