2013 Hog Hunt Day 4

Woke up early and talked in the lodge for a while.  The four hunters in the group left to meet Rick at Shady Rest for breakfast.

After breakfast, Kevin and Ethan went with Rick to feed stands.  I went to the gun range to check for physical anomalies due to the two unfortunate shots.

I fired a handful of shots, but that was all it took to demonstrate the rifle, scope, etc. was in good order.  Certainly it was good enough for the distance I was shooting at.  Operator error.

Back at the lodge, we all got ready to head out for the afternoon, my final afternoon.  We fed stands at Georgetown for a bit and we were all dropped off.  I was sitting near the swamp over the same corn pile that Claude was on the second night.  I was sitting on the opposite side from where Claude was, in some bushes that were covered in bright pink flowers.

Weather was warm; very warm.  There was humidity to match.  This is not typically good hog weather as hogs like cold.
Mosquitoes where everywhere as the evening progressed and no mammals of any kind made an appearance save for a few squirrels.  The mosquitoes got downright arrogant as it got dark.

Near the point of darkness, I heard a shot to my right.  Kevin had shot a 100 pound boar.  No one else saw anything, but at least there were pigs on the ground.
Kevin was sitting on the reverse stand and the shot was near dark, but the bullet went diagonally through the boar, exiting near the neck.

After Subway for dinner, it was time to pack up and drive home.  I was not ready yet to think about work but it was coming.

2013 Hog Hunt Day 3

Ouch.  But more on that in a bit.

Everyone was up early as Nathan/Rachel and Dennis/Claude finished packing and headed for their respective trips home.  As is always the case spending time with good, likeminded people is always fun.

Rick and I headed out and fed the stands near the lodge.  Most of them had been hit pretty hard.

After on-road fast food, we went to Georgetown and fed the stands there.  Everything looked good there as well.
Back at the Lodge, the new people were in camp ready to go.  Ethan and Kevin were from Pennsylvania and Brian was from Delaware.  I found out a little later that this was Brian's first hunt.  I've never hunted in Delaware or looked into it, but apparently the regulations there are draconian enough to be prohibitive to new hunters.  Very unfortunate as while hunting regulations are needed, regulations should encourage outdoor activity while protecting natural resources and enhancing opportunities for everyone.

We talked a while at the lodge and then headed out for the afternoon.  I was sitting on the back field by Kyle's property.  The weather was comfortably warm and cloudy with almost no wind.  As the afternoon progressed, the sky cleared.
Nothing showed for the first couple hours until around 5:00 eight small pigs came out.  There were definitely more pigs to the right where they came from since every few minutes the pigs looked in that direction before continuing eating corn.  After around 15 minutes the pigs headed back to the right where they came out and were gone.

A while later two deer came out down the road to the left.  They never went to corn pile but ate greenery in the area for a while before leaving near the far edge of the field to the left.
As it started to get dark, probably too dark, I heard scurrying to my right and I knew what it was.  A large group of black hogs came out immediately to the right.  They were milling around and difficult to see due to the acute angle.  If they were headed to the corn pile, they were in no hurry.
I tried to put the crosshairs on them, but it was getting very dark.  Finally one larger animal moved a little more off to the left.  I told myself I had enough light, and put the crosshairs on the animal's head.  At the sound of the shot, all the animals froze for a fraction of a second and fled to the left, directly in front of me.  There was no question that it was an absolute clean miss; I may have even seen the sand behind the animal erupt with the shot.
I texted Rick with shame.  After getting out of the treestand I looked for a few minutes but there was no evidence of a hit.

Ouch.

Before this trip, I've never missed a hog.  My second hog shirt tail went on to the wall that night.

None of the other guys saw pigs.  Perhaps they wisely unloaded before it got too dark; none of them had to loose a shirt tail.

2013 Hog Hunt Day 2

Morning woke early again and after a while spent talking at the lodge, it was time to get serious.

There is a tradition, primarily in the South/Southeast that after missing an animal, the humiliation is increased by having a part of the shirt tail hacked off.  The lack of pigs the previous night was blamed on not appeasing these gods so goodbye Universal Studios t-shirt.

The shirt tail is proudly displayed in perpetuity.  Obviously, I'm in good company.

We left to feed stands around the house.  Since the hogs were not moving on the rice plantation, we were to hunt locally that night.
The morning quickly turned into afternoon and we were into the stands early.  I was sitting in the same stand where I had shot a very large, black, burly, stinky boar a few years previous.

This is a large ladder stand and the wind that night was very good for it's location.  A short walk from the road leads to a very quiet area.  The stand is very easy to stay comfortable in.  Rachel and Nathan were following in their car and were able to candidly catch me in one of those rare moments metaphorically very far away from all the cares of work.

After a while in the stand, a few deer walked up.  The deer were alert, but not jumpy.  They milled around the area for a while browsing on greens and corn.

After they were there for an hour or so, a large murder of crows flew in.  The crows were loud, boisterous and obnoxious.  With the large group of them, I think they could have been responsible for eating a significant portion of the corn.

The deer did not like the mayhem of the crows and quickly walked away from them, directly toward me.  I've always wanted to be able to get a few good pictures of deer in their natural habitat.  Much like the previous night, it is comforting to know these animals can unnervously be very close to me.

As it started to get dark, coyotes in the distance sang for a while.  Beautiful.  More deer joined as the sun set, but there were no hogs to come out tonight.
After it was completely dark, I hoofed back to the rendezvous point to wait to be picked up.  Standing in the cool evening in darkness is serene.  With little natural light, many stars could be seen until the nearly full moon rose.
As the moon rose, three groups of coyotes began vocalizing - almost a fairy tail end to the evening while watching the bright moon.  A while later and much, much closer a couple coyotes began fighting which was a little intimidating while standing there in the darkness.

When Rick picked me up, there were two large sows in the pig tray along with a baby (still striped).  Dennis had shot both sows and the baby was hit by a pass-through.  While unfortunate, pigs are a feral and introduced species.  He had also seen several other pigs, including one that was much larger.

Back at the lodge, the pigs were dressed and put in Dennis and Claude's freezer.  Coming from Canada, they travel with a freezer in the bed of their truck, plugging it in when the stop for the night.
Everyone had a good time talking for the evening.  We all scheduled time to hunt again with Rick next year.
Since it was the Canadians and Nathan/Rachel's last day, they began packing for their journey home.

2013 Hog Hunt Day 1

January 26 woke up as a frosty morning.  The scene outside was from Lord of the Flies if Golding had written a Chevy truck in to Ralph and Piggy's horror.  The grey coldness punctuated by the gently swinging corpse of a boar.

After putzing around the lodge for a while and a short walk, we headed to Shady Rest for Breakfast.
Dennis and Claude went to John's to pick up Dennis' taxidermy turkey he shot last year.  As is always the case John did a great job.  Dennis' turkey was a pretty bird with 1.5 inch spurs.  Apparently he shot his bird only a few yards away from where I shot mine in 2010.

Rick, Nathan and I fed the home stands.  At the stand where I was sitting the night before, Nathan and I spent a while looking for my hog again.  In the daylight I was able to instantly pinpoint where the pig was when I pulled the trigger.  This narrowed the search and the absolute lack of blood was damning.  The pig was alive and likely not even very hurt.  The punctuation on the events surrounding the stand was that I had made a bad shot.

After feeding we went back to the lodge for a little over an hour and headed to Georgetown.  The Georgetown hunting is done on an old rice plantation owned by descendants of one of America's "barron" families.  I've found some interesting information on the plantation and there is a long history to the property with both good and bad events.  The plantation is filled with cedar bogs, swamps, sandy areas and dikes.  Generally hog paradise.  Many old buildings dot the property - it would be interesting to know more of the history.
After feeding stands for a while, Rick dropped each one of us off in turn.
I was sitting in the same area I did in 2010 when I shot a good meat boar.  This day turned out differently as I sat for most of the evening and saw very little.  Very near dark, a few deer came out from behind me to the left and walked toward the corn pile.  One walked within a few yards of me on her way; it is always reassuring to see them walk by so close without more concern than a few head bobs.
The deer where in the area until after it was too dark to shoot.  I unloaded my gun and waited to be picked up.  A nearly full moon rose behind me.  The moonlight cast eerie shadows all around.  Sitting in complete silence in the moonlit historical manor is one of those rare nuggets hunters get to experience.

Nobody had shot a hog that night.  Claude had seen one which ran quickly behind him; he also saw a bobcat.  Nathan had a few come in after it was too dark to shoot, "When you are picking the scope off the pig to see the crosshairs, you end up later that night holding your flashlight and pistol."
If the moon had been a little brighter, we almost could have reloaded.
We stopped at Hibachi Buffet for dinner.  It was reasonably good for a buffet.  A lot of gluttony for the dollar.
We talked for a while back at the lodge - between English, English/French and French.  Good people with similar interests always find a way to communicate.

2013 Hog Hunt Drive and "Extra" Day

After an unrestful night with odd noises, a slightly noisy room heater - my room was near the lobby, I woke up early feeling reasonably well.  The night wasn't the fault of the hotel, just my inability to sleep in unusual places.  Also, since I left much of my stuff in the truck overnight, I had some slightly unreasonable paranoia about it security.

Free hotel waffles started the day which almost made up for the price of the room.  Weather reports were showing rain, snow and freezing rain in the area I drove through yesterday but I could not discern how "real" the conditions were.  No matter, decisions were made and I was out the door by 6:45.

Traffic was light as I headed south and east.  Lane usage was frustrating  given the light level of traffic.  Please keep right except to pass.  Thanks.

I arrived at Camp to an empty lodge.  I sat around for a while until two other guys showed up.  They are French Canadians from near Quebec City named Dennis and Claude.  Good guys that spoke some mostly French.  Their English was much better than my non-existent French.
Nathan and Rachel were already in camp, Nathan returned from a walk and Rachel had been sleeping.

We BSed around camp for a while; Rick showed up from feeding and we headed out around 1:00.
Dennis and Claude were dropped off first.  Nathan, Rachel and I went to some relatively new land Rick had.  Rick had a sorted story about the property, but it had lots of good pig sign.

I was put in a "luxury" stilt blind containing two very comfortable chairs.  No world-famous Rick Ground Blind tonight.
About a half hour after being dropped off a group of noisy hogs came out to my right, not even on the corn pile.  The ran around and bashed into each other for a while before heading into the woods and emerging back in view on the corn pile.  I was convinced the largest hogs were in the 50 pound category, but I can't be sure.  Size-judging intermediate size pigs is not terribly easy.  A big hog always looks big, and babies look cute.  In-between can be tricky.
One of the hogs was a pretty neat looking black and white spotted one.  I've always wanted a spotted hog so almost shot despite the small size.  It was very early and I knew Rick would berate me if I shot a small one so I held off.

The first group of hogs rand off and a second group came in of all small similar and smaller sized hogs.  They were around for quite several hours, going between the two corn piles.  Turkeys were in the area and deer were milling around as well.  At one point I had hogs, deer and turkeys all within sight at the same time.

As dark neared a group of hogs were squealing behind me and came out to my left.  At first it was only toddler and teenage hogs until a larger hot came across the road, to the left moving left to right.  I put the crosshairs on it but a second even larger emerged behind.  I moved the crosshairs to it and pulled the trigger.
The hog hit the ground and flopped for a few seconds like it was hit in the head.  Then it lunged to the left back into the woods.  I could hear hogs all over as the shooting and mayhem confused the other hogs.  Several smaller hogs were standing in front of me and ran off only several minutes later.

It got dark and Rick showed up with Rachel and Nathan.  Rachel had shot a 125-pound meat boar.  We went to get Claude and Dennis who had seen deer and some smaller hogs.  We went back to look for my pig.
We searched for blood along the road and into the woods a ways for about an hour.  Nobody found any blood or other evidence of the hit pig.  Frustrating.  I know it was hit, I can't say whether it was a very-near miss or I misjudged where the animal was when I shot it.  Everything looked different in the very dark.
Very frustrating.

We went back to camp where Rick gutted Rachel's hog.  Fast-food for dinner followed by turning in early for a snorey night (with ear plugs - thank goodness).

2013 Hog Hunt T-1 Day

January 24, 2013
I've been watching the weather a lot this week.  Earlier in the week, forecasts were for minor amounts of precipitation with a slight chance of it being cold enough for snow.  As the week progressed, the forecast regressed.
The plan was to pack today and head out early on January 25.  However the forecast close to home was for a chance of accumulating snow from a storm coming during a very cold spell from Canada.  South, the forecast was for another system coming form the Gulf/Southwest.  The southern storm was to spread sleet, rain, freezing rain and ice across the south, centering on areas I need to travel through to get to South Carolina.  Below is an image of a forecast map when I would likely be coming through the area if I left tomorrow.

The forecast was still "murky" to quote the NOAA advisory.  If the two winter systems combined, it could get much worse.

I may be accused of being overly cautious by leaving early, but I can live with that (pun intended).

The situation is similar to 2010 when a forecast for a major snow storm was to come through the same area. That year, the storm sped up and after working for a few hours, I ran home, threw everything I thought I would need in the truck and left early.  I had to buy some clothes when I stopped for the night since I did not get a chance to do laundry.

I packed everything up yesterday and loaded the truck.  I woke early (even for me) and headed to work.  Since I was not in my normal mode, I forgot my badge.  Luckily Security came quickly and let me in with a temporary badge.
I worked for several hours and left around 11:30.  I'll call it a full day since I routinely put in a couple extra hours a day.  After a quick bite to eat at my desk, I headed south.

Weather was cold, but sunny.  Roads where clear with about as much traffic as expected.  As I got into Tennessee, they were already pretreating roads for the upcoming potential weather.  Turning east through the mountains, traffic was light and weather stayed good all day.
I was listening to The Story: NIV from Zondervan.  It was a little frustrating that CD#3 did not work.  I missed most of Exodus.

After going through the mountains I thought about stopping in Asheville, but it was still early so continued on Spartanburg, South Carolina.  The Super-8 motel was a little more expensive than I would usually choose for myself alone, but I didn't feel like driving all over to try to save a few dollars.

Chinese take-out at Panda Garden for dinner topped off with Oreo Cakesters wrapped up the night.
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