My First Trip to Pig Paradise!......All Done...

[Guru]

.....with the slight "click" of ribs, the arrow disappeared exactly where I was looking!!!

The surprised hog wheeled and was almost immediately swallowed up by the palmettos...

I could hear it crashing though everything for a few second then it stopped......then seconds later I heard movement again....then about 10 more seconds of silence......then I heard crashing again for a few seconds....then nothing...

I stood stone still and listened for a good minute.....still nothing......

I stood and wondered if this was a sign I'd made the perfect shot I thought I did....or had the hog simply moved out of earshot???

The arrow had gone exactly where I wanted it to, I'd "heard ribs", and I knew there was no problem with penetration because the arrow had disappeared quickly.....

After another minute or so, I moved ahead to look for some blood and my arrow.....at first I found neither!

I looked around for my arrow and couldn't find it, and found no blood in the grass where the arrow had impacted....I moved a few yards off the road in the direction it had gone....still nothing.....then I saw my "pinkish" feathers!

I fully expected them to be drenched with blood, but instead found "greenish" blood on it, and the unmistakable smell that goes along with it....hmmmm...

I moved a few yards further in and found a single spot of blood....there I stuck the used arrow in the ground as a marker....I backed out and marked the spot where it stood with my blunt arrow...

I "knew" in my heart I'd made a good shot....every sign up till I found the arrow and blood told me so...but the arrow might have told a different story...

The only thing that could have possibly been 'wrong', was if I'd "framed" the partially hidden hog wrong and didn't hit where I thought I did.

But with it quartering away, the 'click' of ribs....I was confident the arrow was just showing sign of the arrow entering "back" ....it had to have exited "good"......

No need to fret about it now....with everything marked I moved on to get the stand.

Wouldn't ya know it....I ran into more hogs!  No shots...but close.  So I got the stand down, bungee'd it together, and started back out....

About 2/3's of the back way out I had hogs in front of me, and looked ahead to see Terry on point with his selfbow up in front of him.....he didn't shoot though....so walked up to him and Cade.....

Since I'd taken longer than they thought I should have, they started in, had seen my arrows in the ground, and were ready for the explanation!!

I told them all about it, what I heard, and what the arrow and blood looked like. I didn't want to take any chances....so we decided to wait a couple hours....just in case.

We walked out and headed for camp...

[Guru]

Back at camp we organized some more, and just kinda "soaked it all in". Of course I played the shot back step by step in my mind a hundred times and everytime the conclusion was the same....

Telling Cade and Terry about it a couple more times seemed to help as well....they were both confident as well. We decided to gear up for the afternoon hunt early so we had time to track my hog before we went to our decided stands.

It was about 2:30pm when we got back to the marked spot....almost exactly 2 hours since I'd shot.

After a few minutes I found blood where the hog had cut back left a bit from the first blood....now we had something to go on.

It wasn't exactly a heavy bloodtrail, but it was steady enough to follow through the jungle of palmettos...what a struggle!!!

As we "bulled" our way through, the trail seemed to be very erratic, but was showing signs of getting better when I looked ahead and saw black...I exclaimed....DEAD HOG!!!!!

What a relief!!  A what a great feeling to join Cade and Terry as "hog killers" on our special trip!

After a hug for Terry, and a big hug and kiss for Cade I grabbed a hold and started to drag. Cade took my bow and Terry led the way....

My shot had in fact entered just a tad further back than I thought I'd "framed", and the arrow instead of exiting in front of the opposite shoulder like I thought it might have...had in fact exited tight behind the off shoulder....he'd only made it 40yds!

When we got back to the road, Cade grabbed a leg and helped drag...
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After looking him over we found he had a "jacked up" front leg that had healed, locked up, in a folded up position and had rendered it useless(near front leg in pic). I never did see the whole hog before I shot, and as fast as it fled I'd have never thought there was a thing wrong with it...these things are tough!!!

Chris' VPA had done it again!
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Me and my boy!
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Me, my boy, and my brother!
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What a trip...now all 3 of us had killed hogs...Cade had killed 2!!!!

[Guru]

We quickly got it gutted(the arrow entered behind the diaphram...slicing liver and opposite lung), and since we had found him so quick we headed to camp to hang him.

That done we headed out for our last afternoon...the last hunt of the trip....

I'll get caught up tomorrow....

[buckeye_hunter]

Great job and not even finished!          

What's the biggest thing Cade learned or took away from the hunt? Just curious...

[coaster500]

What a hunt!!!!

Great shot Curt!!!

Lovin every page of this  


 

Way to go Curt! There is nothing like a group hunt where everyone in the group gets an animal.

Congrats to all 3 of y'all!

Bisch

[Over&Under]

What a truly memorable hunt!

Well done fellas...and Cade....if I said I wasn't jealous, I'd be lying   :D    Congrats!!

[stujay]

Not only a great hunt...but amazed at keeping track of story,pics and all the details. Congrats and looking forward to the finale.

[Stone Knife]

This has been a very interesting chain of events, nice job all  

[JohnnyWayne]

One of the best threads of all time - congrats to you all, you have something special there  

[J.T.]

Looking forward to the rest of the story but also don't want it to end.  Great story congrats to all three of you.  

[Guru]

Like Terry said...Cade wanted to hunt for the first time ever by himself in a treestand...he wanted to hunt "Woods' Stand".

As much as I thought it was cool for him to want to try this all by himself, after all it was inevitable that it was going to happen at some, my fatherly instincts had me wanting to be with him all the time...wanting to be there when something showed up...and...in the back of my mind I couldn't help think.."what if something went wrong?"

I wouldn't be too far away from him, I was within shouting distance, and I was proud of his confidence that he "could do this"...it was time....


I climbed up to get some bowholders set and make sure everything was ok....then climbed down.

Terry and I watched him climb in the stand, hook his harness, and waited till he was all set....
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My "big boy"!
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It was a little tough walking away, after all, if for no other reason, I wanted to watch him shoot something and share it with him....but on we walked to "Sunset"...

I moved into my ground blind, and Terry continued on to his adventure...
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I'd brought along a cheap tripod with this set-up in mind. I wanted to try to video a hunt here, and I knew the trees were gone and would have to do it from the ground. I would also be hunting for the first time using Terry's Huntmore 360 chair.

I got the camera on the tripod, and the chair set, nocked an arrow and settled in. The camera was off to my left, close enough to reach to turn on when needed, but just far enough away to give clearance for a shot. My bow, I held with the  the bottom limb on the ground, upright, pointed in the right direction for a shot.

I sized up the chair and found it to be comfortable, but when I moved a certain way it "creaked" slightly...I'd have to be careful!

I had no shade and the sun was pounding me from the west, which for me being left handed, and having my right shoulder pointed at the feeder...put it right in my face. Being tried, sleep derived, and bit run down from the last few days....my eyelids where heavy in the warmth of the sun...

About 20minutes after getting there, the feeder went off, rattling out corn....the dinner bell!!

I stayed ready, sometimes hogs will come in quickly after hearing the "bell"....I waited on point for a good half hour....nothing....

Then I saw "black" in the high weeds behind the feeder...hogs!!!!

I slowly reached up to turn on the camera...

I got away with the movement, but this group of about 7 young hogs were constantly looking at the new blind that was only built just over a day before....they were very cautious.....I stayed still with no desire to shoot a hog of this size....but I knew the camera was running and I was getting cool footage...I enjoyed the show...

About 10 minutes later, in the racket of crunching corn.... big, floppy ears appeared in the weeds....there was a bigger hog coming in!!

[awbowman]

Come and get you some big boy!

[Fritz]

Great story telling and pics!!! Congrats to all 3 of you on some great critters and most importantly, on memories made.              

[coaster500]

[Terry Green]

Curt...you snuck that pic in on me...nice.

Look forward to hearing it again....  

[wooddamon1]

This is an awesome story, thanks for sharing it! Can't wait for the conclusion...    

Congrats on the hogs so far!

[Guru]

Thanx fellas...I'll be back shortly to get going again.

Yeah T, I really like that pic of you walking off...it's cool!

[Bowhunter4life]

  This hunt is awesome on so many levels!

Congrats on the hogs Terry and Curt!

[magnus]

Congratulations Curt on your hog! Great pics.