Jeremy Barton

Jeremy grew up on his family’s cattle ranch in Haw Creek, Florida. Jeremy deer hunted his whole life, but when he was 24 years old his buddy, Mark Hughes took him turkey hunting for the first time…he was hooked.

In 2007, Jeremy decided to start guiding turkey hunters on his family’s ranch and asked Mark for help. In the spring of 2008, the first gobbler hit the ground, and the rest is history. 

Jeremy and his wife, Jill have two boys and one little girl. Jeremy enjoys hunting, raising beef cattle, and is also a full time Firefighter/Paramedic for the City of Palm Coast, FL. 

Mark Hughes

Mark was born in Plant City, Florida in 1965. He started his hunting at age 12 on dove fields. He moved to Blue Ridge, Georgia at 16 and killed his first buck at 16 in those mountains. He hunted his first turkey the next spring after turning 17. He’s been hunting both of them and more ever since. He’s been fishing even longer than that. 

Mark went to work for the power company at age 20 and started out reading meters. Mark then worked in a power plant and finally found his fit doing line work at age 25. That profession has allowed him to do the things he loves.

Mark has a daughter, two stepsons and 4 grandchildren. Mark hopes to continue to hunt and guide hunters until his time is up.

Haw Creek Outfitters is lucky to have had Mark Hughes since its conception back in 2007. He is a magician in the turkey woods and Haw Creek Outfitters owes everything it has become to Mark Hughes. 

Tony Rider

Tony is a lifelong resident of a small north Georgia town. Dahlonega is the site of the first gold rush in 1828. Tony graduated from Lumpkin County High School in 1969 and started working with the USDA Forest Service a few years later in 1973. He started with the Forest Service as a forest worker.  During his career he worked in forest management, wildlife management, surveying and engineering, recreation and as a wildland firefighter. Tony retired in 2006 as Assistant Fire Management Officer for the Chattahoochee National Forest.

Tony is an avid hunter and enjoys most anything in the outdoors. Deer and turkey are his main interests. He primarily hunts deer with traditional archery equipment. In 2007, he started Drop Tine Custom Bows and makes some of the most beautiful handmade bows you’ve ever seen.

Tony is also on the pro staff with Pistol Creek Outdoors, a Turkey call company located in Dahlonega.

In 2013, Tony started guiding turkey hunters for Haw Creek Outfitters. Tony usually arrives to camp in Florida about a month before season starts every year. By the time turkey season starts, he and the turkeys know each other on a first name basis. There are very few people that can hunt a turkey as well as Tony Rider.

Haw Creek Outfitters is owned and operated by Jeremy Barton. Jeremy is an 8th generation “Florida Cracker”. His great grandfather, Andrew “Drew” Tucker and great grandmother, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Tucker lived in Fort Christmas, Florida in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Drew ran about 1800 head of cattle, sold hides, and farmed citrus and potatoes. Lizzy ran a local general store and raised nine sons, two of which died at a young age of the whooping cough. 

Throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the US government enforced a mandatory policy for cattle ranchers to “dip” their cattle every 14 days due to the fever tick eradication. Dipping meant to push cattle through a large “vat” filled with insecticide to kill ticks and hopefully eliminate the disease. For large ranchers like Drew this was very costly and taxing to dip 1800 head of cattle every two weeks.

In 1931, Drew decided to move his family and all of his cattle just north of the mandatory quarantine line which is near present day State Road 40 and into Flagler County. Jeremy’s grandfather, Raymon Tucker was 17 at the time. Raymon and his younger brother, Gilbert, who was 14, took a year off from school and all by themselves took two cattle drives from Christmas to Flagler County, along Haw Creek, near present day Cody’s Corner. Each trip took about three weeks and was about 100 miles one way, this included crossing the St. Johns river. There were no fences during this time, so for seven months Raymon and his brother Gilbert lived in a tent in the woods to prevent the cattle from heading back south toward Christmas. It was during these seven months that Raymon and Gilbert trapped raccoons, sold the skins to their father, and sold the meat to locals. Their father then sold the hides to clothing factories in the northeast. They then used this money to buy their own herd of cattle not common for teenagers in this time period.

Drew owned and leased around 40,000 acres of land in Flagler and Volusia Counties at this time. Drew passed away from an accident while working cattle in 1939.

Raymon continued his father’s passion of cattle ranching and created Haw Creek Ranch. Raymon accumulated several thousand acres of land in Southwest Flagler County. He also established several herds of pure bred beef cattle and raised some of the fastest quarter horses in the United States. He raised six daughters, one of whom is Denise Tucker Barton, Jeremy’s mother. Raymon passed away in 1998, but his legacy lives on. Jeremy was taught that same hard work ethic by his father, Craig and mother, Denise growing up that Drew taught his sons. Jeremy and his wife Jill still live on this same property that holds some of the best Osceola Turkey hunting in the state.