Easing into the lease for a second day, I take more time looking and staying alert. Afterall, killing a pig in the mid-day hours has me feeling strange about this place. I immediately take the truck across to where I had shot the pig yesterday. I stop a scan the hay field. Nothing. I look even harder at the Live Oak forrest that surrounds the field. What beauty! Wait, whats that, a sun spot in the tree line? I raise my optics to get a better look. I see a tail flicker. Its a color phased hiney on a really nice hog. Game Time!
I exit the truck with "Dream Keeper". Im 300 yards and closing the gap with a heavy stride. I am having to swing really wide, through a wet drainage, around a pond, and up a dry drainage. Im not sure I can close the distance, keeping good wind in time to catch up with the bruiser. As I walk, I tell myself how crazy this is to be chasing pigs in the heat of the day. There must be something wrong with these pigs!
As I start up the dry wash, I see the colored pig ahead and realize that he has an entourage with him. Boy, what a pretty sight to see all the little colored pigs with stripes and the different size and shaped hogs that follow along noisily. Kinda looks like a piggy Carnival setting. All dressed up and only a mud hole to waller in. I notice as I close the gap, easing from Live Oak to Live Oak, using the trunks and visibility shields, that the water holes I pass are still swirrling and muddy. Musta been a piggy-skinny-dip going on just minutes before.
Everything is really looking good as I have closed the gap to 30 yards. The grass is just tall enough that when the pig dropps his head to root the ground, his eyes are shielded from viewing my approaching doom. Things start moving fast in my chest. My ears are getting that buzz and my body has that shaky weakness that always enhabits the final moments before the shot. Ohhhhh, I love Buck Fever! Ride em Boy!!!
With so many pigs Im worried about the final few yards but they are all moving slowly away and have no clue of the danger that lurks. I decide it is time to go for points. I easy to the next tree to my right as to get better vantage on the quartering away hog. Its my favorite shot and as the arrow finds wind, I know without a doubt that I will again take up space at the meat pole. The hit was as perfect as they get and with a grunt, a groan, a fly-turn, and a roll he is away and spewing hard. I've done it again! I grin and take in every ounce of adrenaline coursing through my veins. If I could bottle this feeling, I'd be a Junky that never left the house. Pass the bottle please!
It takes only minutes to easy down the blood bloody corridor and retreive my prize. He is a real handsome fella. I sit down beside him and admire everything about this macho-man of a hog. I wonder of the battles and the hardships he has endured along the way. I admire him for him abilities to edapt to such harsh environments. He was surely a Leader of his tribe. A fine specimine at 225#'s! Im very proud but also kinda sad that he wont be there to share in my next hunt. I suppose there will be others.
I often wonder when it all happened? My deep seated love for a critter with such a nasty disposition, a hated animal by most men, a mud dweller, a survivor! Im not sure when I pushed the pursuit of deer and turkey, and other highly sought after critters to the back burners and turned my sights toward swine but I can't remember a day that I have ever regretted it. I guess that is what makes us all even the more individuals. Its cool, all the differend avenues that life can bring. Pigs just seem to have fallen right in the middle of my Avenue. Guess I'll just have to navigate through them and enjoy my ride.
Tonight I'll clean another hog and tomorrow I will return to the woods behind the house for a redeaming shot at Mr Sumo. Lord knows I need the meat. CK
Topic: A week of nights w/ Littlefeather (Read 7009 times)
