Howdy guys! This was an awesome trip! Looks like I can skip a bunch of stuff already covered and get right to the good stuff.
Friday afternoon - I took off and got buried in a swamp first thing, lots of fresh sign everywhere but I didn't see any pigs. I was slowly sweeping more and more to the right following the sign and I came out on the wrong road. I ended up taking a scenic tour of the north side of the property on the way back to get some water. Kicked up a few whitetails including one really big one on the way back.
Friday evening - After a water refill and some map recon I hoofed it out to a set of wallows and waited to see if the heat would drive a few in for me. Again a great spot with lots of fresh sign but I didn't get to see a pig there either. Being deep in the swamp shooting light disappeared early so I went out to the rendezvous point and saw Pete, we decided to get 50 yards apart and push up a long valley to another wallow before it was too dark. Nice hunt but we didn't see any on that leg.
Saturday morning - After a good soaking rain Pete and I decided to pair up and go hunt is Friday spots with the same method we used Friday evening. We put on a few miles through all the right places; cypress swamps, up on the bluffs, back down the ditches, around a few feeders. We did see turkeys, racoons, and lots more pig sign, but no pigs. We went back to camp and got some breakfast.
Saturday afternoon - I considered the country Pete showed me that held pigs the day before, and some of the spots I had hit alone on Friday and talked Pete into doing another hunt in a different area deeper into the swamps. The bad part is that it was a few miles on foot just to the start point. Walking that few miles the entire place had been torn up by pigs since the rain the night before. We took up the swamp sloping down to a small lake and started working our way up when I spotted a nice black pig, I let Pete know what was up and put the stalk on keeping good cover between me and him but half way up the route he slipped out on me. We did the last half mile of the hunt up to the road and Pete decided to hunt back along the route we came in, I decided to do the loop around the lake back to the camp. I came across a low pass into the lake from some ditches where the water went out very gradually, it was obvious the pigs using this route weren't worried about gators. What wasn't obvious was the sow and four piglets behind a bunch of brush 20 yards out until the wind shifted against my favor. She was about 60 pounds or so, the little ones maybe 20. About a mile closer to camp I broke off into a bottom with some tall grass and heard some grunting, I spent about 20 minutes going inch by inch through it but never saw him or heard him spook out. These can be sneaky little buggers. Head back to camp.
Saturday evening - Now having seen and put the stalk on a few pigs I'm in the zone, completely amped up and ready to go for the win. I took off out of camp on one wild idea scout that didn't pay off. I walked the creek bed on the north side of the property and found it completely dry only holding two whitetail in it. I worked the high ground near the pines as I went south to see if there was any sign or if the swamps were 100% the place to be, no sign in the pines. As it was getting later I confirmed my plan for the last few hours. It was really hot and nobody had been past that big wallow from the night before so I set off up there and laid an ambush for the first pig needing to come and cool off, unfortunatley no pig needed to cool off. Nice night, glad I had a thermacell, saw two deer walk through my ambush point and that was nice.
Sunday morning - I wasn't sure how I was gong to hunt Sunday until the rain came down again Saturday night and apparently the clouds kept it dark enough they didn't feed all night. I decided to do a replay of the Saturday afternoon route. I blasted up to the start point in about an hour and only crossed one set of pig tracks, a good sign for my plan. Light was fully up as I went into that valley and I worked that path for a few hours seeing very little new sign since the day before. I got to the top and worked my way to the drinking hole and spooked another sow in the 80 pound range with two much bigger piglets with her. Knowing that ditch was pure north/south I made my gamble and buttoned to a high ambush point on the northernly path. Too bad they decided they wanted to go south. I sat in the spot for half an hour and drank water preparing for the long push back to camp, no more came by. I started working my way back down a logging road towards camp and after about a quarter mile I walked up behind two bigger pigs rooting the road itself! I was about 50 yards behind them and picked a path to cut half of the distance quickly and quietly, as soon as I had visual cover I moved fast and made that point. From there I planned my next 10 yards and slowly pushed up a step each time both of their faces were down. By now I could see the one in the lead was in the 150 range and the one closer to me was around 80. The problem I faced was that there was no way to flank them through the crunchy brush, and they were both rooting straight away from me. I kept to the left side of the road up against cover to break up my outline, they would take a few steps and root, I'd take a few steps and catch up. We inched up the road together without them ever giving me even a quartering shot. When my boot finally made a bad fall and they broke they were at 11 and 16 yards, I had plenty of time to pace that off because they were long gone. I did follow their tracks for a few hundred yards and found some nice ditches and wallows for my effort but I never got another look at them. I did go nice and easy back to camp and saw lots more sign as the morning wore on but nothing worthy of print.
Other important items; THANKS RAY! You're knowledge and pointers for a first time pig hunter were invaluable! Thanks to the Michigan crew for inviting me along for the caravan, I had a great time getting to know you guys! Pete, thanks for working those swamps with me on Saturday, watching you hunt let me know I was doing all the right things on Friday and was just in the wrong place at the right time on Friday. Hope I get to come hunt pigs with all you guys next year!
Topic: Hog Heaven June 17-19 2011 is on! (Read 3615 times)
