The arra's went flying!
No deer were seen this weekend but we literally ran into the hogs, big time! I wish you could "see" this area...we forgot the camera though.
I did an evening hunt with Faith. I dropped Sara off on her stand and went off to the other end of the ranch. This is typical Mendocino County hill country. If it aint up, it's down and the top of the ranch is at 2500 feet. Open, grassy hillsides on the southern aspects with wooded drainages and springs, and dark heavy timber on top and on the North aspects.
It started off for me with a dark comedy. I was scouting for targets of opportunity from the roads in my cousin's old jeep. I won't bore you all with these details but suffice to say that the jeep overheated, ran out of gas, and broke the accelerator arm off of the throttle arm. Fixed all that and continued on my regularly scheduled program. I ran into a sounder of hogs right on top of the mountain and tried to move into position to take one. They sensed my presence and tried to put distance between us. I caught two in range and picked a spot on one sow. Let fly and she wasn't in that spot I picked anymore. I decided to leave well enough alone for now and go check on the wife.
Next morning we head back to the top of the ranch. In my truck. Don't trust the ranch jeeps anymore. We stop a few hundred yards away from where I left the pigs and make a plan. Sara moves to one side of the dark timber to take a stand in case I move animals towards her. I head up the road on the edge of the timber to start a still hunt with the wind in my favor.
Sara tops the small rise to enter the timber and take her stand. She sees 30-40 pigs feeding just inside the timber. By this time I'm ready to start my still hunt a couple of hundred yards from her position. She lets fly and misses. Pigs move out. She calls me on the radio to let me know pigs are coming my way fast. This was just as I dropped the string on a jack rabbit. Darn radios...I hate them and usually leave mine off unless there's something to say. Missed the bunny. Took a quick figure on where Sara was versus where I'm at and triangulate an interception point to meet the piggies. I can already hear them...running, snorting, grunting, making all kinds of noise in the timber. I figure, great, they're already making noise so I don't have to be quiet until they are! So I run to intercept them. I do and get in range but there is no shot to be had. Too much "stuff" in the way of vitals that are moving. They head off the little ridgeback into a drainage and up the other side. I take the short cut around the top of the drainage and hit them right in the middle of the sounder just as they quiet down and go back to feeding. I'm looking at many, many targets in front of me...looking through heavy timber, lots of twigs, branches, trying to find a hole to shoot through at a broadside piggie. Finally, I find a sow, stopped, feeding, broadside with a shooting lane. Did I say lane? More like a hole. I'm already nocked with a Grizzly Stik Sitka, tipped with a 135 grain Magnus 2 sitting on top of a 100 grain insert. 20 yards to target. I can do this. Pick a spot, draw, double anchor, perfect T, and let fly. Then, I swear, some darn little tree branch just swats my arrow out of the air just before it hits the pig's heart! Darn trees! Pigs move out and there's nothing I can do since to chase them further gets me nothing but trespassing on the neighbor's piece!
Folks, this is why I hunt. I had a great morning of great pig action with a piece of St. Jude's future history in my hand! I had her for about three weeks now. Hunted with her two weekends and shot her some for target practice and arrow tuning. And now I pass her on to Don Wilson, whose acquaintance I made at the Solana Ranch hunt last year that I won on St. Jude's auction. Which is another reason to bid on hunts...you meet great people you wouldn't otherwise. I still remember the live thread on aiming between Don and Terry in the bunkhouse over beers while we were tuning kit for the next morning.
So, when this bow comes up for auction, bid often, bid high. She's a shooter and she will have stories to tell when the year's done!
Oh, and one last thing...Like Terry says on that video...If you don't live where there's hog hunting...MOVE!
Topic: The Adventures of Hope & Faith of Black Mountain (Read 19785 times)
