Terry and I had spent most of the morning still hunting through an area of mesquite scrub and sand dunes. It had been uneventful, though we were seeing sign.
We came out of the scrub and crossed a barbed wire fence that was about a dozen feet from the road. As we came out onto the edge of the road, we saw a good-sized javelina on the road about 60 yards away. He was wandering around eating corn that Jacob had sprinkled along that stretch of road.
Game on.
Since I was closer to the javi to start with, I took the lead. I ducked back into the brush at the side of the road and started working my way toward the critter -- trying to close the distance while he was still on the road in view.
I was doing fine keeping cover between the javelina and me, and had him at about 25 or so yards when I came upon a pile of dead mesquite that stretched from the fence to the road. I had a decision to make -- Do I stay put and hope the animal closes the remaining distance, or do I patiently wait until the javelina turns away and try to work my way past the dead brush by going out in the road around it and then getting back into the roadside cover? Crossing over the fence wasn't an option. Unlike the farm fences I am familiar with in the east, a Texas cattleman's ranch fence is not something I could wriggle through silently.
The javelina kept turning in circles to get the odds and ends of the scattered corn. I figured he might be likely to give me a chance to close the distance, and since he now seemed to be wandering aimlessly eating along the way, I wasn't sure he would work his way closer to me.
Decision time. I had by now spent at least 15 minutes closing the distance and I needed to get closer if I was going to get a shot. The javi was relaxed and wandering. I decided to take one small step to get around the brush each time he turned away from me. It worked for a while.
I was almost done circumnavigating the brush when I made a noise. To me it sounded like the feathers on my the arrows in my bow quiver brushed up against something -- maybe my leg, maybe the brush -- doesn't matter. The sound was out of place. Now, in an instant, the animal was on full alert.
He looked in my direction and I was as still as an ancient statue. We had a standoff that lasted several tense minutes. Neither of us moved. Then I saw the hackles on the javelina's back stand straight up and he turned around and walked straight away from me up the road and then turned to his right and went off the road, under the fence, and into the mesquite brush.
I knew I couldn't cross the fence quietly enough to get after him, so the jig was up with that javelina.
As they say down here in the Carolinas, "Dang it."
But, that stalk was a ton of fun. And but for a tiny sound he might have been dead, and in the freezer.
Topic: Tradgang/Mule Creek 1st Annual Hunt (Read 16644 times)
