More than two weeks into our season I haven’t had as many opportunities to go hunting as I’m accustomed to, but yesterday afternoon I looked around at the mammoth amount of work to do in my office and concluded it would be waiting upon my return; I left happy about my decision. My Dad had gone hunting Wednesday night, and seen many deer, along with a few mature bucks, one of which has eluded us for several years.
The wind was switching on me as I stood at the truck getting ready to walk to my spot. I wouldn’t be able to go to my first choice, but it would be perfect for a six foot tripod we have placed between two small food plots in a clump of big oaks, cedar and persimmons. The Texas hill country is pumping right now with new and vigorous growth as a result of recent rains. It’s been very dry, but a few weeks ago we received a good rain that filled our stock tanks. This softened the earth, and the black dirt turned beautifully behind the tractor, my little girl rode with me while we planted three fall food plots. My four year old, Ava Jane, revealed that the cab of a John Deere has adequate space to accommodate a fully furnished pink kitchenette…
It seems for every inch of rain fallen so the oats have grown. I saw first the flicker of an ear through the foliage, a few deer meandering around the field lazily, like fat orange house cats. The wind was slightly cool, and just enough to fill the ears of the animals. The cooler weather, it seems, had displaced the mosquitoes; uninvited attendants at my last hunt; heathen cannibals capable of piercing not one, but two shirts.
First to come in were four does, large healthy animals. It’s wonderful to see them look so nourished and vibrant. These does were attentive to where they had come from, and soon I saw why. Two young eight point bucks were not far behind, outstanding looking deer, with the confidence of youth. These deer the archetype of the buck that you want to see next year… but where do they go?
The does fed while the bucks rubbed their faces against the low dipping branches of the oaks, and started to make new scrapes beneath them. I was in my sublime place on the pendulum of His creation; the middle of a conversation between an owl to my east and another to my west, where the blood red sun had left the similarly stained sky.
This, I thought, was the kind of Texas evening John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins rode into, the kind of vivid sky they camped beneath. Bats from the not-too-far-away railroad tunnel were starting to hunt as well. It was starting to seem as if they might be the night’s only successful hunters. The moon, nearly full, had cleared the treetops staring at me giant and perfect and replacing the sun; summoning the pranksters of the night…
The deer, a nanosecond ago submerged in peace, looked in disgust at the approaching pigs the way the women that shop at Neiman’s look at a Stein Mart. Deer were a lifetime ago, it seemed, and before me were nocturnal vandals come early; a half dozen juvenile, black as coal, unruly animals. They were as welcome as Cousin Eddie, and his countless spawn. I was hoping for the seven and a half year old buck that frequents my trail cam, and haunts my dreams, now here these feral heathens stood.
If I was going to shoot, I would have to shoot soon. Light was being consumed in great bites, and the pigs were starting to look like construction paper silhouettes. Pigs are very challenging to shoot, even in ideal conditions. Their internal amp is always turned up to 11; as if they drink from a spring of energy juice hidden deep in the woods that the FDA might ban for inducing heart arrhythmia. It seems they’re controlled by an amateur puppeteer. Every one of them incessantly attempting to eat whatever before the other on their way to wherever; and this is their life’s work… congressman on cloven hoof.
No pig was more desirable than any other, all of them about eighty pounds, siblings. The boar I’d selected, as he was the closest, was just beneath me no more than 8 or 9 yards. As light was so spare at this point I stayed anchored for what seemed a long time zoning on my spot, and then the arrow was gone, followed by the awesome sound of the broadhead meeting bone on its attempt to leave the engine room of the animal. An initial jolt was followed by a labored run out of view. They dispersed in every direction like baitfish away from a stone, and I could hear their heavy breathing, winded after the anxiety, and short sprint into the dark. I saw my pig once more in a lumbering heavy jog, and then he was gone again. I began to wonder if my shot was placed as well as I initially believed. I had stretched available shooting light to its limit, and decided it best to wait a half hour before tracking.
Where the pig had stood earlier there was now a drop of blood, and then another. Now ten yards into my pursuit I was crawling through agarita and young cedars; the blood was starting to pour. My Father’s dog would be sitting proudly atop tomorrow’s tamales, but he was not here now. I didn’t feel I’d need to call on him either, as I could see blood as far as my flashlight would shine. There was my arrow, fully intact, immersed in red with the exception of the fletching. Perfect. I can rinse it off, sharpen my broadhead, and hunt with it again. I had followed the trail of blood now fifty yards, and where my arrow had dropped from the animal it seemed the blood had decided to stop that practice. I stuck it into the dirt at the last of the blood and circled. Another drop, and in the suggested direction of the trail I’d come. I squatted down to look for a minute at my surroundings and see if another clue would reveal itself. My sweeping flashlight met the reflective curious eyes of the animals of the night, raccoons, a rabbit. A congregation of coyotes began yapping near the creek. A night made for their kind. I enjoy their cacophonous racket. It occurred to me that they would eat well in a few hours if I didn’t find the young boar, when just feet from where I stood the light fell upon the still black animal. We were perhaps sixty yards from where this all began. The arrow had gone home. While hunting I ask God to carry my arrow through the heart of the beast. He did!
Topic: An epic Texas hunt... (Read 623 times)
