"The Paradise " St. Judes Hog Hunt - Now with VIDEO!

[clayk]

Jaz I type two words a minute in a hurry

[Terry Green]

Well....then just pretend like its the 2 minute warning.     :D

[clayk]

that next half hour chasing all those pigs in that blasted swamp was something else.  They always seem to be a couple yards out of range, always moving.  I'm sure nothing new for all those seasoned hog guys out there, but quite a learning curve for me.  One sow would catch me every time my boot made that suuuoop.. sound in the mud.  Imagine a pig hearing mud slop and looking?  weird.  After a 1/2 hour I realized I was alone and decided to let them go for now.  lucky pigs.  I eventually came to the road I initially started at but no Joe.  When I did catch up with him he asked if I saw the arrow he left pointing the way? "no I didn't see an arrow" thinking it was a carbon arrow.  The arrow was on the road formed of logs and sticks about ten foot long.  I stepped over it!  I like to think it was the sweat in my eyes that made me miss it.

[robslifts]

great story so far

[JC]

Too good a tale to end now....

I got a few seconds of Chad's afternoon encounter on digital camera but not close enough for you guys to see the show. It was pretty cool seeing him tense up when about to shoot the red hog...then let back down and go after them as the shot op evaporated. I saw the big hog that busted him veer off from the group and did my best to cut him off, but no such luck.
He was a pretty good hog and I don't mind telling you I left Chad to his own when I saw him angling in my direction.  :rolleyes:  

I went back to where we split, whistled a few times...then left the infamous "arrow in the road" and headed down to where we were actually going to hunt when we heard the first batch. I'll also say Chad has excellent hearing. He did really well at picking out sounds often before I even did...I hear stuff pretty well.

I stopped off to the side of trashcan woods and sipped some water, touched up my heads just in case, cinched up my pack and was about to head out when Chad came slipping down the road. We connected and head out an old cut-through road to the far side of the woods where the pines met the hardwoods. This was an old grown up road that I had hunted in my previous outings at Paradise and knew that the hog sign should be plentiful.

Needless to say, we weren't disappointed. The frequent rains had left the open areas of the road full of puddles...and most of the puddles had been worked into wallows by hogs. 100 yards down, you couldn't spit without hitting a hog track. We did our best to play the swirling wind and make our way deeper into the hunting area.

[Terry Green]

Here's Jaz in what he called the hog pasture...too bad cameras don't pic up sign will in the pines, but this area looked like Sam had tillered it the day before....


 

[Terry Green]

This was in one of the 'tillered' areas.....pretty good sized hog track...

 

[Terry Green]

Biggie....if you'd have come in on Friday night, you could've had Pope and Young burgers basted with Dale's.

 

 

[Jaz]

Thanks for posting those pics, Terry!  I really wish I would have taken the time to take some more pics.  Oh well, live and learn.
Thanks again for everything.  
God bless,
Eric

[Terry Green]

Eric...when I posted that 2nd pic...I could have sworn I seen canes moving    

[JC]

Moving down the firebreak/road was literally like walking through a hog parlor. We spent most of our time in mud or standing water from the recent heavy rains...and everywhere you looked there were hog tracks. I was leading us and of course, got a bit too relaxed....and busted a big hog right out of it's bed. Hogs scattered through the brush and I was upset at my impatience. Turning to Clay with an "I'm sorry look" I saw a huge grin on his face..."those were hogs!" he exclaimed in an excited whisper. Oh well, he at least got to see some.

We continued down further until we came to an obvious trail they had been using to connect through the palmettos to the road. It was heavily traveled and mud covered the ground for 20-30 yards from the wet area. We slipped for about 20 yards into the palmettos...ever careful and patient now after the wakeup call we received not long ago. I stepped up on a large log to get an elevated view over the palmettos....and just as I started to step down I saw a hog at 11 o'clock feeding not 25 yards away. Too late....I was already falling in the direction of the step down. My foot landed as softly as I could and I slowly turned to see Clint right behind me "There's hogs right there!", hoarsely exclaimed. I nodded and motioned him forward, whispering for him to take his time and move slowly as there was little cover. Thankfully the hogs were fully engrossed in feeding and we were so close the palmettos helped block their vision.

 The Stalk and Adrenaline Rush  (this is a large video file and takes a while to connect even on fast speeds. Thanks for your help with the compressed video Tom Mussato!)

I couldn't get a good look at the exact arrow impact from my angle...I thought it was high and too far back. After talking with Clay, it sounded like it may be right horizontal body placement but possibly too high. We found his broken wood arrow a few yards from the shot impact....about 6" of the shaft was gone and the broken end was bloody. Hmmmmm.....

[Terry Green]

Thanks Joe.....Cool seeing the story on film now!

I LOVE IT when those palmettos are a shakin!!!  I've spent many a night with them shakin in my dreams let me tell ya.

Gonna watch the 2nd clip now...

[JC]

Clay said "my arrow just hit a 2x4!...it just stopped." Naaaaa, them hogs are just like whitetails    :rolleyes:  

Anyway, we found immediate blood and we were hopeful...

 

The first 40-50 yards were easy to follow, with most of the palmettos covered like this
 

After about 100 yards I had a sinking feeling...the blood was obviously less profuse than the start...we both feared a non-fatal muscle hit. Another 100 yards later and we were down to working for it. 30 yards later, we were crawling between flooded rows of pines...with a spot of blood here and there. A couple hours into it we wer at the end of the blood. It took a while for the weight to hit us, but when it did, we decided we would pull out and head back to camp to try to get Matt and his dog Montana.

It was a grim walk back to the truck for both of us. We tried to remain hopeful but experience told us otherwise.

[Arrowslinger]

Thanks JC.  I really enjoy all of the stories.

 

[Jaz]

JC,
I'm gonna have to go use my father-in-law's 'puter so I can watch that video. Thanks, JC, very nice!
I didn't know you guys had so many people hunting with you: JC, Clay, Chad, Clint...ha ha


God bless,
Jaz

[Guru]

AWESOME video!!!!

[JC]

Jaz....well if Clay would drag his sorry tail in here and tell the story, maybe I wouldn't have to mistake him for someone else to get his attention   :p  

Curt, I learned a lot about video this trip...1) I'm gonna get a dedicated video camera 2) the motion reduction on my lil canon digital camera takes a pretty fair video 3) don't worry about getting too close....get right over the shoulder. I'll have to say, the videoing was as addictive as the hunting. I enjoyed it a LOT MORE than I thought I would. Looking forward to more of it.

[Jaz]

I was wondering if that was intentional! Pretty funny! Actually that's really funny!
That oughtta get his attention.

[Terry Green]

Yeah Joe...I learned not to stay 5 feet behind the hunter, but stay back 10 yards and ZOOM like you're 5 feet behind the hunter.

My last 'camera' did video....but no where near as good as that you posted.

[clayk]

JC sorry I haven't kept up with you been a little busy.  The video was great.  Nothin like the real thing! but good none the less.
I'll post when I get some time. Thanks Clay