I heard three different episodes of that same guttural sound that sure sounded like a pig that was suffocating. However, I don’t consider myself an expert at hog verbalizations and with all the chatter that was going on I couldn’t be sure. The fact that I didn’t feel great about the shot location made me want to back off.
The trouble was that when I backed off, I continued to hear pigs and temptation got the better of me. While I already had a pig on the ground, I could shoot two during my weekend stay at Stretch a String. So I decided to follow the group of hogs that had now moved off to the south. In hopes of not spooking the first pig I had shot, I decided to circle around and head them off in an open meadow area that was not far. By the time I got around and crossed the creek the hogs were already there. At this point I wasn’t being too careful with my light. It didn’t seem to have any affect on the hogs. I saw the first of this group heading down an old dry creek bed. It was quartering away so hard at 20 yards I didn’t want to risk a shot. The hogs were close but I needed to get even closer. In a move that would make the average deer bowhunter cringe, I dove down into the creek back as the pigs were now filtering up the hillside that connected to the creek. They were making so much noise they didn’t even notice. I got my light up on an opening and saw black bodies moving. A shot was there for a second and then gone before I could draw. After a few more seconds another pig materialized in my opening and I took my time and told myself to get on that front leg and come right up into the shoulder. I got to full draw and held for a second and punched him hard. It looked a touch higher than I had hoped but I felt great about this shot compared to my first. It was in the boiler room. He squealed and circled up and to my left and ran back down into the creek bed from where I had originally encountered them. He looked like he was hit hard and I quickly went to where he had crossed the creek bed and saw blood on the ground.
Wow! After sitting in a stand for two nights with not so much as a pig sighting I had just taken two shots at pigs within an hour of leaving Tom.
I was a mess mentally. It was 4:30 AM at this point and the rush of adrenaline made patience seem impossible. I crossed the creek looking for more sign but within a minute realized it was fairly sparse. I made myself stop and after several minutes of standing in the dark I decided to get out of the area and move away from where the pig had exited the scene. I went back towards the location of my first shot opportunity and sat down. The moon light was lighting up the valley and I got a good visual from this angle of the general vicinity of where I thought I heard my first hog go down. I went back to where the shot had occurred and found neither my arrow nor any blood. Crap!
I probably should have just backed out of the location but it was still 75 degrees out and so I didn’t want to wait too long before I looked for the pig. I took a heading off where I had shot to where I had heard the pig. I started into a marshy thicket that certainly fit the profile for where an injured pig would go into a bed down. It was a jungle and instantly I realized the challenge that was before me. Finding a wounded pig in this mess was going to be near impossible. I continued on along a trail that was no more wide than I was and forced me to duck under chest high branches. Suddenly my headlamp flashed ahead and I saw eyes. It was a pig that appeared to be lying down or at least standing still. It was up as soon as I noticed it and moved off but not real fast. I thought I heard it crash into something but that could have just been it moving through the thick honeysuckle and saplings. Bad sign…really bad. Now not only was the pig alive but I had bumped it. I went up to where it had been and absolutely no sign. I turned my light off for a few minutes and just stood there. Cursing myself for not taking more time with my shot. I was also cursing myself at this point for not taking my thermacell out of my pack that I left at the camp with Tom.
All seemed to be lost in the hot sticky jungle of underbrush. I was tired, weary, and disappointed in my performance….About then I turned my head light back on and looked to my left and not six feet from me was
a stone dead pig with a big hole in its side! I was dumbstruck! What…a dead pig????…I had just seen my pig I thought. And it had run off! 
Apparently that was just another hog in the area. The luck of stumbling onto my pig in this thicket was amazing. I looked around some and saw no real sign of blood on the ground so I’m not sure I would have been able to track it to this point if I hadn’t found it by chance. To say I was relieved would be a major understatement. I was thrilled and kinda felt weak in the knees. I drug him out of the thicket and got lost a couple of times before finding my way out. By now it was after 5 AM and starting to show some signs of daybreak. I started to drag the pig up the trail towards the ATV and encountered more pigs. After pausing to listen to them I continued on my way. By the time I got to the ATV it was getting light. Straining as if bucking a square bale up onto a wagon I pitched the hog up into the bed of the ATV. I headed down the trail to where I shot my second hog and started looking for blood. Nothing much showed up so I decided to head back and get this guy cooled off.
Topic: Christening of the Scamp (with 2 dead hog pictures) (Read 4969 times)
