South Texas hog hunt

[StxHunter]

I left work an hour and a half early on Friday to make the hour and a half drive to my hometown to hunt a 120acre piece of property me and some buddies lease. The wind was going to be perfect for a tripod I had set up and I was hoping to get an opportunity at a deer, but was willing to shoot a hog if one gave me a shot. I got to the property an hour and 15min before the feeder was scheduled to go off to give me some time to sneak into the area and get up into the tripod. I parked close to the gate as I always do when I'm going hunt the property and walked 3/4 of a mile to my spot. I do this to try and be as sneaky as possible and not alert anything that this day is any different than the rest. Overkill? Probably, but it definitely isn't hurting my chances. I got into the tripod about 45min before the feeder went off and sat there quietly waiting. The feeder went off at 5:00 and because of trail camera pictures in the days before I was expecting to see deer almost immediately. When 45 minutes had gone by with no action I started to think maybe they heard me or smelled me at some point. I was starting to lose confidence when suddenly I caught some movement through the brush. 4 deer were approaching the feeder very cautiously. I could feel the excitement building as I was sure I'd get a shot. I was waiting for one of the large doe to offer me a 10-14yd quartering away shot when they suddenly became alerted to something behind them and took off. I knew what this meant. The hogs were coming. 6 small hogs showed up first and I knew after a few minutes the larger ones would make an appearance. After almost 5 minutes a large boar joined them. This was the hog I wanted. I could feel my heart rate increase and my right leg start to do its characteristic adrenaline dump shake. Less than a minute after he arrived he offered me a broadside shot at 12.5yds and I took it. The hit looked good, just very slightly further back than I prefer. The TradTracker attached to my bow pulled string for roughly 30 seconds after the shot then stopped abruptly. I climbed down from the tripod and was excited to start on the trail. I should have waiting longer, but because the string stopped abruptly I figured he was down and out. I followed the string into the brush, but found that at some point the string had busted. I wasn't deterred as I was seeing blood in intervals along the trail. It started to get dark and I had lost the trail. I could her what I assumed was him still breathing and grunting in the brush up ahead. I was worried I had hit liver and decided to back out. I used the OnX app to try and draw a line to where I last heard the grunting and heavy breathing. I came back the next morning and found him only 30yds from where I stopped the search. In total he made it about 140yds from where I shot him. I would have liked to have found him the same night as I shot him, but I was still pleased nonetheless. The equipment I used was a 52" 55# Wing Red Wing Hunter that a local gunsmith gave me made between 1970-1975 with a Black Eagle Vintage arrow with a brass insert and brass screw in weights with a 125gr 4-blade Magnus Stinger buzzcut at the tip. Total arrow weight is 565grs and it flies about 157fps.

The deer that came out before the hogs.



Me in the background.



Full Draw



The boar

[Wile E. Coyote]

Congrats on a great hunt!

[EHK]

Very cool story and pictures.  Congrats.

[trad_bowhunter1965]

    

[rastaman]

Nice hog!