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).
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