The temperature had plummeted overnight and the heat ran continuously in the lodge. Hopefully the weather change is good for hog movement for Denis, Claude and myself.
Rick had some obligations in the AM so the lodge went unsupervised. Denis turned the TV to an outdoor channel and I tried to watch a couple shows. I'm not sure if outdoor TV has changed or if I have, but hunting shows are nearly unwatchable. Overly scripted scenes, ridiculous reenactments and thinly veiled product placements... Ugh.
It reminded me of something Rick said the previous day, "You and that old Ruger(TM) have killed a lot of hogs."
In all seriousness, outdoor TV is pretty bad, Rick really did say that, and I have used that rifle, regardless of make, to shoot quite a few hogs over the years.
Denis and Claude putzed around the lodge while I kept myself busy. Denis and Claude are French Canadian; Claude speaks only French while Denis speaks reasonably good English (a little bit better than my Spanish). So for the second time in a few weeks I existed in a place unable to comprehend much of what was being said.
Late in the morning, they left to go target shooting leaving me blessedly with some time alone. I spent the time alternating between dozing and reading Michael Perry's Roughneck Grace - a good enough book with a few laughs and insights. Although no book of his has stood up to Truck: A Love Story. It is also possible I just happened to have read that book at the right time.
An early afternoon walk down to the river confirmed the afternoon was going to be cold and windy. After so much down time, the walk was invigorating.
Eventually Rick was back and quickly quartered my hog as it went into the cooler with a huge bag of ice. Then it was time to head out to hunt for the afternoon.
Claude was dropped off at the Sandy Bottom stand, then Rick dropped me off at the Church stand.
I had sat at this stand the previous year in the morning since the game cameras had seem some AM activity there, but all I got that day was wet (morning hunts even in the light rain are quite wonderful).
It was easy to get situated with a field tripod rest for my gun and the chair was surprisingly comfortable. I sat down for one of the wildest hog hunts I've ever had.
The stand is a "ground blind" but really just a chair behind a big dirt pile. There isn't much in front or behind to break up the outline. The wind was gusty and swirling. If I would have walked up on someone in this picture, I would have thought, "What a noob..." I've learned to trust Rick, but everything felt wrong.
It was cold by South Carolina standards and the wind made it feel worse. However, the bluebird skies made it much more tolerable and pretty.
Not much happened for the first few hours, although I did hear pigs a few times in the woods to my left. I thought it was a good sign that I was hearing them so early.
Around 5:00 I saw a new dark smudge on the left of muddy-wallow corn pile and a hog hopped out. I'll be honest upfront, it looked huge - so big I wasn't sure it wasn't a big boar. It wouldn't have mattered, but once we picked it up, it was a good pig but not a monster. With my gun in the field pod, it was short work to send a bullet downstream. The pig dropped and flopped for a few seconds before it was over. Since it was still broad daylight, I could see it was almost assuredly a sow.
After the shot things got quiet before I started to hear something on my left - immediately on my left. There was a hog RIGHT inside the woods from me, and it stayed there for quite a while grunting and snorting. It was a little disconcerting, made even more so when it popped out of the woods right behind me and trotted away. It was obviously trying to figure out what was going on and had no idea I was there. I sometimes wonder how I'm doing as far as scent control or minimizing movement, and events like this tell me I'm at least not all wrong.
I could hear more pigs in the woods. They spent a little over a half an hour running around in the woods making tons of noise and squealing and fighting. A few times they were running around and carrying on close enough I could see trees and brush moving. With all the noise, it was a bit uncomfortable a couple times. I've had hogs running around me before where they never show themselves, but this group did. Three popped out right in front of me with another seven jumping out right by the corn. A few of these were quite big.
One of this group peeled away from the rest and spent most of the time in the field to the right.
As I was watching them, I heard another group of pigs in the woods. This group sounded like a heard of freight trains and bulldozers careening through the woods. I don't think I've ever heard pigs this loud. It was getting dark by this time and they came out onto the pile. These two groups of pigs did not seem to like each other very much and there was tons of wild pork screaming and fighting.
Then I noticed the lone pig in the field had worked its way toward me. It was agitated and it was not a small animal. I could hear it making little grunts as it darted around. After standing behind me for a while, it charged up next to me close enough that I could have punched it in the face. One of the challenges of ground blinds is that it can be hard to get really close to animals; in this case, it was almost too close. But that pig had no idea I was there and ran around me a little bit more before joining his (it was a boar) fellow swine in combat.
As it got dark dark, one group of pigs went tearing away again through the woods. I easily could have shot another pig (possibly in self defense), but Rick asked me by text not to. I was fine with this, especially since I still thought the one on the ground was huge.
Rick had me slip out to meet back at the truck. Denis had shot a boar hog. We went to get Claude and he had shot and missed one down by the river. We went back and picked up my hog. As noted, it wasn't the monster I thought it was, but it was a 150+ pound sow - another nearly perfect eating size.
Back at the lodge we cleaned my hog and it went right into the cooler with some ice. It was forecast to get well below freezing overnight so I propped the cooler lid open a bit.
Despite being a relatively young hog, Denis' hog stunk to a level incommensurate with his size. I probably would have at least skinned it to see what the meat looked and smelled like, but Denis elected not to. Having smelled a few atrociously stinky boars, this was probably the right thing to do. (I'm not sure why I didn't get a better picture of Denis' hog.)
It was a pretty wild evening. As Denis and Claude might say: chasse au cochon sauvage. And the fact that I'm on day two of hunting with two coolers quite full is pretty awesome as well.
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