Guys, in my mind I had the ultimate hunt Saturday afternoon... After a morning hunt that was uneventful, other than the 30plus turkeys I saw and video taped I headed back to camp for lunch and drinks. I was first back with most everyone coming in shortly after. We ate, talked and while relaxing out side at around noon Ron (the Ranch Rep) in his ultimate wisdom suggested it might be a good idea to get back out there while the sky was still blue and we didn't know how long it would hold. In short order we headed out. At Ron's direction four of us found ourselves up high looking at pig country.
The plan was for us to start high and walk down, side hilling above the drainages. And with a little luck our net of arrow slingers would hopefully catch a piggie. Boys, there is a lot of real estate up there and you really need a group of hunters to cover some of it. As we slowly made our way down it seemed like we all kept in a fairly straight line, I happened to be very low in the drainage. In some areas I'd walk on green grass silently and other places I'd be walking on crunchy leaves.
I'm going to guess about a little past an hour in to the hunt, and only about 1/3 of the way down to the bottom, I heard brush being broken in front of me. Earlier I had bumped a couple of deer and since they didn't really bust out too fast I thought it might be them. I was about 10 yards above the bottom of the drainage when I heard more branches breaking so I stood still a couple of minutes. I didn't have the best of shooting lanes so I moved over to my left about 10yards and since the hill was steep I was able to sit with my right knee in the dirt with my weight on it and my left leg stretched out in front of me.
Maybe three or four minutes later I see a huge boar moving up the drainage about 30 yards below me. The wind was perfect as it had been the entire afternoon hunt, right in my face. I was well camouflaged behind a tree. The boar stopped about 20 yards away and lifted his head, as maybe he knew something was awry. A few seconds later he continued and as he was passing from my right to left behind the tree I moved my bow towards my left so when he passed the tree I'd have a good angling away shot.
Now this big 'ole boar was a slow mover. I mean slow, he was doing his thing at his pace and it was awesome to see this guy doing his thing. He passed the tree at under 15 yards. I drew, relased and had perfect elevation but of course shot towards the back. No gut shot and no ham shot. He grunted and ran about 15 yards and then just started to walk again. I knew it wasn't a great shot and as I sat there listening to him as I couldn't see him, I started to move towards the point of impact when I saw him walking on the hill side opposite me just above me by 5 or so yards. I watched until he was out of sight, though I could still hear him, this guy was moving slow. I found blood and it was bright red, and as I planned on following the blood up to where he crossed the drainage I had sprayed blood every three to five feet.
I stopped to get on the radio as I crossed over the drainage and to sit and wait, I felt good it was going to be a fatal shot, I was just worried about the blood trail petering out.
I realized the hog had been walking up an old road from the bottom of the canyon and as I worked my way up the hill I could see the road on my side of the hill below me. I followed the blood for about 100 yards when around the side of the hill I hear branches breaking just out of site. I thought my hog had heard me trailing him, though I was being very quiet. I couldn't believe it when the boar starts coming back in my direction. But heck guys, he's above me and moving right at me...Now he's not moving too fast but he's still got all of his faculties. I knock an arra and when he's about 15 yards away he starts to steer to his right and once again is going to give me a passing shot as he moves from my right to left. I'm below a tree with low hanging branches and as he passes directly in front of me at less than 10 yards (keep in mind he is above me) I plant my right foot solidly in the ground below me, kneel down with my left leg in to the dirt above me. As he passes, I bend at the waist, cant the bow completely horizontal and let an arra loose under the branches. I make a good shot in the pocket. He's done. He slows to almost a crawl type pace, and moves about 25 yards back in the direction we both had just come from.
Now to back up for a minute let me say that when he came busting from around the hill while I was blood trailing him, it was obvious what had happened. Bighorn (a fellow hunter) who had been to my left ran into the hog or vice versa you could say. He saw the pig (I'm not sure if he saw my arra sticking out of it or not) and then took a shot. That is what pushed the pig back to me. After I took my second shot, I got back on the radio and broke out with "somebody just shot my pig"... The pig sat down and Bighorn and I waited for it to expire, but he just wouldn't die. I didn't want to put another arra in it so with a little coaxing from Speck (a fellow hunter) over the radio I was going to finish it off but when I got closer it mustered enough energy to get up only to roll thirty yards down hill.
When I got down to the bottom Speck helped out and the hog was dead. Now the great thing was that Ron was able to get his truck down the hill using that old road I mentioned earlier and with the help of about 500ft of rope, we only needed to drag the pig about 10 feet. Can you guys believe that? Wow! What luck! It would have taken forever to drag the pig all the way down or even back up depending on which way we went.
I am definitely going back up for another hunt at Tejon and highly recommend it to others.
Topic: Dryad Windtalker takes a big ole boar (Read 1891 times)
