Well I got home from my weekend hunt on Sunday about midnight. I satyed home on Monday and then headed to south Tx to my lease on Tuesday. I was not really after anything in particular other than to get to hunt with my lease partner. Due to things going on in his life he has not got to hunt much this season and as such I have been hunting by myself a lot this year and have missed his company.
Hope and I arrived at the ranch in the afternoon on Tuesday just in time to hunt. I went to a ground blind we call the Astroblind. It was a pretty slow afternoon till right before dark when a gaggle of pigs came through feeding. Something spooked them and they all ran off. I thought it was over when a few minutes later a medium sized sow with white front legs and two bigger pigs came through. It was REAL close to dark and very difficult to see through the netting in the window of the blind. I could see those white legs clearly though and told myself "all you got to do is put it right above that white". Well, I took a shot and best I could tell, I missed low. The pigs skeedaddled out of there. I have always said I would rather miss low than hit high (esp on a pig).
The next morning I went to the same blind and saw a few little deer but no pigs.
That afternoon I went back to the same blind again. At about 4:00pm a nice little up-and-comer 8 point came in and fed for a while in front of me accompanied by a small 4 point and a button buck. We are very near the rut and the 8pt is a buck we have not seen before. Here is a pic of the 8 point:
Those 3 deer fed around in front of me for about 30 minutes and then just left to go do other things. From then on until almost dark I saw nothing! It got too dark to see through the netting again so I reached up folded it down out of the way. About two minutes later, I catch movement. It is a single pig coming in. Oh yeah! It is the same white legged pig I missed the day before. The pig found my hand thrown corn and began to feed. It was rooting around and would not stand still. It was really starting to get dark and the pig finally stopped and was (I thought) a little quartered away. Hope came to full draw and the arrow was on the way. The arrow smacked hard and the pig tore out of there with my arrow still in it. I got out of the blind to make sure I had a blood trail and this is what I found about 12yds from where I had shot him:
This was the first critter I had shot with Hope that I did not get a complete pass through. My buddy had texted me that he had shot a deer so I went and picked him up and helped him drag his little 4 point out of the woods. We then returned to find my pig.
The blood trail started out like this (I always like to see blood coming out of both sides):
I was real confident. Then about 25yds into it the blood trail went down to just single tiny drops (and I started to get a little worried and second guess my shot):
We followed the tiny drops for about 30-40yds and then foud this:
We got stuck right at the last big bubbly blood but I knew my pig had to be close. We did a small circle pattern and could find no more blood anywhere. I then went back to the big bubbly spot on my hands and knees and my pig was 4 feet away in a THICK pile of brush. It turns out that the pig was actually quartered to me just a bit and not away like I had thought. So I got to shoot at the same pig two afternoons in a row and bagged her with the second shot. It was a nice sized (70#-80#) sow. Here is a couple pics of the sow that Hope and I were able to take:
I don't know if I will get out again before Christmas but I am sure I will between XMas and New Years.
See y'all later,
Bisch
Topic: The Adventure of Hope and Faith Stalker (Read 10804 times)
