Texas Success- Great hunt down south

[pdk25]

I'll take care of that.

The best pics that I have are from the the processing room where Cam is straining every fiber of his being to hoist the beast into a position for skinning.

 

[pdk25]

Here is another pic

 

[pdk25]

Cam made a perfect heart shot on the critter.  I was more than happy to let Cam take the first shot.  He is a better shot than me, and I don't think that I could have done as well as he did.

 

[pdk25]

When we had pulled up toward the feeder, the larger hogs had scattered, and I recommended that we pull further along and sneak back after the larger ones came back.  Cam was having none of it, he had the pig fever and needed to drop the string  as soon as he could.  Great job on this.  We pulled up to pick up Dustin, and I will let him describe his evening.

[The Vanilla Gorilla]

Like you said Pat, it'd hard to NOT hit the heart on that pig!

[toehead]

Ok my reaction!!  Cam and pat roll down the road toward my set up around 1030 pm.  I had hogs on me all day but they were smart and I am not very but more on that later.  As thy roll up I look in the back expecting to see hog carnage deluxe from the veteran pork pounders but the bed was as empty as nanci pelosi's head.  We had installed my cargo rack in the hitch to be able to carry all our gear.  So I peaked over the corner of the truck and looked at about 3/4 of the rack, satisfied there was no pig I asked about their evening.  "Nilla got one!" Pat exclaimed with excitement "we'll...half a pig".  I asked "we need to go track him or what?    
I almost died laughing so hard.  No offense to 'big Nilla' but I was not expecting to see that Monster!!  We all had a goo laugh and right then I knew we were goin to have an outstanding hunt from then on!

I will post my stories later this evening with some pics and strategies.  

I experienced a lot of firsts on this trip that really made it special...more on that later too

Still pulling thorns and needles out of me, as you guys know when you hunt south Texas your gonna get in some 'sticky' situations!!!

[dtarbell]

Great story and sounds like a real good time.

[pdk25]

I will bounce ahead to the next mornings hunt for me and let Dustin talk about the first nights hunt a little later.

We all headed out a little after sunup with the goal of walking the roads looking for javelina.  A couple of the ranch roads had been corned the previous evening, and the ranch owner was going to drive around and fill feeders and re-corn the roads starting a little after 9am.  We decided to drop a little corn on or near those roads and dropped Cam of near where he was hunting the night before, as there were recent javelina sighting in this area.  Dustin and I continued on to another area that held javelina.

We saw a nice smaller road that we decided to drop some corn, and in the process crossed over the wide sendero that I had shot a javelina on the previous year.  We had nearly finished putting corn on the sendero and went to turn around, but when we looked behind us, there were already javelina in the road feeding.  We thought, this is gonna be easy.  Yeah right, lol.

[Over&Under]

     

Heckofa shot on that beast!
Must have shot him out of self defense:)

[pdk25]

The sendero ran primarily east-west and the wind was predominating out of the south around 12-15mph.  That is normal for this time of year in TX-OK. To the north of the sendero was incredibly thick and nearly impenetrable cover where the javelina were hanging out.  Here is a pic of some common cover in the area.  Picture this times 3 thickness of spiny stuff in this area.

 

As long as the javelina were in the sendero we could chase them without getting winded and we had several unsuccessful stalks that morning until the activity shut down near noon, probably because of the unseasonable heat.

We made some mistakes that we hope to learn from in the future.  We put too much corn out, so the javelina came out in groups but didn't travel very much and were clustered around facing multiple directions.  It made if very difficult to sneak up on the from the relatively open sendero.  You needed to really hug tight to the cover not to get busted, but it was not to be.  They would head into cover for no apparent reason, or other times when things didn't seem right.  Problem was, that you couldn't tell where they traveled inside the cover, and they might mover  laterally and wind you.  By putting corn down sparcely you could get them moving in a direction more rapidly/unaware, and you could either wait for them to come to you by backing into the cover(difficult) or circle around and quickly come up from behind.  In any case, it was a great time trying to get into shooting range.  We probably didn't get any closer that 35 yards other than when we tried to close the gap one time when the headed into cover and got busted at around 10 yards, but you couldn't even see them there.

[pdk25]

I will let Cam tell his story of the first full morning hunt, but I am going to jump ahead to my evening hunt in the interest of not dragging this out too long.  Dustin will be able to fill in the details of their hunts up til when we met up at the camp on friday night.  

In the meantime, here are some pics that were taken along the hunt.  I didn't take any pics, but Cam was the man with the camera for the most part, and did a find job.

   

 

   

   

   

   

   

[pdk25]

Okay,
We all took a little break in the afternoon before heading out to our spots.  Dustin walked to his preferred spot for the evening, and I dropped Cam off a little further along the road where he wante to setup, and would work his way back to the ranch in the evening/night.  I drove to the more remote section that I hunted the previous night to hunt, because I had alot of confidence in this spot.

It was a pleasant evening with the wind gently blowing in my face and keeping the small gnats and flies from really being annoying, although there still plentiful.  Evening came and went without a sign, but around 9:30pm I had  loud grunting coming up the road to the east in a race to get to the feeder under that hazy green glow.  Dustin took this nice picture later in the hunt to show how eerie things look under the green feeder light.

 

Anyway, there were a couple 80-90 pounders in the group, and several more probably pounds or so, but there was a large sow that come in grunting up a storm, and darting around the perimeter of the light checking for danger while the others fed.

Eventually the barrel got tipped and the large sow was running the smaller hogs off, but settled in broadside right in front of me at no more than 10 yards away, and likely a little less than that.

I drew back and didn't take long with this opportunity. I released and heard more of a grunt than a squeal, and they all took off to the west/southwest.  It happened so fast that they only thing I could really see was sparks flying as my broadhead ricocheted off of the paving block that was directly behind the hog.  I didn't know how far behind the hog that it was, but I couldn't imagine that I could have hit the paving stone and hit the hog in the vitals. Maybe I hit low in the leg?  I was pretty dumbfounded as to what happened, as it is hard to track a fast arrow in the dark at that range.  I waited until 11:15 or so before I went to check for blood, hoping that the group might come back since that has happeded in the past.  That didn't happen this time.

I stepped through the brush, and saw blood right away in a linear band from where the hog had been standing, but the blood was soaked up in the dry sandy soil, almost making little blood balls.  I tracked it to a trail going into thick cover only around 15 yards from the feeder, but I was having trouble finding blood in the this dry soil.  I was pretty sure that I must have hit low, so I was pretty disappointed in myself when I went back to camp to meet up with the guys.  I decided I would hunt javelina for a few hours in the morning then go look for my arrow and check the area for more sign.

[The Vanilla Gorilla]

Pat and Dustin kicked me out of the truck about 8am that morning, and from about 8:05 to 10:00, I was stalking javies.  It was nonstop.  Problem is, about 30 yards was about as close as I could get before getting winded, or they just decide to slip off into the brush. But there was no lack of game on the pipeline that morning. At one time, i actually had to figure out if i wanted to stalk a big male javie that was 50 yards to tbe east, or a lone boar hog that was 75 yards to the west!  (Got winded on both tho...dang wind just kept swirling.)

The action eventually slowed down about 10am, and I was able to get some much needed stress relief by hunting rabbits in the brush till Pat came back.

[pdk25]

It wasn't a waste of time for Cam.  He was able to score on this fine rabbit.  The rabbits down there are not very large, so once again Cam made a great shot.

 

[pdk25]

It is Saturday morning that Cam is referring to in his post, and I don't know when Dustin will be posting, so I will continue on from my perspective.

Dustin and I headed out to look for javelina in the same area as the day before, but I wasn't having much luck for a few hours, except for seeing a few deer and I was a little preoccupied thinking about the night before.  I met up with Dustin later and he told me that he was seeing some javelina, and I corned the sendero for him before leaving to check on Cam and go to look for my arrow and check for more blood from the prevous evening.

[xtrema312]

Sounds like a lot of action.  Can't wait for the rest.  

[White Falcon]

My hunting buddy and i were there in Feb. He got a javelina, me ). We didn't try for hogs, and they were a lot there. But living in Texas, hog are not out thing, having hunted them most of our lives.

[pdk25]

Cam told me about a great morning that he was having, but since he hadn't seen anything for 45 minutes or so, he was up to help me look for more sign from the previous night.  We got to the area and all of the blood along the road was gone.  The wind had blown the sandy soil away, but I had left some marks at the end of the trail and knew where the hogs had headed.  I didn't have real high hopes, but wanted at least to find the arrow.  I looked down and was finding real good blood in no time, and said as much to Cam.  He responded by saying, " Uh.. Pat".  I looked over and he is pointing at a beautiful pile of black!  Much to my surprise, the hog is laying not 10 yards from me.  It probably hadn't gone a total of 40 yards after being hit.  I couldn't believe it after the sparking on the paving stone.  I guess that with the hog being so close, me standing above it, and the rock being a few feet behind the hog, that it gave me the false impression of a low hit.  I will admit that I was a litte paranoid about high hits from Texas hogs in the past that hadn't bled very well, so I was aiming pretty low to begin with.  It ended up being a nice heart shot and the hog weighed 130-140 pounds or so.

On a side note, I was using my Morrison ILF that is 82# @ 29" using the same arrows that I used for Asiatic Buffalo, but with a Big Jim Big 3 broadhead on the front end.  This is the 3rd hog that I have had a pass-through with this head, although the second one was far back and through the guts and this one didn't have shield to speak of.  The first one did, though.  Touched it up with a file and crock stick, and in about 2 minutes it was as sharp as it was the first time I used it.  Even the paving stone didn't do any serious damage.  I found the arrow around 20 yards or so past the paving stone tangled up in some brush.

Here is a picture of the exit hole, directly opposite from the entry.

   

Here is a picture of me and my tracker/photogropher with the hog.  Sorry about the goofy  look of my hat.  It was windy and the brim flops around.

   


And here is a picture of the some of the backstraps that the 3 of us ate for supper that night.

   

Oh yeah, Cam was he grillmaster as well.  Fine job, and it tasted great.


 

I am going let the other guys get caught posting before adding anything else.  I am not trying to drag this out, but want everyone to be able to post on this thread.  Nobody want to see 3 separate threads for the same hunt.

[toehead]

For me, a lot of the hunt is the preparation and planning that takes place in anticipation of the departure.  I had been shooting longbows pretty much exclusively since November of 2011 when I purchased a GW Flannagin.  Fast Forward to summer of 2012 I know have a couple Liberties and some Howard Hill longbows.  I got the Hills after getting into the HH big thread an really found then to be a pleasure to shoot.  I say all of this to say this, the last animal I had killed before this hunt was a hog with my ballistick in Sep. 2011.  Since switching to longbows and makin my own wood arrows I had not sealed the deal in over a year and a half.  To say my confidence was down would have been quite an understatement! However, being a deciple of the great Tred Barta, I was not ready to give up on my longbow/wood arrow quest!  I have a sticker on my truck that say "never give up"!  

So when I answered Pat's call to arms against the demon swine of south Tejas, I had a decision to make.... Which longbow.  I have settled on a beautiful Virgin Wesley Special that really handles the cedars well.  I sharpened up some 160 grain grizzly from Zipper with my KME sharpener.  When I say sharp I mean Ron would himself be proud as I was literally able to split hairs with them.  All told this set up was drawing 52@29" smooth baby and I mean 5 land of bamboo smooth.  My homemade tapered cedars were inspired by a SelfBow o Shaun Webb's I saw last year on a hunt in west Texas.  They came in at 570 grains total.  I considered this my "lite" set up as I also brought a 56@28" Redman that has some signifcnt age and history reflected in the darkened yew andant scratches and ding in the wood.  My arrows for this are 725 grain hard rock maple shafts from Forester.  These are as indestructible as carbon!  These bad boys cary 200 grain Kodiaks just as sharp as the grizz.  

I have hunted Texas hogs before, and know just how nasty and evil they can become when provoked, was on the hunt with buckster when he was taken down by a wounded bore.  I have had I dispatch a big bore a close range with his teeth chomping inches from my throat as he came to life as I was pulling an arrow from his chest to use just in case.  

At one moment during this hunt all this came flooding back to my mind.  Yeah it's just a pig..... Brother that "pig" looks pretty dang deadly when your on his level with the only thing separating the both of you God's fresh air and a pointy piece of sharpened steel glued to a painted cedar stick!  Sure I wasn't facing down a 2,000 pound Kodiak brown Bear ala Fred Bear, but for a moment in time I think I could relate!

[toehead]