I spent most of the last week on a hog hunt in northern texas with some good friends from Ohio and a bunch of PBS guys. Only went one day without seeing hogs, but conditions were tough and the hog numbers were down in some locations from the horrible drought and heat that plagued Texas last summer. None of the Ohio guys or myself brought any pork home. When I got back into town on friday, I noticed hog activity at two of my drum feeders and figured I might get an opportunity before heading back to work on monday.
Tonight the wind was in the right direction, so I hunted the drum feeder at my sand plum thicket in the northern portion of the property. Originally my buddy, Cam, was going to come over and I was going to put him in the brush blind that I built in this spot. He was out of town and couldn't make it, so I settled in for the evening hunt. Around 5 o'clock or so, a few decent sows and football sized piglets showed up and starting eating the corn next to the drum that I had 'accidentally' spilled. They had barely started eating when I felt the wind on the back of my neck blowing toward them. It seems that if I don't have 15 mph winds, I always get the occasional swirl that wants to be my undoing. I know it was now or never, and the only saw that could reasonable be shot was a 125-150# that was quartering steeply away with a piglet in front of her. I angled a shot that took her a little higher than I would have liked because I was trying to avoid the piglet, and the group was out of there in a flash. I texted my wife and asked her to bring a flashlight and our oldest german shepherd(who is search and rescue certified) to the feeder a little before dark to give the sow a little time to expire. The coyotes howling all around me made me a little anxious, but my wife showed up right on time, and within a couple of minutes we had the hog. She fell within around 60 yards of the feeder, but had made a circle through some thick brush. Never found much blood on the ground and would have had to come back in the morning and do a grid search. Times like these make me really appreciate a good tracking dog.
My Thunderchild was up to the task again. I was going to pack it up to send it back to Big Jim for a cosmetic touch up, and fortunately procrastinated and was able to hunt with the bow. I'll miss the bow when it is gone. 56" long and around 55# at my draw weight. Was using Simmons Tigershark broadheads on beeman mfx classic 400's.
World's greatest tracking dog.
Topic: There's no place like home...thunderchild does it again. (Read 445 times)
