Trad Gang Hunt at Wild Things

[smokin joe]

It's time to get this started.

On Sunday, October 18, I returned from a terrific hog and deer hunt at Wild Things. Wild Things is located along the Savannah river just outside Estill, SC.

In camp for this hunt were Terry Green, Bud Blaylock, Todd Herndon, Alvin (whose last name I don't remember) and me.

Our hosts, as always were Andrew Harper, his able hired hand and jack-of-all-trades Charlie, and Harry the wonder dog.

Harry turned out to be a very important dog on this trip as the stories that follow will reveal.

Suffice it to say, at this point, that I had a whale of a time and I can't wait to go back.

Come on, guys -- let's get the story telling going.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Looking forward to the stories and pictures Joe.

[smokin joe]

I will get the stories going. The first thing I did when I got there was scouting. I drove my Jeep slowly along about half of the 35 miles of roads on the property and looked for sign of both hogs and deer.

I found a ton of sign especially on the northern end of Andrew's 3000 acre property. There were plenty of hog tracks, and some of the critters had pretty big feet.

 

   

[smokin joe]

Needless to say, with tracks like that I got pretty excited.

[smokin joe]

I may have seen the boar hog that made those tracks. As I was driving along in my Jeep, a monster hog emerged from the pines onto the road and stopped broadside. I stopped, he stopped.

He was huge. He had a gigantic head and tall shoulders and a black, razorback mane sticking up. His head and shoulders  were so big his rump looked tiny by comparison. I could see the cutters curling out of his mouth. He just stood there until I creeped the Jeep forward a bit. Then he high tailed it across the road and into the palmettos.

From the side, he looked a bit like a rhinoceros with his big head and long snout hanging down from huge shoulders. He was a trophy boar for sure.

I thought, "I need to hunt this end of the property." And I got set up to do just that.

[Thumper Dunker]

[Stickbow]

In!

Bisch

[goobersan]

I'll be watching this one for sure    

[BrushWolf]

Gotta love hog hunting.  

[ranger 3]

And then?

[Bud B.]

My first sit I saw one hog in the distance, but being in a climber stand I could not put on a stalk.

On Thursday morning I was headed to Mulberry to check it out and then stalk over to McHenry to help Andrew with a dead feeder. At the left Turkey Foot Rd I came to the Mulberry fork and started slowly down towards the dead end. Not far from taking the split I heard squirrels chattering profusely ahead. I was too far away and walking too slowly for it to be me so I stopped. In about 10 seconds I saw a young doe headed straight toward me. She was just in the edge of the swamp wood line. She saw me but didn't spook. If you've ever had deer know you were there but just couldn't quite figure you out, this was her. She came into the road where I ws standing, but about 50 yards away. She stood and watched me ever so carefully. She'd drop her head as if to feed and quickly bring her head to to full alert, lock on me. She did this twice. With the uncertainty od what she'd encountered she did get quite nervous and gave me a wide pass to my right. I waited for her to disappear to continue on towards Mulberry. She never blew to alert the woods to my presence.

I turned around to do a 360 scan before heading onward and saw a black figure in the distance behind me in a slew. This was at about 7:30am or so. It was now on!

[smokin joe]

I was doing an afternoon sit in a tree stand with a feeder and a big wallow within 15-20 yards. The wallow was all torn up with big hog tracks and there were trails coming to the area from at least 5 different directions.

I heard a little crunching in the underbrush behind me. I stayed as still as a stone until I could hear the steps making their way around to my right side.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a bit of movement. Bit by bit I could make out that it is a doe, and she was pretty big. I had a doe tag in my pocket, so -- game on.

More crunching, and I slowly see the outline of a smaller doe. So now I have to avoid being seen by at least two sets of eyes.

Both does are pretty twitchy and nervous.

They both pause for several minutes in very thick stuff just to my right-front quarter. I can see the ears of one doe and part of the snout and rump of the other through the thick tangle of branches.

Then one cautious step, another long pause and then another step. This is taking forever.

I was sitting down in a tree stand but my bow was in my hand and an arrow was nocked. All I had to do is wait for an opportunity to stand up and then for a chance to draw.

Both does work their way around to my front. They are looking around, but I am completely motionless so they don't pause to look in my direction.

Then they both look away. I slowly stand up.

The larger doe is a big, old nanny of a doe with a very long snout. She is no youngster, and I decide she is worth a shot.

The does were still looking away, I picked a tiny spot above the elbow of the big doe and started a slow, silent draw.

At about 3/4 draw the does snaped around and looked at their back trail. Now the shoulder of the big doe was facing me and I realized that it would be a pretty unethical shot to shoot the doe from this angle.

I froze and hoped the does would settle down and turn away and offer me a shot, but it was not to be.

Their ears were pointed toward their back trail and they both spooked two steps  worth to my right and were covered by branches again. They still had no idea I was there, but something was following them and making them really jumpy.

Well, it's October and the bucks must be pushing the does a bit. So, I slowly let down and let the does walk off to my right front, completely covered by brush the whole time. There is a buck on they way -- or so I hoped.

About 15 minutes later I heard another animal off to my right, completely out of sight. It never came into view.

I had been about 2 seconds from collecting a very big doe and some venison for the freezer.

When it was too dark to see any longer, I lowered my bow down from the tree stand. Just before the bow touched the ground the movement of the bow spooked animals both on the right and on the left. They sounded big -- I certainly wasn't spooking any raccoons.

Hmmm.... Maybe hogs were coming to this wallow after dark.

[Butchie]

[Bud B.]

Sorry guys and gals, but it's hunting season. Will get back to this in due time. I found a nice hot spot on public land and archery season ends Friday. I'll be back to this as soon  as I can.

[T-D]

And now for the rest of the story………..

It was another great hunt at Andrew Harper’s Wild Things. It was a blessing just to be able to hang out with Andrew again.

Now let’s get to the hunts!

First day I hunted a spot I always love going to over a Blue Lake. I carefully walked in and threw out some corn I had mixed up near the feeder and climbed into the stand. Now I had hunted this spot in May of this year and killed a nice hog, it was tore up with sign then, but this time it wasn’t as much sign as last time but I have confidence in this spot. I hung up my Hummingbird Recurve on my bow hanger and loaded her with an Easton Axis 500 tipped with a Simmons Tiger Shark, now the wait begins.


 


 

At 5:30 the feeder went off and I got ready because the last time as soon as the feeder went off the hogs stood up in front of me and ran in. This time it wasn’t the case so after 15 minutes or so I sat back down and settled in for the rest of the evening. Around 6:30 nature called and I had to climb down real quick. Before I climbed back in to the stand I eased over to the feeder and hit the test button. When the feeder started I ran back up the stand and climbed in ready for one to come running in. Around 7:05 I was “sitting in the stand minding my own business” “playing angry birds” when I heard what I thought was a bulldozer coming through the swamp. I looked and I could see several black hogs running in towards me, so I stood up grabbed my bow and positioned myself for a shot. There was 15 hogs came running in to the feeder. As the last ones were running in I heard a very loud deep grunt coming in behind them. It was a big sow and she ran in to the corn I had threw out and picked up one the smaller hogs with her snout and threw it up in the air and into the wallow behind the feeder.  I had a tree blocking the shot but when she cleared it I had a 15 yard slightly quartering shot. I drew my bow picked a spot and smoked her! The arrow went completely threw her and stuck into a log on the other side. She took off running over the knoll and then turned right. I was watching her and listening and I thought I heard her fall so I said out loud “Yeah, Get some of that!” and then I heard something to my left and looked down and there were 5 hogs below me. I reached behind me and slowly grabbed another arrow and nocked it. There was a white spotted hog slightly quartering away from me feeding back into the feeder. I drew my bow, picked a spot and shot slam through both shoulders, which looked like a perfect shot. It ran about 30 yards and stopped and started stretching out like it was going to fall right there, but it got its balance and walked into the woods and I lost sight.

After about 20 minutes I gathered my stuff and climbed down and eased out back to the jeep and drove back to camp. Once I got back into camp I told Andrew about the night’s events. We waited on Bud and Joe to get back before we went back to track the hogs.  When those guys returned we listened to each other’s stories. We loaded up on Andrew’s truck and went back to track the hogs.

Once we arrived at the spot we went to the first spot that I shot the first hog. There was no problem tracking that hog the blood trail was great and Harry actually found her before we got to her. She ended up running about 75 yards. We left Joe with that hog and then we went to track the other. The blood was not great on this on for some reason. I think it was a combination of a heart shot and the hide covering the holes as the shoulders moved back and forth. We last track it into a large field with grass over 5 feet high. We figured it buried up in the grass and we just couldn’t find it.


 


 


To be continued……………….

[Terry Green]

I'm in Missouri at the moment but I've got some pictures and video and you don't want to miss a video of a place we now call "Stampede"

[smokin joe]

And seeing The Stampede had all of us pretty excited about hogs with big feet. Heck, I'm still fired up about it.

If I wasn't working I would go back to Wild Things today.

Come to think of it, this is motivation to hurry up and retire so I can have more fun.

[Bud B.]

Originally posted by smokin joe:
And seeing The Stampede had all of us pretty excited about hogs with big feet. Heck, I'm still fired up about it.

If I wasn't working I would go back to Wild Things today.

Come to think of it, this is motivation to hurry up and retire so I can have more fun.

Amen, Joe!

[Bud B.]

The little doe I had spotted and toyed with had given me a gift. Had she not spooked the squirrels and caused me to stop, I would have never turned around to see the the hog that was behind me.

When I saw the small black hog in the distance I headed that way. Wind was in my face, so all was good. As I stalked up I could count five hogs altogether. All smaller. The largest was a black boar of about 70-80lbs. Two other black hogs, one boar and one sow, were also black, but about 50-60lbs. There was a white and black speckled one of about 40lbs and a small red/orange one of about 20-25lbs. Quite the little drove of pigs.

As I stalked closer, they all left but one of the mid sized black ones. I got within 15 yards of the hog, but it was down in the slew rooting away and I couldn't see it, but could hear it noisily sniffing out its breakfast. It was down a steep drop into the slew and I was above it, trying to get the the slew's edge. I took a step and hidden under the damp leaves was a stick of probably pencil size that snapped. Off it went to join the others! I recalled Ray Hammond saying a few years back that if you were stalking hogs and they hadn't winded you but spooked, to head in the direction they went and you'd probably catch back up to them. I gave it a shot. I continued their way as the wind was steady out of the west seekingly chasing to the rising sun.

Bud 0 - Hogs 1