A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress

Week Of June 11, 2001:  
Wild Hog Bowhunt at the Texas-S Bowhunting Ranch
A Hog With An Attitude
Water and mud flew everywhere as the red boar came out of the mud. He stopped. He looked for me ... and saw me. Right then, it was clear to me that he wasn't going to run this time. Everything went into slow motion -- things started happening one frame at a time. I already had an arrow out. Fifteen yards behind me I heard Merle say, "God, he's going to charge." GO
Or This Hunt From The Beginning

Wild Hog Bowhunt - Always In Progress (May 27)
Hi Casey, Timm Getts and I say hello.
Sunday, mid day, Timm Getts and I went to a 3-D shoot in Clifton, TX put on by the Bosque Bowhunter Assn. The weather was hot but it's always fun to shoot 3-D.
(Afternoon) We went to our stands in plenty of time. Timm saw 4 deer. I saw 3 bucks with starter antlers, and that, as always, was very cool; but our weekend wild hog bowhunt was a bust.

Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress (May 26)
(Morning) One word covers the morning hunt ... rain. Happily, the weather broke and cleared mid afternoon. This afternoon we'll be back in the Back 200, ready to dance with the wild hogs I heard yesterday.
(Afternoon) We got out early and the afternoon was very pleasant. Timm saw 7 deer, I saw 5. One was a buck that had fresh cuts and gashes on his neck and legs. I'm sending the pictures to the biologist to see if they were from an animal attack or something else. Meanwhile, we hog hunted and saw zero hogs. 

Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress (May 25)
Timm Getts came down to bowhunt hogs this weekend and we went to the Back 200 and hunted in two of my tripods. Early on, I saw a doe and an unidentified deer in the brush. An hour before dark two hogs squalled loudly for several seconds, they were across the fence, somewhere on my neighbor's property. Twenty minutes later I heard hog grunts. They were 150 yards or more away, in the middle of the Back 200, and sounded like they were on one of the trails that led to Timm's stand. Timm saw 3 bucks with starter antlers and two does, but no wild hogs. But ... they are definitely in the area. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress (May 24): 
At 6:30pm I quietly climbed into the tripod at Rick's Casablanca stand. Ten minutes later -- surprise -- a wild turkey came into view. A Jake. It walked through the ocean of wild flowers and high grass and came closer. And closer. (Where was this guy during Turkey season?) The Gobbler passed 10 yards from me, turned left on a deer trail and walked out of sight. I was already preoccupied, trying to see down through the leaves of the trees around me and identify the footsteps I could hear in front of me. It was a buck with starter horns. I clicked my camera on manual focus and zeroed in on him. No hogs showed today but I had a great time. 

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress (May 7): 
I parked my pickup near the windmill at the top of the hill and walked the half mile downhill to the Hammer Hole. A couple hundred yards from my stand I noticed lots of hog tracks in the two dirt paths that are the road back here. The tracks are real fresh, since it rained yesterday. But no hogs showed today. At dusk I returned to my truck. From the hill top I could see the full moon breaking out above the far horizon. I had to stop and stand in awe, it's colors were yellow gold and red, the shadows were very pronounced, and the moon was huge.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress (May 6): 
It's been rainy the last few days, today was overcast but the sky was dry, so I went to the Hammer Hole this afternoon. I heard a group of hogs around 7:00 and picked up a few black pig parts in the brush around me. Almost on cue, a few large rain drops started to splatter around. I quietly slipped my digital camera in it's case so it wouldn't get wet. A good thing too, because those raindrops tightened up their group and the sky busted wide open with a full scale thunderstorm. The hogs trotted off. A minute later, so did I. Sitting on a metal tripod in thunder and lightening ain't my cup of tea.
A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Apr 18, 2001)
This afternoon at my Hammer Hole tripod I heard a gobble and  clucked and got a response. I shut up. Ten minutes later looked when I saw movement through the the leaves and limbs around me. Bingo, a longbeard, 10 yards away. He yelped and ran for cover. Later on I heard 3 birds fly up. No hogs.
A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Apr 16, 2001)
Around 8:15 this afternoon I was sitting in my tripod at the hammer hole watching 7 normal sized wild hogs and a big, long snouted boar that would easily weigh 300-350 pounds. I was trying to decide whether to go for the big un' or else one of the more tender, better eating, BBQ sized 100 pounders. Something caught my eye in the brush ... something black, and real big ... a hog ... that was much larger than the the one in my shooting lane. The head was big as the BBQ pounders. It stayed in the brush and was completely non vocal. In 30 years of bowhunting wild hogs I've never seen some large hogs but never a hog this big.
It got dark. Finally I could no longer hear hog movement in the brush around me. I waited longer than usual to be sure the area was clear. Then I got down and walked to my truck. Tonight visions of that huge black hog are still re-playing over and over in my mind.
A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress  (Apr 15)
Three adult black hogs and two tan, spotted young ones came out of the thick brush and stopped in the Hammer Hole woods road. They had already tipped me off with a couple of grunts and I was ready with the camera. I took a couple of pics of them and switched to my bow as they rooted along the far edge, toward me, getting closer with every step. I picked out the largest and put my pin on the "right stuff" and shot. My bow made a loud noise and my arrow went into slow motion and floated over sideways, bouncing off the hog. The group hurried on their way. The top limb of my bow had bow cracked! A few weeks back Champion Bow had sent me a new bow to field test but I haven't gotten to it ... but I will now.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Apr 10, 2001)
I hunted wild hogs at the Hammer Hole. A group came at 8:05 and I drew on one that was broadside. The wind was howling so I waited. The gust slowed briefly but the hog was no longer broadside. I waited until it was broadside again. I shot. But my arrow missed. They ran a short way and returned, they didn't know what happened. I counted 20 of them as the light faded away. They were rooting and skirmishing with each other but much of the time the wind was so loud I couldn't hear them at all.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Apr 5, 2001)
Since I've got the gobbler roost hangouts pegged I wanted to give  the wild hogs one more run before Doug Crabtree arrives to turkey hunt. I went to the Hammer Hole again. Today was the day the mosquitoes woke up from wherever it is that they hide in the winter. The hogs came at dusk and moved by on a trail on the opposite side from yesterday. Two hogs had a fight, the brush was shaking hard, limbs were cracking and suddenly one rolled out of the brush into the open. It went straight back for a rematch. The two hogs snorted and growled and snapped at each other as daylight faded away and the mosquitoes chewed on my ears. Man I love hunting hogs.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Apr 4, 2001)
At 6:38 I heard a distant hog grunt somewhere in the brush behind my tripod at the Hammer Hole and they started filing by on a trail in the thicket. Black ones, brown ones, all mature, at least 20. The lead hogs turned left on a crosstrail that would bring them into the clear and give me a shot. 

The instant I saw the black object I thought a cow was coming, instead an enormous black pig turned on the trail that comes out 6 yards from me. I got ready. It stopped short of my shooting lane and snapped it's noticeably long teeth. All forward motion halted. Another black hog, as long as the first but thinner, came into view on the original trail. It's long tail swished back and forth. And all the hogs stole away into the brush. Rats, today the hogs smelled me.

(4:42pm) Overcast, 70 degrees, a nice afternoon for ...
The last 5 days I've driven 1,500 miles, put up scores of pictures from the NFAA shoot, dealt with the 441 emails that I received while I was gone. Hmmmm, I think it's time to go wild hog hunting. I haven't been to the Hammer Hole all year -- I won't be able to say that tomorrow morning! Wish me luck.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Mar 22, 2001)
Well, I ain't slicing up no bacon tonight. I spent too much time watching the wild turkeys and got to my new Horse Pasture stand late. I didn't see or hear any hogs. 

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Mar 21, 2001)
Several groups of wild hogs are staying in the the "Horse Pasture". That's misleading because it's not a horse pasture, it got the name because the rancher's horse hangs out there. This area is a mile long, narrow strip of woods. The middle is a dense thicket of briars, cedars and hard wood trees. A creek runs through it that is normally dry, but recent rains have it full of water.
I picked a place on the edge of the thicket where things start opening up, I can get a shot here if the hogs show up and I can also walk here without disrupting any hogs bedded in the thicket. Another important reason for selecting this area is that it is seriously rooted up.
Today Jim Autrey (TexasDeerHunter.com) helped me set up a North Starr ladder stand on the West end of the thicket. Then we drove to the Hammer Hole and put a Tripod stand where it can cover 2 hog crossings. Tomorrow I intend to be slicing up some bacon.

A Wild Hog bowhunt In Progress: (Mar 19, 2001)
Earlier today I saw a cow that was down and unable to get up. My neighbor Billy Gale saw my truck at the local restaurant tonight and came in to visit with me. Since it was his cow I told him about it, he wanted me to show him where the cow was. We started there but a tree had fallen and blocked the narrow woods road we were on so we turned around. As we rounded a curve our headlights picked up the bright eyes of a group of wild hogs in the road. Billy Gale stopped. The hogs were walking towards us, there were 18 and 4 of them were about as big and wild looking as any I have ever seen. They kept on and passed by us on the drivers side. We're talking inches from the door! My neighbors farm dog was in the bed of the pickup. This dog barks at everything, but he didn't utter a sound this time.

A Wild Hog Bowhunt In Progress: (Mar 18, 2001)
(Turtle, check this out bud.) When I found the hogs today they had just ripped up some round bales that my neighbor was feeding his cows. The ground is soaking wet from our recent rains and I slipped (literally) up pretty close and got a picture of some of them. 

(Let me digress a moment here and mention a landowners meeting I attended last year. Everyone was concerned about the exploding wild hog population. Wild sows have 3 litters a year and the sow piglets make new pigs in 6 to 8 months. The state biologist recommended harvesting sows whenever possible. That said, it's back to the hunt.)
I circled so I could get a clear shot at one. A big sow turned away from the others and I snuck along, trying to get close enough for a shot. But I lost track of her.

I hurried along through the brush until I saw a group of small spotted hogs and, through the limbs, it looked like they were eating a dead animal !!!

I slipped around some oak brush and got closer. 

The animal on the ground was a hog. Suddenly the hog sat up and looked in my direction, it was the big sow I had been following, and it was very much alive. She was nursing them in the grassy clearing. I took their picture. Thirty yards separated us and I wondered what the sow would do. We were both definitely "in the pit" together.

Since she didn't charge me I slipped behind the brush and moved half the distance closer and took a better picture. Apparently she didn't recognize what I was or else made the mistake of not regarding me as a threat, the sow laid back down and the piglets got with it. I've never seen this in the wild.

If you want it you can have wallpaper of this picture. (1024x768) (800x600) (640x480) 

Below, the sow lays on the ground, completely motionless, as the 5 young pigs crawl all over each other as they feed.

Ok, so back to the matter at hand. Did I shoot the sow? Well, it was the right thing to do in terms of game management. So ... I walked away. I just couldn't do it on these terms.

A Wild Hog bowhunt In Progress: (Mar 17, 2001)
Today I drove to the river to scout the crossings the wild hogs used last year. We have a different situation now, then, the river had stopped flowing and there were dry areas for the hogs to use. This year the river is full and running fast, the crossings are not being used. Next I drove the edge of the grain field along the strip of thick woods bordering it.
Hogs. In the woods. I stopped and got my camera and bow. A ditch is just inside the woods. Normally it is dry but now it's full of water. I couldn't cross and get to the hogs so I followed along, keeping them in sight. 

Three times, I was almost in their game. Then I moved back to the field, quickly slipped ahead of them, and then crept up to the ditch. They were coming, about 30 of them, all black ones, all sizes. I laid my bow down so I could use the camera. One of the big ones walked right up I got her pic. The viewer showed that the camera has focused on trees between us and the hogs were a blur. 

I took another pic. A message came up, "Disk Drive Is Full." The big hog saw me and growled and snapped its jowls, the rest spread out and watched me. I eased down and got my bow. The hogs didn't panic, but they moved away into their back trail.
I slipped along the edge and when I was almost to my truck I saw them by the ditch, but this time I spooked them. I started my truck and slowly drove along in their direction. 

Bingo, 100 yards further I saw them. Ok, it's quietly out of the truck and after them. The cover favored me and I got ahead of them. They started filing by on the trail 20 yards away. I found a space between two trees and drew when I saw one of the big ones coming, put my pin on the double lung spot, and touched my release trigger. My arrow loudly smacked something between us and nose dived into the ground. The hogs noticed it, and walked off, but they have no clue what really happened.
Now I know where to look for them. And I will. Life is good.

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