Anyone here have info on Chestnut Hunting Lodge (NC)???

[loaded4bear]

Anyone here have any personal knowledge of or experience with Chestnut Hunting Lodge in Taylorsville, NC? It's owned & operated by a man named Jerry Rushing.
 
I'm inquiring because I recently purchased land in northwestern NC, and this lodge is only about  45 minutes away. I hear that there are feral hogs running wild in NC, but the only huntable concentration is way down in the mountains of Cherokee Co.  
 
I understand that Chestnut lodge is a hunting preserve, but I just want to make sure that it's not the type of place where they walk you out 100 feet from the lodge and someone pushes a barnyard pig out from behind a tree, yelling "shoot 'em shoot 'em!"
 
Any info would be helpful.

[Graybeard]

Well yeah it pretty much is what you're hoping it's not. I've not been but do know three locals who have and have discussed it with them. When they went they were pretty naieve about exotics and hogs. Only after additional exposure to them did they realize just what had really taken place at Chestnut.

It's a small enclosure and the hogs are pen raised and brought in only to restock as the previous ones are killed off. They are NOT wild in any sense of the word. They are pretty much like any other such preserve operation. Way too many head of game killed there annually for them to be raised on such a small space so they have to buy them at wholesale from breeders. Most such stock is raised in what can only be described as a pen environment. The size of the pens vary but they get a lot of exposure to man and know that man is where their food comes from. Thus the fear of man is repressed and they actually come to think of humans as a food source. Not as food but as the provider of it.

The hunt as it was described to me went sorta like this. Early morning they were taken out to stands and told NOT to move from the stand no matter what. Then the guides herded animals past them and they had the option of shooting whatever they liked from what came walking slowly past them. One guy wanted a larger animal than he saw and was taken to yet another enclosure where they used the vehicle to chase it until it tired and slowed to a walk and was shot from just outside the door of the truck.

Now I have no personal experience at the place but that's the summary of the experience of three folks I know who did go there.

[loaded4bear]

Graybeard,
 Sounds like it's one step removed from buying your porkchops at the local Piggly Wiggly market...definately not what I'm looking for. Looks like I'll have to make the trek down to Cherokee Co. after all.  
 
 Do you know of any preserve type operation(s) in the southeast, excluding the Everglades, that offer an opportunity to hunt hogs in a manner that at least resembles fair chase? I'm not looking to shoot Wilbur!
 
Thanks for the heads-up about Chestnut.

[Graybeard]

I've hunted a couple of places that do not use pen raised stock. One is or I might should say WAS Tellico Junction in TN. I say it that way cuz it was a long time ago when I was there. About '93 I think. They had traps in which they caught wild free roaming hogs from the National Forest that adjoins their land. I was told they have 2000 acres under hog proof fence. It's nto real hog proof as I noticed several places it was down and hogs could easily cross in or out as they wished.

If they liked the size of the hog they turned it loose in their enclosure, if not they turned it loose again in the Nat. Forest. Their hogs were truly wild and had been born and lived in the wilds their entire lives.

The other is Carter's Pasture in north FL. Mike Carter has I think about 1100 acres of the thickest swamp land you'd ever wanna see. His hogs are breeding right there on the land and are not stocked or replaced from outside. It is fenced but it is hunting for hogs raised there and which have lived there for generations.

They are the two places I've had personal experience with that might meet your needs.

[loaded4bear]

Is this the Telico Junction you are referring to???
 
http://www3.tellico.net/~tellicobear/
 
Thanks again Graybeard!!!

[Graybeard]

No I'm pretty sure that's NOT it. The name of the place was Tellico Junction. You can read my story of my hog hunt there in the Camp Fire Tales. I think you read them now from the Home Page via the All the Rest Link and then Camp Fire Tales.

Joe and Mazie Meeks ran the place for years. Their daughter did the taxidermy. They sold out the place a few years back but I heard they bought it back when the new owners didn't do as well as they had hoped. I think the daughter and son-in-law or some other relatives are running it now but that Joe and Mazie still own it. I'm not positive of that.

Check out my story and see if the contact info I gave in it still works. If now I'll try to help you chase them down. Not sure they have a website. Didn't back then but did at one time later with the new owners. The link I had doesn't work now.

[MRC]

There are several pockets of Wild Boar in Western NC.  Graham county has probably the best population and I know for a FACT that Transylvania county has a few :grin: .  If you're more interested in a guided hunt, let me recommend Daniel Loshbaugh at http://www.tennboar.com/.  I've hunted with him once and have friends that hunt with him multiple times each year.  He really has a nice operation.  The time I went we killed 7 pigs between 100-200 lbs in one day.  None were pen raised.  We simply took some really good dogs.  Daniel will let you used his dogs or you can still/stand hunt.  Give him a call.

[Mack in N.C.]

loaded for bear,  you may have hogs closer thank you think.....do an internet search for  "the wild boar in north carolina" ...this has a range map of the 4 populations of boars in western nc.......1 is at the junction of caldwell, wilkes and watauga counties...this 1 may be close to you...............these 4 populations are considered as "wild boar".....................piedmont and eastern nc have several populations of feral hogs..........the wild boar in the mountains have a season,......the feral hogs do not......open season...........caswell co, franklin co, johnston co, and some of the islands on the coast have feral hogs..........the 1  population in johnston co is around "howell woods"... this land was owned by him and he willed it to johnston community college.......the school is trying to get rid of these hogs and you can apply for a permit........the school usually has hunts for them after deer season..........mack

[Brian T]

It would be a bit of a drive but I have been to Black river Plantation in SC (just south of florence) several times.  The hogs are all wild/feral.

check them out at www.blackriverplantationsc.com

[6Shooter]

I'm from Taylorsville and the Chestnut lodge was a place kind of like Greybeard said. They don't do alot there now. They had about 300 acres at one time and I think that has been reduced to a much smaller area now.
 There were russian ridgebacks and alot got out of there fences and now there is a number of these running wild. I have shot afew that were in peoples yards.
 There is good hog hunting around here. as was mentioned before, The land at Caldwell, Wilkes, and Watuga is a place I go alot.
 My kin folks have about 700 acres on the Wilkes/ Alexander line that has all kinds of hunting. Boar, deer, turkey. Where is the land you have? Do you come to NC often? Maybe we could do some hunting together.