just got home from texas on Monday, this is the fourth time I have hunted there. I have hunted a total of 32 days on the same ranch over the four trips, with some good luck and some bad, always bad luck if it had horns.
This years trip started with some new equipment and tuning, I dropped 75 grs out of my full length ad trad shafts and tipped them with some new 175 woodsman extremes. I was shooting them out of a super shrew 58 at 28 drawn to 30.5.
October 20 I flew to Austin and met my friend matt torno, we drove 4 hours to leon county, we arrived at the ranch at 2 pm which was 5 hours before two of my other Alaskan friends were to arrive with tom stott, the other Texan that always showed us a good time.
when we showed up the wheelers were locked up so we walked out to some stands, which turns out was the best thing that could have happened. I had a idea of a couple of stands I should hunt and started sneaking my way to them. before I get there I see a large boar walking the trail straight at me but down wind, he stops at 30 and sniffs, then slowly walks into the brush. 50 yards further down the trail I walk up on 5 smaller hogs working some thick stuff, this time up wind. I spent a good bit of time trying to find a hole to shoot but they would not stay still. being ten yards away they eventualy sensed me and escaped.
after making it to both stands I chose the one with the best wind and sign. this ended up being the move that set the rest of my trip up for success.
The stand was a hang on about twelve feet up a nice clearing in front with one wheeler trail passing through at 40 yards and two large game trails 20 yards either side of the stand and a large bend of the creek directly behind. the place was loaded with hog rooting and buck scapes.
I climbed up at 5:30, within 15 min I caught a glimpse of a buck tending a scrape up the trail to my right. He worked it for some time then disappeared.
more to come tonight with pics
after that I could hear four separate groups of hogs holed up in the thick stuff nearby, two groups were on the other side of the creek and down wind, bummer, the other two were not
I was a bit worried that they wouldn't move until dark but I had some help from a pair of coons. they came out and started eating on the spread of corn I threw, loud popping of the corn pulled the first group of hogs out instantly, they held up for a couple of seconds but they couldn't stand seeing the coons eat so here they came like a line of track stars at the gun I picked the largest one to take but he spooked and ran out a little so I got anxios and took to the closest one, she was quarter away a good bit but at 15 yards I was confident and let fly. smack they all ran across the clearing and the one with the yellow arrow started falling behind and then just falling.
I thought I should just get down and go get her it took all I had to just sit back down and nock another arrow. five mins later another group came running, this time the biggest one was the closest. seconds later I was shooting, full pass through, a little high but really squirting. this one jumped the creek and thrashed for a couple seconds, but the others didn't leave, so I started to get a bit greedy, I knocked another and began to draw. the closest one saw me move and busted out to 20 yards, that is when some sense came to me. I already had one down and one to track, plus and evening of camp fun coming up. so I just climbed down and looked for blood on the second hog, found good blood until the creek. the arrow was glowing pink and buried in the clay. so I went to the confirmed kill
I gutted her and began dragging to the trail, then I see him, I could see his white cutters at 70 yards coming straight for me. I started running, little pig in tow, for the only tree in the clearing and nocked arrow. he came in slow and cautious. he made it behind the tree so I stood, when he cleared at eight yards I began to draw and he busted, should have done things a little smarter.
I went for some blood trail backup and on my way I walk up on a good buck making a scrape. light was low so I got real close, 15 yards to tell that he was very legal but not close enough to shoot in that light. I closed to 8 to 10 and snapped a twig, bye bye buckie.
After I met up with matt we started on the trail of the second hog. The blood was thin and absent on the other side of the creek. we began walking grids and found buckets of blood zig zaging in the brush, then the hog. I forgot to take trail photos but here they both are at camp
only pic I have, cant keep my eyes open, oops
Topic: from alaska to texas and back #4 all pics added (Read 997 times)
