2022 State of The Empire

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and your new year is off to a great start. It is hard to believe this will be our 25th season. Thank you to our wonderful, unique, and very special group of customers through whom we have been creating lifetime memories since 1998. It has been a while since I have written any updates and I thought I would continue the tradition of the State of The Empire. I hope to share insight into our operation with some of the statistics and indicators I have been looking at for the past 24 years to assess the success of the various seasons/species which we hunt.

Our customers fired 415 shots, killing 186 deer and 127 hogs, for a 75% killing efficiency. Of the 79 deer that were trailed, Buddy found 40 and Big Dog found 4. The total deer harvest was comprised of 120 bucks and 66 antlerless deer. Our customers killed 13 first deer, 11 personal best bucks, 3 first bucks, and 3 first velvet bucks. Forty-two percent (42%) of our antlered harvest consisted of adult bucks (2.5 years +) and of these adults, twenty-six percent (26%) had antler spreads of 15"+. Customers killed 38 first hogs! Sixteen of the hogs weighed 150#+ and 1 of these weighed 200#+. Turkey hunters killed 6 first turkeys out of the 15 harvested. Of the 12 alligators harvested, 10 were first time hunters. One of the alligators weighed in excess of 300#!

For the upcoming year, things look great. We finally got some rain which gave us some much needed moisture for the food plots. The turkeys are already gobbling and the hens are out in the green fields. Hogs are at every feeder and we had some magnificent bucks that survived the season. We have strived to create a quality experience and look forward to another year of creating lifetime memories! Thank you for your business and continued support. We look forward to seeing you.