Well January 10th I picked up my friend Richie and headed to JFK airport on Long Island. We were flying Jetblue down to orlando for our annual pig hunt. Three of my other friends were flying out of islip on Southwest and we touched base with them via cell phone. We were all psyched to get there and try for some pigs and we were a little worried about the cold weather down there. In the past with cold weather the pigs wouldn't move much in the morning but the evening hunts were fine.
We get to JFK and everything goes smooth until we get to the gate. Our flight is delayed since the Flight Attendant just broke her finger. Our 9:30am flight is now an 11:00am flight. Still time to make the evening hunt though. We board at 10:30am and they tell us the bathroom water line is frozen and they are going to fix it. Well an hour goes by and they decide to take off with only one bathroom. Then the engine won't start and they get us off the flight at 1:00pm to see if they can fix. I'm figuring if we can get down to orlando by 4:00pm we can still do a little stalking by the rye fields or stalk up to a feeder maybe. We try to change flights but they tell us the flight is cancelled and we are all on the 4:00pm flight and go to gate 2. At this point all i want to do is get down there and be ready for tomorrow morning. Well we finally get on a 6:00pm flight and make it to orlando at 9:30pm and the ranch at 11:00pm.
We meet up with my other friends and they are really stoked. The hogs are plentiful on the 25,000 acre working cattle ranch. It isa free range fair chase operation where you hunt on feeders, corn thrown on the ground, spot and stalking the fields and property and with dogs sometimes if things are slow. Apparently with the cold weather and only a modest acorn crop the hogs are pretty hungry. The rye grass hasn't come up yet so the hogs are out searching for food early. We are up at 5:00am and ready by 6:00am for the guides to show up. Hoppy ( the owner) and Pat Marino ( from Heritage prints fame ) come in and we catch up a little on the past year.
We are ready to go and the drop me off at a home made ground blind next to a feeder and a swampy area. I've hunted out of a stand at this spot before but the ground blind looks great. It is just a peice of black material set up around chest high. A little high for me being vertically challenged but the shots will be around 15 yards or less if i hold out. Well i hear pigs and see a couple that come into the feeder but I am holding out for them to come over to where the corn is by the ground blind. It is about a 25 yard shot to the feeder and i am not going to take that far a shot on the small killzone of a hog if I don't have to. Unfortunately the wind swirls a little and they are out of there. I'm freezing at this point since it was 29 degrees when we left at 6:15am and now at around 7:30am it is maybe 35 degrees. I had checked weather.com and they called for temps in the low 40's so i didn't bring real warm clothers just a sweatshirt and some regular hunting pants. Thankfully camo wasn't critical so i just put on a bunch of layers under my black muzzy sweatshirt. Pat come by and picks me up at 10:00am and tells me that the guys had some action but nobody had gotten a pig. We grab some breakfast and then we are out back shooting our bows.
I'm shooting a 55lb Pamer single carbon recurve with 55/75 goldtips with 50gr brass inserts and 200gr 2 blade muzzy phantoms. I'm looking forward to see how the extreme FOC arrows work on the hogs. I'm shooting good and the arrows are flying perfect so i am ready to go. At 3:30pm they drop me off at the same ground blind and i settle in for the wait for the feeder to go off at 5:00pm and ring the dinner bell. At around 4:30pm i hear a hog moving in the palmettos to my left then he busts out of them, runs by the feeder and into the swamp across the dirt road. I'm thinking, did he just run by to see if any corn was out yet? He looked like a nice boar in the 100 to 130lb range.
At 5:00pm the feeder goes off and about 15 minutes later i hear some hogs coming from the swampy area across the road. About 5 nice size meat hogs come running into the feeder. They are all about 80 to 100lbs and am a happy hunter. The first one that gives me an open shot I'm shooting. Then I hear more pigs and another 8 pigs come into the feeder and come over to where I am and start sucking up the corn. The problem is that there are to many and moving like crazy chomping the corn. most of the time they are facing the blind but when The turn broad side it seems there is alwaysa hog behind them too. I don't want to take a chance of shootingthrough one hog and hitting another even if it is a slim chance with my setup so i wait. They are nervousand have run off a few times but have come back each time. A big sow is causing problems biting the other hogs, she is about 140lbs so when she starts to turn broadside I'm ready... then she bolts for some reason. Well a deer was walking down the road and scared them. Well they come back after a minute and are all bunched up again.
At this point it is around 6:00pm with still plenty enough light to shoot but i figure i probably only have 15 minutes left at the most. Lucky for me the boar i saw earlier comes running in and jabs a buch of pigs and chases away the deer so he can have the corn for himself. He is at 15 yards with no pigs around him and starting to turn broadside and I am drawing at the same time.I'm at anchor just as he turns broadside, I pick the spot 1/3 up his body right up the leg and crack the arrow is in him about 1" to 2" above where I was looking. The boar takes off across the road to the swampy area with the other hogs. I was filming so i rewind thetape to see the shot and realize I shot the boar just before he would step into the frame so i have a good laugh but I can see the hog run off and the arrow looks good as far as placement and penetration. I get out of the blind and mark the trail the boar took and see blood.
About 15 minutes later it is dark and Hoppy comes to pick me up. I tell him the story and we decide to give my boar a little time and go pick up my friend. my friend Tommy scored on a nice big boar with his compound and made a perfect heart shot and the hog was down in 40 yards. we load up the hog into the pickup and head to my friend richies stand. Ricchie says he missed a big sow but shot a small hog and thinks he sw it go down in the grass. We walk over to where he thought it went down and there it is. He hit it too far back but got the main artery running along the back and the hog went down in 30 yards.
It isabout a hour now since i hit my hog so we start blood trailing with our flashlights. My hog is running based on the tracks but the bloodtrail is good. He is on a main trail so we are moving pretty fast and find my part of my arrow about 60 yards in a small clearing. I'm thinking the hog must have fallen here to break the arrow so where is he....and there he is about ten yards away by a palm tree. The arrow went thorough both lungs, a little high and penetrated through both shields and was sticking out the other side about two inches. yeas, the muzzy phamtoms and extreme foc came through. Unfortunately I didn't bring my digital camera and hoppy threw out his back helping me get him in thetruck so below is the only picture i have. I wanted to get another picture at the skinning shed but the other guide didn't realize it and had the hog quatered before I got there with my camera. Later tonight i will post about day two.
Topic: So many pigs, so little time! (Read 1397 times)
