Yeah, well,
I guess if you've never fought a boar off with the end of your longbow, or if you've never been charged by boars for no reason whatsoever, you might think boars aren't a tad bit dangerous.
If you have never experienced either of those things, I am guessing you hunt east of the Rockies.
Farther east than California, and WAY, WAY farther east than the Northern Territory of Australia.
If that's the case, head west man, head west.
Sneak up on a big northern California boar with more Russian blood in him than Feral, and you may get a real awakening.
I will share one story with you. Someone else will need to share the next.
In the middle of our winter (early March) I drove with some friends from Idaho to Northern California, which took about 16 hours. It was spring there, prime time for boar hunting.
We set up our camp, and off we went. Several days later, no one had seen a pig. Seems we timed it wrong.
A day or so later, the last day before we had to drive back north to the snow country, the sun was beginning to set to the west. I was sitting on a high, wet, grassy hillside, all alone, glassing for pigs until my eyes were almost bleeding.
Then, a long ways below me I heard it, two boars fighting. Unmistakeable.
I ran downhill as fast as I could, and about fifteen minutes later, I stopped, listened, and there they were----a herd of 15 to 30, walking quickly from my left to my right, about 25 yards below me. I had about four minutes of shooting light left in the darkening sky.
Two boars were in the group, and they were ripping the hell out of each other. Nasty running gun battle, and the blood was flowing.
. . . in my veins as well as the two fighting boars.
I had to squint to see well enough to shoot, and the two fighting boars were 15 yards too far away to shoot at in this light, so I picked a smaller boar that was in good shooting range, drew back, aimed tight, aimed some more, then sent a heavy arrow through his lungs as he trotted along with the herd. The sound of the hit was unmistakeable.
30 minutes later, I set up the tripod in the dark to take some still photographs, and in the process, I heard the two boars once again fighting, and they were coming my way in complete blackness. I put the camera down, switched on my flashlight, and there there were, 15 yards away across a small creek (right behind the boar in the attached photo).
Both boars stopped, looked at me, and charged immediately. I was already jumping back when I realized the rushing creek had stopped them. A minute or so later, they again started laying hooks into each other and moved off down hill in full battle.
Whew!
I finished taking the pictures, then gutted and started skinning the boar I had shot.
Oh? What's that I hear? Two boars fighting their way towards me, this time on my side of the creek. THIS TIME I put a large fallen redwood tree trunk between myself and the approaching fight, and when they were about 10 yards away, I turned on the flashlight. Again, they stopped, then both charged. The only thing that stopped them was the huge Redwood tree trunk I was standing (er, well, cowering) behind.
As you can see in the photo, it was pitch black, and I can assure you if I had not had a fast-running creek, or a huge Redwood tree trunk to stop them, these two mostly Russian Californian boars in full fight mode would have left more than a few marks on me.
I had done nothing to provoke them, other than being on their mountain.
That's one incident, it's someone else's turn now.
P.S. Large California Russian-mixed boars are as different from the smaller typical southern feral boars as zoo-raised grizzly bears are from high-mountain grizzly bears.
There's a big difference, but you've got to experience it to know it. Go west man, go west.
Topic: hogs... Danderous Game??? (Read 16837 times)
