A good many of the hunters on this trip were TG'ers that we had never shook hands with. Skyler and I knew them through the forum but not personally. Life-long Friends were made here and future hunts are already in the works.
Skyler has covered early events well so I'll start with Wednesday afternoon...We gathered together at the "the tables" all ready to go. I was shooting my Widow when my string broke...and this was just hours before we were headed to our evening stands. Talking about letting the wind out of the sails.
Larry Surtees came through with a new SBD String. We were ready for a lot of stretch but no problem...Skyler, Curt and I shot it a bunch and in a matter of an Hour, I was ready to go.
We headed out and I went to a familiar Tree that I had killed out of in the past. I was there just a short time when HE showed up. A big 19-20" buck and he was headed my way but he was slightly downwind and that was enough. It was slow until around 30 minutes before dark. I looked across the pasture and around 20 hogs were racing to me. I let them get settled for a few minutes (3 seconds) and picked out a huge spotted sow with a black spot just behind her shoulder. The shot was good to me and she ran off with the arrow buried nearly to the feathers..quartering away.
I felt good about it but hogs were running everywhere and I lost track of her. I was listening for anything and looked up to see a nice 8 point headed my way. It was getting dark quickly and he wasn't going to make it in time. When he got there it was just too dark for a shot. He was nice and I would have loved the opportunity.
When the rest of the crew came to pick me up, I GOT DOWN EXPECTING TO SEE A MASSIVE BLOOD TRAIL that wasn't there. We looked for a while and decided to come back in the morning. We've shot enough hogs to know that they don't always bleed good. I knew where I hit her and it was good. But there should have been blood. At daylight Sunnyhill was hunting there and saw my fletching sticking out of a "dead as a hammer" hog from the treestand. I don't know how we missed walking over her the night before. The "dead as a hammer" quote is from Terry.....Bigger than I thought and very happy....
Topic: Solana Ranch -What a ride into the New Year (Read 72141 times)
