Finally, let me share my story of the last day's hunt. I decided to go back to the blind I hunted on the first night, where I had shot over my first hog. I further decided to locate myself in a different location a little further from the blind. This turned out to be a good idea since the hogs, which had scented me before in the blind, shied away from it all together, but that's getting ahead of the story.
When Mike and Gerald dropped me off, there were hogs in the road, it looked like it was going to be a good hunt! I made my fatal mistake right there at the very beginning. with daylight quickly racing into the picture and hogs already upon me, I hastily searched for good cover with a shooting land and finding what appeared to be a good place settled in.
As the sun began to rise I could hear the hogs grunting and an occasional squeal. I looked around to verify my setup and discovered on glaring flaw in my plans. I was badly exposed in an opening to my left rear. I briefly considered moving but the grunting of hogs encouraged me to try to make the best of the situation, after all the hogs were in front and to my right and the only way they were getting to that hole in my cover was to first pass thru my shooting lane.
In the end my success was also my failure. It turns out that I had picked a great spot for the morning hunt, as a matter of fact it was too great! The first bunch of hogs approached me, as planned from the right proceeding directly to my shooting lane. However a second bunch approached from my left directly to my fatally flawed cover. The bunch to my right featured some good sized hogs proceeded by a few small 10# hogs. I let the small ones walk thru my shooting window waiting on a chance at one of the good ones. Once again, hindsight is 20-20 and I probably should have taken the first shot presented, because the small hogs blended with the hogs from the other group and they congregated right at the hole in my cover.
I tried to stay as still as possible as that hog I wanted to shoot walked into my shooting lane. I tightened tension on the string, then began my draw. At that precise moment I was busted y the hogs milling around to my left and one of them let loose with a short quick frightened grunt that ruined the whole show.
Pigs went everywhere and I let my draw down. I could hear grunting and squealing all around me and so I made a snap decision to do what I should have done earlier that morning. I stealthily shifted my position about 10 yards into perfect cover with a good shooting window.
In just a few moments I saw a large hog approaching, quickly from the left. I allowed it to trot into my shooting lane as I, once again brought the string to full draw. This time I was stopped cold, not by the horrible grunt of a pig busting me, but by the knowledge that this was a mature sow.
One of the rules of the hunt was not to shoot wet sows. Although this sow had no young with her and by a strict interpretation of the guidelines would have been fine to kill, I had personally determined not to shoot a mature sow, so, as much as I wanted to take another hog I slowly let the string down and watched as this brazen sow presented me with shot opportunity after shot opportunity.
Topic: Texas or Bust!!!! Pig hunt in progress... (Read 9790 times)
