What a great way to spend a weekend. Myself and Lindsay (girlfriend) went to Arizona this weekend to hunt with a couple of good friends. Kendal I have talked about here before and my friend Marshal has been one of my Dads very best friends since they were in sixth grade. My Dad, Kendal and I went to hunt Javelina with Marshal in 2004 and had a great time so I was really looking forward to this trip. We started the 15 hour drive on Friday evening and traveled through the night arriving at camp about 9 am on Saturday. The others were still out for the morning hunt when we arrived so we settled in, did a little shooting to get the kinks out from the long drive, took a short walk and found a little Mule deer buck, then got ready to hunt that afternoon.
Now anyone who lives in this country or knows the area knows that it demands respect. It is steep, every plant can stab you and most of the animals want to bite you.
It really holds a lot of wonders though. From the ruins of an once thriving mining town and its old mine shafts to the thousands of Saguaro Cactus that stand guard over the desert landscape. This one is likely hundreds of years old. If only these relics of olden days could speak what stories they could tell of desert hunters past.
Lindsay really liked this little Joshua tree.
We set for our first hunt about noon or so. We put on a lot of miles that afternoon and they would pay off as we started spotting game about 2 pm. A slight wind issue caused us to bump the first group of javi. We made a loop and set up again. Though Lindsay hunted with a compound bow before she was never able harvested an animal, so I really wanted this trip to be her chance to meet that goal. When we got set up on them the second time she was not able to get a shot. We decided to back off and let them calm down rather than chase them away. I wanted to check a few more draws and if we found nothing we would come back to them.
About a half an hour later I spotted to boars hiding under a mesquite tree about thirty yards away. I got Lindsay and showed her where they were hiding (these little critters can hide like no other). Look at this stuff and think about how many places you could hide something the size of a javi.
We talked about how to approach them. We came up with a plan and Lindsay made a large loop to keep the wind right and I stayed put to keep an eye on them. She closed the gap to under 20 yards when one of the two boars stepped out in front of her. She drew and released her arrow, hitting a bit low in the rocks. With a frown on her face she thought her chance was over.