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Tuesday January 5th 2016
Up The guys want to get up early and go stalking. I make the coffee and help Doug with the bacon while he makes “mustard scrambled eggs”. What do you know, they are pretty good!
The guys come over and we talk about places they could stalk this week without messing up the evening sits. I suggest a path from the picnic area up to Gumbo, along Craig’s Trail, and up the pond up to the Upper End Field. They strike out for the old camp to check out Craig’s Trail.
Doug and I bundle up in every piece of clothing we brought with us and set out in our convertible in 31 degree weather to go pickup cameras. If you want to know what I look like when I'm cold and cranky, this is it:
We pull all cards, cameras left running at: Camp Feeder, Charlies Field, Pine Field, Blue Lake Field, and at Cohen’s Bluff Field I leave my new A7i in video mode to see how that looks.
We found and pulled out an old ladder stand out of the woods over by Crossroads and put it on the pile of old stands in the old camp. When we get back to the new camp we take apart the old sign that was leaning on the bunk house and put it on the lumber pile over by the old shed. That thing was a handful! I don't know if Andrew wanted that gone or not, but it needed to go.
I go over the pictures, nothing shocking beyond the number of deer and the bucks in particular on camera. Hogs have cleared out of Blue Top after our tracking, might take them a while to settle back in. I make a fire outside and ponder things for a while. I take a piece of paper and schedule out groups of feeders to sit each night appropriate to the number of hunters we have each day. I pray I can put all these guys on hogs this week as the South side of the property looks to be one or two stand short for six guys.
When the guys come back they give the report. They covered all 3 areas plus a little more this morning. I guess I didn't say that those areas should have been covered over the course of their 3 days of hunting. I'm worried it's too much scent.
We eat grilled panini sandwiches. For tonight I want to put Bryan and Keith into the best stands I have access too and in the middle of the property Wild Fire and Hog Wallow are looking great right now.
I tell them to descent and be ready to be on stand by 3:00. They plan to take red headlamps and sit until 7pm. I ask Doug to deploy them via Andrew’s truck, and then to sit the 2nd Hardwood Flat near Bent Pine for himself. He agrees it sounds like a solid plan and takes them out.
He takes his headlamp and will bring them back for Venison Stew. Not award winning, but spectacular in it’s own right. I will go to Blue Top. There hasn’t been a pig there in 48 hours, but they will come back eventually. I will leave at 4:00 and be in there by 4:30. I will sit until 9pm feed goes off and come back right then if I don’t hear anything. Better bundle up, it’s cold here!
* hunting journal up to date
Driving out of camp real easy in my truck I see 1 hog trotting before Cohen's Bluff Field. Probably 100 pound meat hog. Just on the other side on that field going the opposite direction I see 3 bigger hogs heading the other way. Another quarter of a mile up by Blue Lake Field I see one big sow and 6 piglets (5 black, 1 red) on the left side of the road. The sow crosses into the brush right behind me. The little buggers get confused and start following my black truck down the road instead of following their momma into the cane! I snap one picture of them in my rear view before I continue on. Too cute, but it doesn't turn out.
5:15 I see a deer's eye through the trees. He's a button buck and he starts coming in. I know they are out of season, but if I can beat a deer's eye and nose it's a good sign for hogs. After this little dude, 4 more come in behind him. 4:50 they are at the feeder.
As dark approaches I stick my head out of the blind and say "Get out of here", that saves a little corn for the hogs. Feeder goes off in the dark at 7pm, then 8pm, then 9pm. Maybe I shouldn't have scared away my entertainment. Felt like a long sit.
I pack up at 9:30 and walk out to the truck, load it up and head to camp. I get there and Doug says "what's wrong with Andrew's tailgate?" I'm feeling a little burned crispy after a long sit and I snap "Dude, I don't even know. Do I need to look at it tonight or can it wait for tomorrow?" The glean in his eye was a giveaway "No, I think you should look at it tonight." I put my boots back on, turned on my headlamp, and when I got out there I found the problem. Yep, BDH for the poor truck. Big Dead Hog was stopping the tailgate from closing...
Now before I continue I should say a little something. Bryan has been down to Wild Things a few times before this, but he has never got a shot at a hog before. The time he joined Camp (h)Ambush he hunted 5 days without seeing a hog! Heck the poor guy was the only guy not to see a hog that trip! Short story, the guy has seen the lows of hog hunting. He has paid his dues.
Now this particular night he offers the best stand to his son and takes Wild Fire. No slouch, but I would have put my money on Hog Wallow. He sets up and relaxes. The feeder goes off and a hog starts circling. It comes in to 25 yards and starts circling back the opposite way. He pulls back his string, then lets it down. The boar turns and he starts to pull again before letting down a second time. He begins his draw cycle a third time, but lets it down again. Bryan takes a few breaths and composes himself in the waning daylight. On his fourth draw cycle he hits anchor and his arrow hits true on that boar standing broadside at 25 yards.
The hog ran straight towards the road and seemed to stop at the ditch at last light. It was standing there swaying when Bryan lost his ability to make out the form in the shadows. He climbed down and went and walked along the edge of the road. He was in super sneaky mode, wind was good. Still, there was no sign of the hog.
He went to get his son from Hog Wallow and the two of them returned to the corner in the road. "I lost sight of it right here, right by this log" and the two of them started looking for blood by the light of their headlamps. Keith worked one circle out looking for blood, then circled back in to take another loop. This is when he realized the log had hair on it. The hams and head were underwater, only the torso stuck up into the air.
I wish I had a picture as they found it, but here is Bryan and his first hog!
Now this year there was one bigger hog killed, but that wasn't a clean/one-arrow sort of deal. This hog was killed in one shot, and it was kind enough to spend it's last 50 yard run heading straight towards a road. I love hogs like this! I sure hope he's not rank, as I'd love to sample the rib meat on this one!
***
We all enjoyed "all you can eat ribs" for lunch one day, and it was more than ALL of us could eat!!!
This is a #14 Wagner piled 4 levels deep in seared ribs before baking:
A #14 is 16.5" ear to ear!
And this is after it came out of the oven!
Of course that was a bit later in the week after the rub settled in so I guess I'm skipping ahead. Man, that was some delicious hog!!! Entrance and exit wounds took out two ribs, otherwise there was no meat wasted on this pig! I bet that skillet and those ribs were almost 30 pounds as they came out of the oven!
Big congrats to Bryan from Indiana for keeping his composure in waning daylight while starring down a big boar! Heck of a great shot!
Thom
PS thanks for the ribs!!!
Topic: some big boars getting killed at Wild Things! (Read 3507 times)
