I had one of my hunting goals met this past weekend. I was fortunate enough to hunt the swamps at Ocmulgee WMA in Georgia with none other than Robert Carter(RC). It was great to finally meet and hunt with RC. I really appreciate him taking his time to show me and my friend Cam around the swamps when I am certain that he would have had more success on his own. We saw lots of fresh hog sign and beautiful country on the hunt, but I was unable to seal the deal. RC was nice enough to give me the only two opportunities available.
The first stalk on a nice group of mature 150 pound hogs wednesday morning ended a few moments after it began when they saw my motion, most likely from reflected sunlight in the early morning light. The best opportunity happened just before dark on thursday evening in a really nice looking bottom. We had been sitting on a log for awhile, waiting for conditions to get a little better for hog movement. We had been hearing some noise which we assumed were trees in the wind for a half hour or so before we set out for a slow hunt back toward the truck when we heard a squeal. Guess it wasn't the trees, huh. We quickly crossed the bottom to close the distance and RC spotted an 80-100 pound black hog and let me put a stalk on. It was real good stalking conditions, with wet ground, big cypress trees, and knee-to-thigh high leafy vegetation interspersed. I moved forward and circled around a tree slowly and the hog disappeared. I heard a light cluck behind me and RC pointed to the side and I made out the hog, maybe 35 yards away. I crouched low and started closing the gap, with swirling winds closing in. I got a large cypress tree between the hog and me and closed to maybe 18 yards away and waited a few seconds until the hog came into a clearing and sent the arrow on it's way. The shot felt good, but I lost the fletching in the vegetation and there was a pretty good crack on impact. The hog squealed like crazy and took off on a semicircle limping so bad that I thought it would go down at any second. I had another arrow knocked and when the hog was around 15 yards aways I was going to put another arrow into it, but I got distraced by a couple of hogs busting out to my right, and when I looked back the wounded hog was gone. I went to where I last saw the hog, and with all of the fresh hog tracks and lack of light, no blood could be found. We backed out until the morning and eagle eye RC found some blood. It was really sparse, low to the ground and fizzled out quickly. The warren of trails made it difficult and cirling about the area yielded no dead hog. I must have broken the upper arm or shoulder. I was kicking myself pretty good. Shot a few inches low, and that was the result. No excuses, it is a shot that I normally make and would certainly take again.
No other opportunities presented themselves for shots, but I had a great time, nonetheless. Just as a side note, I had plenty of time for stumpshooting with RC during this trip. When he says that he is a poor shot in other threads, I think you can certainly chalk that up to modesty. I hope to have the chance to hunt with him again in the future. Here is the only pic that really came out from the hunt, but hopefully RC and Cam will post some that they took and add some stories. I was planning on using my cellphone for pics, but the batteries were drained for most of the hunt.
Here is a pic of Robert and myself, Swamp People.
Topic: Hospitality in the swamps of GA (Read 401 times)
