2006 Bowhunt For Wild Hogs @ Texas "S"
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July 5 - Day #1, Part #3

AFTERNOON HUNT:
When Rick Philippi and I returned to the Texas-S I asked Merle Smith if he had a place to put my CamTrakker (and possibly take some wild hog pics). Merle had just the place and drove us to the North side of the property. We followed him to a slope in the woods that had a lot of hog trails. Then he and I mounted the CamTrakker to a tree with a Rope Ratchet. It was ready to go in a snap.

Then Merle took us to his holding pen. He keeps new hogs -- that he bought from hog trappers -- in the pen. They generally stay in the pen for 2 to 3 days and then are released. Today two hogs were in the pen. They were laying in water in a corner of the pen.

 Check out the toothy grin on the black hog. After I took this picture it started popping its jaws and charged us, stopping only inches from the heavy, hog wire fence that was between us.

 To give you an accurate picture of the size of this bad boy Rick went to the fence and I stood on the opposite side and took a picture as the hog tried to dig under the fence and hang out with Rick. 

My watch read 4:38 as we went into the woods again. This time Rick had my Sony and I had my BowTech, it was my turn to hunt. My favorite way to hunt these east Texas wild hogs is to find them where they bed down and slip up on them. Fallen trees and brush piles are prime choices for hogs to bed  ... so that's where we started looking. 

Good binoculars are helpful in this situation. I like the 10x40 power of the Nikon Monarch, I can hold it steady enough that the view is not shaky and their extra magnification makes it easier to see what's around than the 7 power types.

In the picture below I glassed a black hog laying by the logs in the picture. Your best approach for getting close is from the rear. But the wind was wrong for that and I came in from the side ... and the hog made me, and as you can see, it trotted away. 

As we walked around we saw some wild hogs in an open area. They were 80 yards away and I couldn't get to them without spooking them.

 So we went back into the woods. Soon we saw another group of hogs and we tried another push. Rick worked his way in front of them and when they saw him they pushed all right, but not in my direction.

In hopes of cutting them off I circled wide and came to a dried up creek bed. As I glanced around for a place to hide I saw a bunch of hogs in the trees. They were walking my way.

Fifty yards up the creek I noticed a wide hog crossing cut deep into the banks of the creek and wanted to go to it. But the hogs were already in view and I couldn't get to the crossing without being seen. I knelt down behind a nearby tree and kept track of the hogs with my binocs. There were over 60 and several were large, mature long-tuskers. They came slow. Things looked promising.

A couple of the front hogs walked through the creek via the hog crossing and went uphill. The rest followed them at a leasurely pace. After they were gone I called Rick on the walkie talkie. It was already after 7:00 and we hiked back to the lodge. (Continued...)

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