Well, I've done it twice now... Wrote a lot, went to Photobucket to grab a photo, and returned here to see everything I'd written has disappeared. Yep, I just love computers and all the minor frustration they bring. That's why I enjoyed making a couple points out of the glass from a computer monitor. Low-grade revenge. The glass was great stuff, though: it seemed to be denser than most glass. I hoped that would translate to durability for hunting.
The second afternoon we headed toward a crossroad which seemed to be a the center for a lot of hog sign. Just as we rounded a bend, we could see a big one in the road. And it was was working our way! I hopped out of the truck and half-sprinted through the woods to close the distance. I took cover in tall broomstraw on the side of the road, nocked a 125 grain glass-tipped arrow and waited. And waited. Christmas came and went and the hog didn't show.
Behind me, a couple little porkers trotted out into the road and were soon joined by almost a dozen more. They were only a hundred yards out and I hoped they didn't come my way. The last time I'd seen the big guy, he was only 40 or 50 yards out. Then two whitetails popped out of some pines over my left shoulder. They pegged me and blew and stomped to prove it. After they finally moved on, I decided to check on the big guy. The wind was in my favor and three careful steps into the road showed that he was gone.
I could see Ray off in the distance and joined him. He was almost beside himself that I hadn't shot the big hog -- he thought it had been standing broadside to me in the road at less than 15 yards. I wish! Ray's binoculars had compressed the distance and made it look like the hog was nearly in my lap. I don't think it ever got closer than 40 yards.
There was still plenty of light, though, so I stalked down the road where I'd last seen the big one. Three piglets kept chasing each other across the road so I went low and slow. Up ahead I could hear sloshing and slurping. Lots of it...
The sow suddenly popped into the road and gave me a big hairy eyeball. She bailed out with a big grunt and the three piglets. There were still more pigs in the wallows past her, though. Another five minutes to cover the next ten yards gave me a view of two nice pigs working the mud. 35 yards is too far for me, so I tried to close the distance. One of them saw or smelled something and left the wallow for thick cover. The other hesitated a few seconds but then followed. But there was a third hog still slurping behind some tall marsh grass! I closed the distance while I was screened. The hog stepped out broadside and spotted me, but my bow was already up and the arrow was in the air.
I love to watch arrows fly and this one was a thing of beauty. The white nock traced a perfect arc to where the hog was just starting to turn away. I wasn't sure if I hit it, though -- that hog was moving fast and I figured the distance to be about 28 yards. I started looking for my arrow but couldn't find it. Not surprising in all the mud and grass. Then came the sharp, dry snap of a breaking cedar shaft! Maybe I'd better look for blood.
Three yards into the thicket, it looked as though the ground had been painted. It continued down a well-used trail, but after 30 yards it disappeared. No blood. I backed up to the last sign and heard lots of flies buzzing in the thicket. On my hands and knees I peered into a black hole under the bushes and saw the hog on its side. I poked it with my Blacktail's limbtip to make sure it was finished before I reached in and pulled it out. The fletched end of my arrow was laying with it. Another 2/3 of my arrow was around somewhere and I'd like to find it.
Back in the skinning shed we found the middle third of the cedar shaft still inside the hog. The little glass point had done its job well. The arrow had traveled diagonally through the 90 pounder, entering almost dead center on the body and exiting low on the opposite front shoulder, slicing vitals on the way. Most interesting was that it had cut one rib and completely severed another as it exited. I really wanted to find the point now to see how it had been damaged.
The next day I was back at the kill site. I followed the pig's trail all the way back to the death bed. Far under the brambles I could see the arrow point! I pulled it out and looked it over -- if there was any damage it was on a scale too small for the naked eye. It looked and felt sharp, ready for a new shaft, but I wanted to save it just as it was.
Topic: A few days with Ray (Read 69051 times)
