Jim is going to try to post some of the pictures from earlier in the hunt that I can't seem to get up here.
I was able to upload this picture of a hog that I took on the last night that we hunted.
On Monday morning Jim and I and Jim's son, Nicky, did some scouting at the lease. We checked out an area that Jim had never walked through before. Nicky got a couple shots at some squirrels and some oranges. While Jim was filming Nicky chasing one of the squirrels, I took a walk along a canal in some thick pines that separated where we were hunting from a pasture of some rank bulls. The canal was filled with water with the exception of a spot that must not have been dredged as deep when it was built. Low and behold a high spot with just a skim of water covering it and a deep ravine on either side of the canal that pigs had worn in from years of crossing popped out at me. I immediately looked up into the surrounding trees for a spot to hang a treestand. Jim and Nicky made their way over and Jim shot some video of the hog crossing. We discussed that this was the only reasonable place for hogs to cross in hundreds of yards. Jim warned me though that he had trailed wounded hogs into that pasture from the other side of the lease and had been given some nasty trouble by some of the bulls in the pasture. He said, "Be sure of your shot, and trail only in daylight hours."
Jim and Nicky had to return to Miami. It was a work/school night for them. So that afternoon, Mad Dog and I made the long trek, toting bows, cameras, lights, a treestand, and 25 pounds of corn each. When we got to the crossing, I dropped my load of treestand and half a bag of corn, grabbed Mike's corn, and walked him a couple hundred yards to a ground blind that Jim had already set up on a feeder. I dropped Mike off and headed back to set up my treestand. By the time I got the treestand, camera, and lights set up, and spread a little corn in front of the stand it was 5:15, only 45 minutes of natural light left.
About an hour after dark, I could hear a pig approaching, heading from the lease towards the bull pasture and my position. But before it got in view of the red lights on my camera, it started growling, hissing, and spitting at me. It turned back the way it came, growling as it left. About an hour after that I had 5 twenty-pound pigs come in and start vaccuuming up the corn I had spread 20 yards away. After about 20 minutes I heard the faint rustling of bermuda grass out in the pasture. As it got closer the little pigs became alert, looking in that direction. I heard the barbed wire squeak on the edge of the pasture and a few seconds later the steady sound of a pig walking in water. My eyes concentrated on the end of the warn-in trail at the top of the canal on my side, just 5 yards away. As the hog's nose crested the bank, and became illuminated by my camera lights, the little pigs scattered for a moment. He was a good sized boar and wasted no time getting into the corn. As the little pigs returned, I hit anchor, and let fly, hitting the deep gray silver blue hog high in the spine. He instantly roared as he hit the ground. I thought he was finished on the spot. To my amazement he quickly kicked it into 2-wheel drive and dragged himself out of sight. I could see the Illuminock for a while heading in Mike's direction, then it was gone.
After a while, I texted Mike and let him know what happened. I told him to have a bright light, and use caution when he came to get me after his hunt. Long story short, he ran into the hog and called me over for the coup de gras. The old boar popped its jaws and turned at me as I put a second arrow in its lungs in the green haze of Mike's night light. It's safe to say that the hair was up on the back of both our necks.
Topic: Florida Hog Adventure (Read 1148 times)
