Here is something you don’t see everyday and it’s not a good sight if you’re a cattle rancher. This is a giant bone pile. James told us that Mr. Tarrant doesn’t throw anything away and this proves it.
Around 7:00 Chris and I were making our way out to our hunting spots. My spot is called the dirt pile. There’s a giant dirt pile about an 1/8th of a mile form where I hunted.
For this hunt I was hunting from the ground again. I like the adrenaline rush that hunting from the ground at night gives me. Chris was hunting a few hundred yards to my southeast.
I cleared out two places near the feeder to hunt from. One place was nestled in a little pocket of cedar trees and would have put me 5 yards from the feeder. The place was a natural blind and it would have given me plenty of foreground cover and background cover. It was a perfect little sniper’s nest, but I thought it was going to put me too close to the feeder. After the previous nights experience I figured I needed more distance from the feeder, besides all the trees in the little stand of trees had been rubbed smooth by hogs. I don’t want to be that close to a hog.
The spot I decided on was 10 yards southeast of the feeder. The wind was coming from the south, southwest. I positioned myself in front of a tree and cut some cedars to create background cover. There was no foreground cover for this setup. Using a tip that James told us about, I scattered diesel soaked rags around the bait site. He said this would provide cover scent. He said he sometimes will walk around the whole bait site before settling in to hunt and spray the area down with diesel. According to James the hogs don’t mind the smell or taste of diesel’ but the deer and the raccoons don’t like it so they stay away.
For the most part all was quiet except for the occasional coyote howl or owls call that broke the silence. So there I set watching the light fade until the details of the timber around me vanished. Like the previous night I positioned my head lamp to point where I aimed the bow and the wait began.
The 9:00 o’clock hour rolls by and the 10:00 hour begins to tick away. Occasional I would hear leaves rustle within the vicinity which would put me on alert and I would scan the area with my eyes to see if I could pick out a moving form….nothing only several false alarms.
Then around 10:15 as if hit by a jolt of electricity all of my senses were shocked to attention! From the northwest all hell had broken loose! No warnings nothing leading up to the noise just the sudden eruption of animals running through the timber.
PIGS It sounded like there were a hundred of them coming and they were coming fast. The closer they got to the feeder the faster they ran and the faster they ran the more fighting they did and the fighting brought on the squealing.
It was absolutely hair raising for me! The squealing made them sound like huge demons from hell coming to get me. In a matter of seconds they were there. It was absolute chaos. My mind was trying sort out how many pigs were there and where they were all at. I could hear and see some of them in front, but there were also pigs to my right and to my left. The only place there weren’t any pigs was behind me.
Following James’ advice I began to shine the light on the pigs gradually. He told us not to shine the light on them abruptly. So with my fingers over the light I gradually let the light peek through until the full beam of light was shining on the pigs. I could see six pigs at that moment but I could also hear other pigs that were hidden by brush. All the pigs looked to be about the same size in the 80 – 100 pound range.
Seven yards in front of me were three pigs two red pigs and on black pig. I was delighted to see the red pigs because that is the color pig I really wanted. To my left a problem was beginning to unfold. One of the pigs was beginning to get down wind of me and starting to growl. I cupped my hand over the light and then shined it in its direction. The pig to my left was standing facing me and growling. Everyone should experience that at least once in their life. I’ve heard pigs make this sound before and usually and alarm grunt follows the growl and pigs will scatter, so I knew my time was very limited.
I turned the light back to the three pigs seven yards away and started focusing on the red pigs waiting for a quartering away shot. The little buggareds were jostling around like ants. Three times I brought my bow back to full draw only to let down when the pig moved or one of the other pigs stepped in the way. And then it happened. Two of the pigs separated leaving one of the red pigs standing alone and I channeled all of my attention on him. With the gray pig to my left continuing to growl I did my best to shut it out and ready myself for a shot. The red pig hurriedly fed in front of me. Feeding this way and that way and then he finally turned giving me a quartering away angle. With that I focused my attention to a spot tight behind his shoulder, drew the 56” pronghorn to full draw, anchored and released the string sending the 31.5”, 650 grain, woodsman tipped arrow flying towards the mark.
In a micro second mayhem erupted! The hit pig let out an ear piercing squeal and vanished into the dark and the rest of the pigs scattered in all directions. With the pig continuing to squeal I tried to tracked the hog’s movement with my ears but that can get a little difficult when multiple pigs are squealing at the same time. When he vanished into the darkness he ran to my right behind the clump of cedars that I was going to use as a blind and then suddenly, to my surprise, a pig springs out of those same cedars hell bent for leather and head straight for me! In a flash the pig passed by me only six feet away. WOW EXCITING! The pig makes and arc and disappears in the dark. My mind is racing…”was that the pig I shot? It was red…but there wasn’t an arrow sticking out of its side!” The pig that ran by me circled to the northwest and I hear it rustle in the leaves followed by a gurgle sound and then all was quiet again. “Yep” I think to myself “that must have been the pig.”
Afterwards I set down to let the adrenaline rush wear off before my legs gave out. With shaky hands I text Chris to let him know that I shot and to tell him to watch for hogs that might be coming his way. Ten minutes later I took up the trail and sure enough the pig I shot almost ran me over.
The arrow entered a couple on inches behind the right shoulder and exited behind the left front leg. The shot took out one lung and cut the artery off the heart and he died 20 yards from where I sat. He weighed 90# and best of all I got my red pig!
Topic: Christening of the Scamp (with 2 dead hog pictures) (Read 4974 times)
