QuoteOriginally posted by Izzy:
[QB] The next morning we were almost hesitant to leave the camp, a little apprehensive after hearing the 97% chance of rain,


Reminds me of the bacon strip! Keep it coming...        

We parked at the "PicNic Area" which is more or less a centralized area with chairs, table, target and old outhouse. Our group split up with 2 headed to scout untouched areas and myself, KAT and Jeff headed east toward the Turkey Foot. As soon as we got to the area that I had started coring the night before, I saw that all of the corn had been vacked up. We hit some soft mud and there it was, big pig tracks made only minutes before in my mind.

    Slipping into serious game on mode, We rounded a bend in the trail and there stood a big boar hog next to a big puddle I had corned heavily the night before. He was on the move soon and I couldn't tell which of the 3 branches of Turkey Foot he'd taken. The boar sounding creek whirlpool that Kat mentioned fooled me again and led me to choose that trail in search of the boar. Long story short, it wasn't him I heard and he was long gone. I decided to get deeper into the swamp toward the are that Id killed a hog on my 1st trip to Hog Heaven.

I stalked along to  a road that branched off from the Turkey Foot and left the road into the swamp. It brought back memories of many hogs seen and one that I had killed a few years ago. Sign was fresh and plentiful. Scat of both deer, and hogs, hog nests, rooting and intoxicating swine stank! I was in "The Bed Room", a name dedicated to  the memory of the hottest hog hunting Ive ever seen which was at the Bacon Strip.

   I sat for a while on a log at the waters edge and just took it all in watching the Nat Geo channel in real life. Birds, bugs, aquatic critters and just took it in putting me in a trance like state.

While Izzy was checking out one branch of the turkey foot, Jeff and I were following the corn we had put on another branch. There was not a kernel left, but no sightings from the road.
For a 97% chance of bad weather, it was pretty warm with a hot sun beating down on my face. We still hunted our way back to the truck at about noon to meet up and compare notes or hopefully drag something out.
I got to my truck second, and then two more joined us shortly. Then time passed as we were one man short. We were speculting on why the last man was late in joining us.

Come on Izzy!    

So after sitting and thinking of my next move I turned around and immediately my mind was in deja vu mode. I remember having all day pig encounters in habitat similar to what I was looking at. When pigs are jumped in the thickets, in my experience at least they don't want to leave and merely keep tabs on you and try to get your wind.

    I got up from my sitting log and began my stalk into the thick bedding cover. I looked at my watch and it was 11:30 and our agreed upon gathering time was 12:00. I had just enough time to mosey out to the rendezvous and be there on time.

No sooner than I entered the thicket that Id been sitting within 80 yards of, I heard an exhale, nothing dramatic just a breath being exhaled. While looking to pinpoint its origin I start to see the palmettos moving and catching glimpses of black and brown moving back and forth. Soon I could see a small black hog 10 yards in front of me stand up from its bed. I couldn't see which end was facing me due to the thick river cane so I held off for a minute on my shot. It never gave me a chance and it bolted out away from me.

     I could see 2 big ones backs starting to move away so I rushed into the cane and palmettos with an arrow on the string. This was more than they were willing to tolerate as I was right in the middle of a sounder of approximately 20 hogs ranging from 10 to 150+lbs. Trust me if you've never been but its a neat experience      

Nice. Looks like you are into them.  Did you just pack it up and head toward the truck? LOL.

Oops.  Look like I missed a post in progress.

All at once the sounder started moving between me and a giant fallen gum tree and then headed toward the waters edge. One of them must have really been angry about being woken up wanted one last look at me to tell me what it thought. It popped its front end out from behind a tree and before I knew what happened that magical spiral of a helical fletched arrow was spinning away from me in slow motion.

       

With a perfect thunk sound at 20 yards I was sure she was hit just a hair back of the 10 ring but she ran a bout 20 more yards and stopped. I was waiting for her to get tipsy but she never did and ran into the brush with her companions. I grabbed up the arrow that I shot her with and chased after her. To me pig hunting is a dynamic pursuit and I try to make things happen as opposed as watching and waiting silently  as when deer hunting. I quickly lost sight of them in the brush and slowed up to look for blood.

    At the point of the hit there was nothing more than 2 or 3 drops of blood and although the arrow looked bubbly I got that feeling in my stomach of big, angry butterflies. Looked back at my watch and saw that it was 12:30. I figured that the boys would think a gator got me and start dividing up my property if I didn't get back to them. I headed in for a debriefing and some help of 8 more tracking eyes and besides I figured if we found a pig I could convince them that my back hurt or that since my birthday was the next day they should drag for me.

   

I made it back to the truck at 1:00 and told them what went down. We grabbed a game cart and headed back to look for the hog. After some questioning  as to why I chose to shoot one so far from the truck we finally arrived at the scene.

 Jeff picked up on blood first after I gave him a good visual of what went down and where. The blood was sparse and looked really sketchy. I knew, knew, knew I hit her good but the sign didn't mach up with where I saw the arrow hit.

  We were now late to get back to the main camp and Andrew had a suspicion that something went down in the swamp. Soon we caught glimpse of him riding the trails on his Gator so I told the fellas to keep looking and I ran out to the trail to let Andrew know what was going down.

   As he and I started walking back in to the last blood to meet up with the fellas I could see them all leaving the swamp back to the trail. I thought to myself "Whats The Deal?" "Why'd They Quit So Damn Soon?" As I got nearer to them I noticed that they each had a black hoof in their hand and were carrying my pig out to the road. Jeff found her right at the spot where I told him I had my last visual of her.              

A damn good, eventful hunt just the way I like em. The boys were awesome giving encouragement that all of what I told them should conclude with a dead hog. And as a bonus Andy was there so we loaded her Jeff and Ken on the Gator and Cuz, Steve and I started the long, elated walk back to the pic nick area.

Here we are, not at the kill site but some of the boys have pics of that that Ill hope they'll post up soon.    

    The entire weekend was awesome, from the swing and a miss weather man whose 97% chance of rain prediction didn't happen to the travel to and from. The road trip back was eventful but all good. We wrangled a gator from the middle of the highway like Troy Landry himself, thwarted highway men who bit off more than they could chew and laughed and told hunting lies all the way home.

Thanks fellas you guys rock. Your some damn good hunting partners.   Ken, Cuz, Steve and me. Jeff left before the pic. Im already planning the next hunt.

Attaboy buddy! Congrats