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.