2016 Hog Hunt Day 5

But sometimes stuff happens.

I woke up ready for two more days to hunt wild hogs.  A family member had recently been hospitalized, and since I was sort of out normal world and communication was minimal, I wasn't sure of the seriousness of it.  A flurry of overnight texts revealed that not only had Tom died, but that the funeral was in two days.  While perhaps selfish, I thought about hunting the afternoon and heading out early on Friday.  This was doable in theory, but a winter storm that was brewing made it impossible in practice.

Around 10:00, I hurriedly packed up and headed out.  Normally I like to leave very early, so the beginning of the drive was painful and construction made it even more so.

Soon enough, I was on the interstate motoring home, listening to Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me followed by several podcasts of Radio Lab.  My leaving early made me frustrated, but it was the right thing to do.  Funerals are for the living.

The drive was uneventful enough and I arrived home with a long list of things to do.  Unpack, laundry, taking care of hog meat, repacking for the funeral, figuring out where to stay with the dogs...

Yep, sometimes stuff happens...

Belated Edit:
I note that had I gone home at my expected date and time, I very likely would have been caught in the tail end of a paralyzing snow storm that shut down I-75 for hours and resulted in a line of non-moving cars 10's of miles long.  I still wish the funeral wasn't needed and I could have finished out my hunt, but there is solace, albeit minimal, in knowing I wasn't stuck for an undetermined amount of time on the interstate.

2016 Hog Hunt Day 4

After sunrise, but with good morning light, I got some better pictures of my boar, some even with me in them.

After taking the pictures, Rob and I removed the head to get boiled out for the skull.  The meat actually looked pretty good - it didn't have that deep red color and didn't smell like stinky boar, so we strung him up and removed the backstraps and hams.  Even if it isn't the best wild hog meat I've ever had, it looked good and I'm not out anything by taking it home to try it.  I was able to freeze it in Rick's freezer.  Hopefully I remember it while packing to head back home.

Belated Edit:  Back at home, the meat was deboned and much of it ground up.  I've eaten some of it now, and it is actually really good hog meat, if a bit lean.  I wish I would have kept all of the meat!

We all lollygagged around the lodge for a while before feeding a few stands with Rick and heading out to hunt.  Rob and Cody were on club land, and I was on Kyle's property, recently brought into Rick's hunting area.

The stand was a very tall ladder stand.  The afternoon was cool, not cold, with abundant sunshine and almost no wind.  It was so still, I almost didn't dare to move at all.

At around 5:15, a few deer came out, and after that, they didn't seem to stop.  Well over ten were feeding on the corn pile.  The final two deer were two bucks, one of which was a very nice one.

Staying in communication by text message, we all heard some shooting and thought it was someone in the group, but it wasn't.  Nobody saw hogs, so they must have been moving late.  A weather system is moving in which could make the last two days interesting.  

Even though I didn't see any hogs, it was an extremely nice night.  Cool, with deer to watch and quiet time to think and reflect - it was the kind of night that people who don't hunt, and often assume hunting is a blood sport, just do not understand.

2016 Hog Hunt Day 3

Rob and I were put to work in the morning moving a freezer into Rick's new shed.  The freezer was probably not as heavy as all the deer meet that was in it.  After the appliance move and restocking, we headed out to feed stands.

The stand I had been on the first night had been hit, as had most of the stands.  A hog has 24 hours a day to be in the swamp, he doesn't have to choose to be out in the daylight.

Rick was originally thinking of putting me on the club land, but decided the wind wasn't optimal for it.  After feeding the hole, which was the first of Rick's stands I ever hunted on (a decade ago now), Rick said that pigs, which had been gone for a couple days, were back and there was at least one big one in the group.  Since the wind was right for this stand, it was mine for the evening.

After feeding all the other stands, we headed back to the lodge for a short time, followed by changing into camo and heading out.

Jessie and Cody were sitting in a ground blind on Will's farm.  Rob was on the same stand I was on the first night, and I ended up in the hole.

When I first got to the stand, there was already a deer on it.  I was almost in the ground blind before she got nervous enough and bolted.  The temperatures still being unusually cool by South Carolina standards, my chair had a small frozen lake in it, which was (mostly) easily removed by pulling it up from the canvas bottom.

Time passed somewhat slowly at first, until two deer came out.  They were nervous and kept looking in my general direction, but more to the right.  This made me hopeful that something else was lurking in the pine woods.  The deer huffed and ran off, only to return and leave a few more times.  

With the deer acting nervous and daylight starting to drain, I lifted my gun up to the rail, in case anything happened quickly and to minimize motion.

Around 5:30 I saw movement to the right of the corn pile.  Definitely a pigs ear flicking.  It milled around that right hand side for what seemed like forever, only briefly showing me his head and never his body.

After several minutes of this, the pig came out just far enough for his head and neck (if hogs had necks) to clear the trees.  Putting the crosshairs on his head, I steadied for a slightly awkward shot, as the rail was just higher than what I would have liked.  

At the shot, the pig dropped and kicked a few times before laying still.  With a fresh round in the gun, I kept the crosshairs on him, just in case he got up.  But, it was over.

Some hogs look very small after hitting the ground, but I knew this was a pretty decent pig.  I texted Rick and waited to get picked up.

While sitting quietly in the blind, I heard something else, probably another hog, come up the main trail to my right.  It may have made its way to the pile, but by then it was too dark.

Rick came and got me and we drove up to get my hog.  He was a 230 pound boar hog, with the bullet having taken him out cleanly just behind his skull.  We hoisted him in the bed of the truck and went to pick up the others.  The hog stunk pretty bad, so I knew he wasn't going to be a good eater, but I didn't ask at that time.

Rob had gotten a very good sized sow, and Jessie and Cody had pigs come in just a tad too late.

Back at the lodge, the two black pigs filled a large portion of Ricks truck bed.

We talked a little about whether my hog would be eating, but he smelled like skunk so I knew he wouldn't be.  This does bother me a little, but hogs are an invasive, destructive species that breeds prolifically so I don't let it bother me too much.

Rob's pig was cleaned and hung for the night - she was quite pregnant.

The skull of mine appeared to be intact.  I've always wanted to have a large boar skull so I was planning to have it boiled out.  I set mine up to have some good pictures in the morning light.  He was nearly a twin to my other large black boar, with huge shoulders and a much smaller butt.  He also had a light colored splotch on his nose.

I was happy and still hopeful for some hog meat before the end of the week.

2016 Hog Hunt Day 2

We were up early by hog hunting standards as Rick, Rob, Will and I headed to get Will's bow tuned up.  The outdoors store was a pretty nice place going through a substantial inventory reduction, unfortunately there wasn't anything there I desperately needed.
Will's bow tuned up in a much better state with a peep sight better suited to the bow.  He was putting arrows where they needed to be with regularity afterwards.

We all went and fed hog stands for a while.  There was lots of good sign.  There was also lots of water with many areas barely passable.  The water being due to heavy recent rains coupled with the overall high level of water from the past early fall's extreme rain the area saw.

Early afternoon came and we all piled into Rick's truck to hunt for the night.  Rob, Jessie and Cody were on deer hunting property that had only recently been invaded by hogs.  I was on the Chandler (Will's) farm and settled in on a low treestand looking over a destroyed sunflower field.  Temperatures were cool but tolerable in the low 40's.  The wind was howling, with some strong gusts, making it less comfortable than it otherwise would have been.
I didn't see anything until a little before 5:00 when four deer came out.  They were skittish at first, but quickly settled down to mill around the corn pile for quite some time.  They left a little before dark and I was hoping that it was a good sign, only to have them show up again a short time later.  They stayed until it was nearly too dark to see with day one ending hogless for me.
Rob and Cody had only seen a few deer and turkey's.  Jessie had shot a very large sow, the largest in a good group that had come out for her around 5:30.

Even if we all didn't get one on the first night, at least we had hogs on the ground.

2016 Hog Hunt Day 1 (Drive Day)

After a cool, rainy and almost frozen Saturday spent getting ready, I headed south early on Sunday morning, out the door at around 4:30.  I had changed the oil and messed around with the corroded, leaky rims on the Tacoma so I was glad that the tire pressure remained high on all four corners.

Once on the road I listened to the book Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz.  I had actually listened to this book in 2011 and really enjoyed it.  But with the potential for a trip to Hawaii coming up, I wanted to listen to it again.  The book is about the author learning about Captain Cook and his three voyages around the world, and Captain Cook was killed in Hawaii.  While I thoroughly enjoyed the book (again), I was somehow anxious that the trip to Hawaii might actually never happen.

Instead of taking the interstate all the way to South Carolina, I got off on US25E in Corbin, Ky.  We had taken this route on the motorcycle last year on the way to the keys, and while it adds a bit of time, it is refreshing to get off the interstate for a while, and the traffic can be unfriendly around Knoxville.  Although I wouldn't really expect this on a Sunday morning.
US25E has a tunnel at the KY/TN border, very near Virginia.  I was surprised I had to stop and wait at the tunnel for an escort to let a fuel truck through the tunnel while it was empty, before given the green light to proceed.
Unlike last year, I stopped at the Cherokee Reservoir.  However, also unlike last year's gorgeous weather, the low clouds, cold temperatures and grey winter made the scene into something other than the jaw dropping scene we had passed in late summer.

Getting back on the interstate, I continued south for more many more hours, with time passing quickly listening to the book.  After the book finished, I looked for a radio station before giving up and using the quiet time for thinking time.

Eventually I made it to Rick's, and shortly thereafter Rob, Jessie and Cody arrived.  We BS'd a bit and looked at the cool (by South Carolina Standards) weather forecast, ready to hopefully see some pigs.