2019 Hog Hunt Day 5 - So Close (to the wrong thing)

I woke up and finished reading Sarah Vowell's Take the Cannoli.  Her story entitled "What I See When I Look at the Face on the $20 Bill" was nearly as good as "Shooting Dad."  The former reminded me of why I like reading her stuff so much.  Assassination Vacation is the first book of hers that I read and is excellent.  I recall reading it and getting mad, thinking, "Why didn't they teach history in school like this?"

Daylight came and things moved from NPR Fantasy Camp (reading something by a This American Life contributor) to South Carolina Hunting Fantasy Camp (pig camp).  But I can't help but think it is almost a sure thing that I'm the only person on this planet to have read an entire Sarah Vowell book while hunting wild boar.  Prove me wrong...

We dropped Will off at school and went to feed stands.  Another morning of the comfortable routine of hog hunting.  All the stands had been hit except the new one Rick just started baiting; the one where I shot my hog was also licked clean.  Back at the lodge there was a new denizen eyeing the gut bucket from my hog with a longing look - them's good eats!

It turned out that the other guy who was supposed to come into camp, who I've hunted with the last couple years, had a family emergency and wouldn't make it.  I feel bad for him, I've been there before.
Rick and I looked at stand pictures.  Two stands had hogs from daylight on them, and one of them had just about every color imaginable.  Guess where I was to sit that night?

Rick dropped me off and I made my way to the stand.  About 20 yards from the stand a doe jumped up from her bed and ran a few yards into the bush.  She stared at me and sauntered off, not seeing me as much of a threat.

I got into the stand and got comfortable for the afternoon.  Temperatures were up considerably from the beginning of the week and it was a bluebird sunny day.  It was awesome.
It didn't take too long before deer started to come out.  This was a bit surprising since the game camera had shown basically only hogs the previous night.  Still, it gave me something to watch.
One very small deer spent several hours very close the box blind.  I was able to get several good pictures.

The deer on the corn pile were a mix of does and small bucks.  One buck had a giant tine with a crab claw on one side, with a much smaller one on the other.  I guess that is the deer equivalent of adolescent acne and a changing voice.

As it got darker I was hopeful the hogs would come out.  They had to.  The deer left the pile a couple times before walking away, basically right on top of me.  I waited out the remaining light as long as I could but it just wasn't meant to happen.  Deer can be patterned pretty easily.  Hogs ... not so much.

Back at the lodge, Rick was thinking about ducks so he asked for help getting his boat out of the lake.  Sounds simple, right?  It never is.  The boat was nearly submerged and there wasn't a boat ramp (that I could see, because it was now also nearly pitch dark out).  So we ended up tugging the boat out with some tow straps and Rick's truck, after heaving it through some trees, and around some dock obstacles.
I guess it is all part of the adventure that is hog hunting.