Fuzzy D Fellers
Banned
Call the game warden give him a heads up.
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Real Head Shaker. UPDATE 10/25/2018
- Thread starter jbogg
- Start date
Luke0927
Senior Member
No telling could be some kids just building a place back in the woods or something more.....I ran into Gary Hilton a couple months before he killed Meredith Emerson...we were on Coopers creek WMA (and vogel is just the next mountain over), not way way back but he was back there not around any of the normal camp sites.
It was me an my cousin we were in our early 20s (I was carrying as well). He had a little tent, had a table and seat made up where he could cook by the fire, we talked to him for a few minutes just thought he was some strange old man. Soon as he was arrested and on TV my cousin called me said look at who that is...we both said right off the bat, the man from up at Coopers!
It was me an my cousin we were in our early 20s (I was carrying as well). He had a little tent, had a table and seat made up where he could cook by the fire, we talked to him for a few minutes just thought he was some strange old man. Soon as he was arrested and on TV my cousin called me said look at who that is...we both said right off the bat, the man from up at Coopers!
Dana Young
Senior Member
We found an abandoned van of his up on tray mountain.
doenightmare
Gone But Not Forgotten
Ginseng hunters.
Go back Sept. 1st and see what you find, but mind yourself, they are highly protective of their honey holes.
Good call - another possible reason for the camp.
Ginseng hunters.
Go back Sept. 1st and see what you find, but mind yourself, they are highly protective of their honey holes.
Could be, but you don't usually look for sang on top of a mountain in the laurels and buckberries. Don't believe all that crap you see on those "reality" shows. I've dug sang all my life, and been around loads of other sang diggers all my life in many of the same areas they feature on those shows, and I have never seen or heard of anything resembling all that drama and foolishness they show on there. It just don't work like that. The only drama or hard feelings I've ever seen over sang was when somebody came onto somebody else's land and dug their big planted patch of sang, or people getting caught digging sang on the National Park.
Pot growers, however, can be a very different story. I've seen some nasty booby traps in the woods around pot patches.
Miguel Cervantes
Jedi Master
1eyefishing
...just joking, seriously.
Jbogg and I have been yakkin it up on the phone talkin about getting together for some high-elevation adventure's...
While compairing previous explorations, it became obvious that we were doing a lot of the same things in the same kind of manner... and seeing some of the same sights in the wilderness areas, WMAs, and National Forest in north Georgia. We found that we had both discovered the large rock chimney deep in the hills surrounding Adams Bald and nearby Rocky Mountain. We were comparing waypoints, and when I sent him one where I had an encounter with a pretty large beer, he noted that that was exactly where he had found this campsite. I had also found this site in the woods and I have the backstory on this.
I first discovered this around or prior to 2010. I had come up the same ridgeline to a heavily storm-damaged area that later became the area of thickness that jboggs describes on his way into the site. Only that during the time I had discovered it, the downed trees had actually created several acres of clear ground as the storm had toppled many trees off the side of the ridge and left pretty clear easy going up the ridge line. Just above the large cleared area, I ran into this campsite. The lean-to was a little more intact and heavily brushed in. It had a tent under it still standing with wet sleeping bags inside. There were shovels and picks and maddocks and hand snips and loppers, empty fertilizer bags and a long black polybutylene flex pipe laying on the ground leading to the water source.
I realized instantly this was a clandestine grow site and that the clearing I had just walked up through was the source of the sunlight and where the product was being grown. The hole in the ground had a 20 pound propane propane tank in it and was brushed over. Gas hoses lead from it to the campsite and we're still connected to a camp grill and stove, which were also very concealed. From less than 20 yards away, the whole place blended in with the scenery, and I did not notice a thing until I was standing in the middle of it.
It just so happened later that afternoon, I saw a DNR officer on the side of the highway and stopped to describe what I had seen (and where).
He immediately told me that I had best stay far away from that place and that they knew all about it. This was the site of a $6 million pot bust. Word was it was Mexican cartel slave labor doing it under threat from the cartel.
Af that time I Googled up on it and found articles and news video about the bust just west of Helen. Recently, though, I can't find anything about it now. This is just what I remember of it.
The other big rock chimney we both found deep in the wilderness I assumed was probably used for cooking mash as there was no other foundation, structure, or similar sign of mankind anywhere nearby. It didn't look like there ever could have been a clearing anywhere around the place such as an old homestead would have had. I would love to be able to spend some time around there with a leaf blower and a metal detector!
While compairing previous explorations, it became obvious that we were doing a lot of the same things in the same kind of manner... and seeing some of the same sights in the wilderness areas, WMAs, and National Forest in north Georgia. We found that we had both discovered the large rock chimney deep in the hills surrounding Adams Bald and nearby Rocky Mountain. We were comparing waypoints, and when I sent him one where I had an encounter with a pretty large beer, he noted that that was exactly where he had found this campsite. I had also found this site in the woods and I have the backstory on this.
I first discovered this around or prior to 2010. I had come up the same ridgeline to a heavily storm-damaged area that later became the area of thickness that jboggs describes on his way into the site. Only that during the time I had discovered it, the downed trees had actually created several acres of clear ground as the storm had toppled many trees off the side of the ridge and left pretty clear easy going up the ridge line. Just above the large cleared area, I ran into this campsite. The lean-to was a little more intact and heavily brushed in. It had a tent under it still standing with wet sleeping bags inside. There were shovels and picks and maddocks and hand snips and loppers, empty fertilizer bags and a long black polybutylene flex pipe laying on the ground leading to the water source.
I realized instantly this was a clandestine grow site and that the clearing I had just walked up through was the source of the sunlight and where the product was being grown. The hole in the ground had a 20 pound propane propane tank in it and was brushed over. Gas hoses lead from it to the campsite and we're still connected to a camp grill and stove, which were also very concealed. From less than 20 yards away, the whole place blended in with the scenery, and I did not notice a thing until I was standing in the middle of it.
It just so happened later that afternoon, I saw a DNR officer on the side of the highway and stopped to describe what I had seen (and where).
He immediately told me that I had best stay far away from that place and that they knew all about it. This was the site of a $6 million pot bust. Word was it was Mexican cartel slave labor doing it under threat from the cartel.
Af that time I Googled up on it and found articles and news video about the bust just west of Helen. Recently, though, I can't find anything about it now. This is just what I remember of it.
The other big rock chimney we both found deep in the wilderness I assumed was probably used for cooking mash as there was no other foundation, structure, or similar sign of mankind anywhere nearby. It didn't look like there ever could have been a clearing anywhere around the place such as an old homestead would have had. I would love to be able to spend some time around there with a leaf blower and a metal detector!
1eyefishing
...just joking, seriously.
Sorry about the book!
Glad y'all posted. Interesting read.
T-N-T
Senior Member
Wow
Jeff C.
Chief Grass Master
Awesome follow up....appreciate it!
mguthrie
**# 1 Fan**OHIO STATE**
How big was the beer? Like keg size
mguthrie
**# 1 Fan**OHIO STATE**
Jk good read and interesting story
jbogg
Senior Member
Bump for update.
someguyintraffic
Senior Member
Walked up on a older fella with a gray beard sitting on a fallen tree on WarWoman when I was 21. I stopped and never unshouldered my rifle. He said. "no hunting this way." He had a shotgun layed across his lap. You could smell smoke on the breeze. I was way back off the WMA roads. Miles I guess.
