Live in NC and grew up hunting SC public land in game zone 2 mainly, still do. Hardly run into anyone on public anymore where we hunt since everyone thinks they need to be in a club. Last year I only hunted 4 days down there and could have filled my 2 buck tags if I wanted to but I passed up smaller bucks since I already had a freezer full of elk and knew I’d have at least one Nebraska deer going in the freezer come a November. Could have also filled doe tags if I had bought any. My dad usually kills a buck he’ll mount every year or every other year down there, my grandpa used to do the same but he’s been in a long dry spell (still getting after it at 80 though). That is usually an 8 pt in the 110” range, his last one two years ago was a main frame 10 point with with sticker points and probably in the gross 120” range. Those are good public land bucks down here and occasionally we’ll see bigger or someone in our camp will shoot one bigger.
Pigs are about all over now but the only spot we hunt currently that we run into them is this spot we muzzleloader hunt around Lake Marion. I couldn’t get what looked like a 100-150 lb one last year to stop as it was going through the marsh otherwise I’d have some pork in the freezer now too. I did shoot a big boar down there a few years ago in the 250-300 lb range. All that said, I think the hunting on public is good down there and gets way less pressure than the public spots I hunt in NC outside of the mountains. That’s probably a product of the lower population and only a few “big” cities when comparing the two states. And the fact a lot of people play the leasing and club game now than when I hunted in high school and before that when the paper companies leased to the state instead of clubs. Old WMA maps would show some counties damn near all green it seemed and all that was public.
