# This could kill somebody



## swamp hunter (Dec 17, 2016)

What the Heck..! did ya'll have Viet Cong infiltrating  Georgia ?
Did me some scouting hoping to poach Georgia deer from ya'll , You know how us Florida guys are.. 
I was over in the west side near a big honkin  (Lanier ?)lake and what they called the Grand Canyon of Georgia where the hills all washed out from Bad Farming practices I think.
Found this 200 ft uphill on a steep dropoff. Top of the hill , Wrapped it with orange flagging tape.
You could die from this in the dark..
I'll take Panthers anyday


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## Nicodemus (Dec 17, 2016)

Oh yea, watch out for old wells. And don`t walk to close to the edges of those big canyon dropoffs either. Some of em are a long way from the bottom and they have some mean overhangs and undercuts. I used to turkey hunt the land that bordered Little Grand Canyon back in the early 80s. Ain`t no way I would have deer hunted it. Skeered I might kill one back in there.


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## Jeff C. (Dec 17, 2016)

Those old wells are a little intimidating when you walk up one one.


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## oops1 (Dec 17, 2016)

We had a lease in quitman years ago.. We'd dump our deer carcuses down an old well.. You could count to 4-5 before it went thud.. Had a couple of nightmares bout falling down that thing when I was young.


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## Capt Quirk (Dec 17, 2016)

Not too long after moving here, we found a 4'x4'x13' square hole. It sort of had us scratching our heads for a while, until I found the remains of a foundation. Then it dawned on me that it was either from an outhouse or it was a well. Considering the size, I ruled out outhouse. The foundation turned out to be a post civil war era sharecropper's shack. It disappeared from land records around 1940.


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## T-N-T (Dec 18, 2016)

My great uncle said it was his job as a kid to be lowered into the well and shovel out the muck into the bucket as my great grandfather would hoist it out.
Oh the good ol' days....


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## Dirtroad Johnson (Dec 18, 2016)

A forester friend told me he walked up on 3 different wells on a 57 acre tract that joins my property  when he was cruising timber about 3 years ago. That would be a bad way to go.


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## NCHillbilly (Dec 18, 2016)

I found one on a little piece of property I own.


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## mwood1985 (Dec 18, 2016)

Your probably in Stewart county near columbus. Sounds like Providence canyon state Park


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## swamp hunter (Dec 18, 2016)

Why in the world would they did a well there..?
The running Creek was a couple hundred feet away...all downhill..
Seems strange, why not just rig a pulley system, thousands of gallons flowing by at the bottom..


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## SGADawg (Dec 18, 2016)

I was quail hunting on a club in Coffee County many years ago. After days of heavy rain, water was standing in lots of places.  As I walked down a woods road that I had walked or driven many times in the past, my shorthair ran ahead, ran through a puddle in the middle of the road and disappeared then popped up swimming!  It turned out to be an old well that apparently had bridged when filled in sometime in the distant past.  I found a sawmill slab about 14 feet long and couldn't reach the bottom.


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## rvick (Dec 19, 2016)

I found an open cistern in the woods behind the old Patten school house. I put the big heavy cement top back on it. An adult could not get out of it alone and no one would ever hear you in there. There were no skeletons in it.


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## specialk (Dec 19, 2016)

had one on some property in butts county out back behind an old house we fixed up to sleep in.....guy built one heck of a johnny house over it.....we joked you could go and wipe before ''it'' the bottom.....



walked up on one in Meriwether county rabbit hunting...called the guy over whose club we was on....he turned white as a ghost....seems he set up a few feet away on a gobbler on roost before daybreak back in the spring time......he brought in a backhoe and filled it in a few weeks later.....


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## oldfella1962 (Dec 19, 2016)

Nicodemus said:


> Oh yea, watch out for old wells. And don`t walk to close to the edges of those big canyon dropoffs either. Some of em are a long way from the bottom and they have some mean overhangs and undercuts. I used to turkey hunt the land that bordered Little Grand Canyon back in the early 80s. Ain`t no way I would have deer hunted it. Skeered I might kill one back in there.



Yeah we have a few steep eroded canyons where I hunt - straight down 40 feet or so - you would break your neck! I've seen the little grand canyon - that is amazing!
If I remember it all started from water running off somebody's barn or something, is that right?


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## bulldawgborn (Dec 19, 2016)

Probably the only thing in the Georgia woods that I am afraid of


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## Milkman (Dec 19, 2016)

I have found a few in my day as well. I always take the time like you did to mark it or put wire around it.

I was hunting with a friend at a place neither he or I had ever hunted a few years ago.  We drove down the woods road, put our climbers on our backs, and went our separate ways in the dark towards the hollows the owner had told us to hunt in. 

After I walked about 100 yards in the hardwood leaves I heard and felt that I had walked onto tin. I stopped and backed up and went around.  After hunting I went back to that spot.   Sure enough some well meaning soul had laid some boards and tin across a 6x6 well opening.   Talk about a death trap.   
The owner did not have a clue.  By days end he had filled the well with soil.


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## Kawaliga (Dec 19, 2016)

Big Lazar WMA has dozens of old wells scattered over the area. Most of them were marked with orange flagging tape back in the eighties, but there are still some that aren't marked. When I used to camp and hunt up there, I was mighty watchful.


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## Nicodemus (Dec 19, 2016)

oldfella1962 said:


> Yeah we have a few steep eroded canyons where I hunt - straight down 40 feet or so - you would break your neck! I've seen the little grand canyon - that is amazing!
> If I remember it all started from water running off somebody's barn or something, is that right?





Seems like I read somewhere that it was poor farming practices on that steep land that started it.


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## NE GA Pappy (Dec 19, 2016)

We have an open well on some land I deer hunt.  When it was shown to me, I went back with 7ft metal t-post and hog wire and fenced that baby in.  I didn't want my dogs falling in, and I sure didn't want to fall in myself.

There is a nice deer trail that goes within 2 or 3 ft of that open well too.


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## swamp hunter (Dec 19, 2016)

OK...That's all good and I thank everybody for the Local information to a Flat lander Fla. boy...But Why did they dig a deep well there when there is a good running creek 500 yards away....400 hundred of it is straight downhill...sharp.
Was the original creek a lot more uphill , It was a cool looking bit of woods but it was mostly man made mess.
Erosion from bad farming seems to have bout destroyed the original landscape.


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## Nicodemus (Dec 19, 2016)

swamp hunter said:


> OK...That's all good and I thank everybody for the Local information to a Flat lander Fla. boy...But Why did they dig a deep well there when there is a good running creek 500 yards away....400 hundred of it is straight downhill...sharp.
> Was the original creek a lot more uphill , It was a cool looking bit of woods but it was mostly man made mess.
> Erosion from bad farming seems to have bout destroyed the original landscape.





That`s a long way to tote water. Especially on wash day. That`s why most folks around South Georgia had their well dug close to the kitchen. Ours was about 5 steps from the back porch at the home place. Daddy also dug another down by the corncrib to water the hogs when he penned em up.


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## Capt Quirk (Dec 19, 2016)

@swamphunter- going off topic here... but are you planning on a trip up this way? I was wondering if you could do me a small favor... I haven't had any Cuban food since I left Florida, and I'm craving a MediaNoche samich and a giant cup of Cuban espresso...


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## swamp hunter (Dec 20, 2016)

And a bushel of Mangoes...


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## Capt Quirk (Dec 20, 2016)

Negatory on them Mangoes... never cared for them or Ocra neither


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## T-N-T (Dec 20, 2016)

Nicodemus said:


> That`s a long way to tote water. Especially on wash day. That`s why most folks around South Georgia had their well dug close to the kitchen. Ours was about 5 steps from the back porch at the home place. Daddy also dug another down by the corncrib to water the hogs when he penned em up.



Yep
The well my great uncle talked about being lowered into was about 10 yards from the old house he and my grandfather were born in.  

We finally removed the house and filled the well about 6 years ago.
House and well were circa 1920


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## Rivershot (Dec 21, 2016)

Friend of mine just found one on his property, about 15' deep and 3' across, round, with what looks like a side tunnel at the bottom which I presume was used as a reservoir. We plan on taking a metal detector down next month before filling or capping it.

 Kids and some adults used throw all sorts of stuff down wells and out house.


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## PCNative (Dec 21, 2016)

Some of the big holes around farms were dug to dispose of dead chickens on farms that had chicken houses. I've run across several of these where the remains of the houses were long gone. The ones I've seen were seven or eight feet across and twenty or thirty feet deep.


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## Capt Quirk (Dec 21, 2016)

PCNative said:


> Some of the big holes around farms were dug to dispose of dead chickens on farms that had chicken houses. I've run across several of these where the remains of the houses were long gone. The ones I've seen were seven or eight feet across and twenty or thirty feet deep.



Just think about the guy that had to dig them!


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## specialk (Dec 22, 2016)

we had a bored well dug at our lease about 25 years ago....the well digger came out and dug 3 holes before hitting a good table of water.....the 2 holes left were about 25 or so feet deep(maybe more).  when things were done and he wanted payment we asked about him filling in the open holes.  he laughed and said that was on us, he didn't fill them in.  we had to hire a guy to come in with a backhoe to do it.  thought that was strange.....


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## Deerhead (Dec 22, 2016)

I have hunted several properties in GA, all had wells.  The current property has six that we have found.  We keep finding more each year.  Apparently it had been farmed for a long time.


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## snookdoctor (Jan 13, 2017)

specialk said:


> we had a bored well dug at our lease about 25 years ago....the well digger came out and dug 3 holes before hitting a good table of water.....the 2 holes left were about 25 or so feet deep(maybe more).  when things were done and he wanted payment we asked about him filling in the open holes.  he laughed and said that was on us, he didn't fill them in.  we had to hire a guy to come in with a backhoe to do it.  thought that was strange.....



They are called "well drillers", not "well fillers". 
That's what one told me under similar circumstances.


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## T.P. (Jan 13, 2017)

The property that TripleC owns now has one. We found it when we lost 2 dogs in it. I wonder if 3C has found it yet?


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## Crakajak (Jan 13, 2017)

Wildlife (mainly black panthers ) will #1 and #2 wherever they need to. Never seen one go in a well.
My brother and I were hunting A mountain WMA many years ago. He talked about how the water was safe to drink after it ran over 10 ft of rocks. After he took a sip I pointed to the bear scat 7 ft up the creek.


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