Wild
Hog Bowhunt and on the spot pictures -- by Robert Hoague
OUTFITTER:
Texas-S Bowhunting Ranch
| Interview
with Merle Smith of Texas-S Bowhunting Ranch | Web site of Texas
S Bowhunting Ranch and email hunt@texas-Sbowhunting.com
PAST HUNTS at Texas-S
Bowhunting Ranch: Hunts in 1999,
in 2000 and in 2001
& 2004.
2006
Bowhunt For Wild Hogs @ Texas "S"
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The Home Page For This Bowhunt
July 6 - Day #2,
Part #3
MID MORNING:
Seeing all those wild hogs
this morning really made me hungry (it was 11:52) so we decided to break
for lunch. First we loaded Rick Philippi's second hog onto Merle Smith's
4-wheeler and he took it to camp. We wanted to walk. The route we took
was the one that would take us by the most blow downs and brush piles.
Only minutes later as I
checked a blow down without noticing anything. But Rick whispered. "Hog,"
and pointed at the same
blow down. It is not easy to see hogs bedded amongst a bunch of limbs and
logs so I got to looking. A black ear got me on target. And there was more
black along the log the hog was laying by.
This was it. A few careful
steps and I was by a tree and close enough for a good shot. I drew and
put my bright green, top pin on the hogs ear and moved my point of aim
back into his body where the vital area was. (You gotta love the bright
fiber optics of a Spot-Hogg bowhunting site.)
I held steady and touched
the trigger on my release. The arrow hit where I was aiming ... and I got
an unexpected surprise.
Not one, but four hogs jumped
up and ran. They were laying all together and both Rick and I had thought
they were a single hog. The one I shot slowed and and turned toward a dried
creek. I ran to the creek and the hog stood looking at me. And dropped.
One of my home town friends
is constantly asking for a young hog to BBQ. This hog would fill the bill
perfectly.
Rick had walkie talkied Merle
already and we could already hear his 4-wheeler. wW loaded the BBQ hog
and Rick and I started walking again. Merle was barely out of sight when
he radioed us that he was looking at two hogs at the nearest pond.
We went there pronto.
Talk about chilling out
on a hot day, these two hogs were catching Z's in the water and mud. I
started my stalk directly downwind and 80 yards from the hogs.
Sizable trees were around
the pond and gave me sufficient cover. (The two hogs are in the bottom
left corner of the pics below.)
Carefully, I inched forward
one
step at a time ...
from one tree to another,
getting closer and closer.
I lined up behind the last
tree between the hogs and me and moved closer.
And closer. Soon I was at
the last tree. The hogs were still Z'ing in the mud 15 yards from me. The
black hog was almost triple the size of the tan one and I got ready to
introduce him to modern archery. I couldn't tell you why I did it but for
some reason I knelt down on one knee.
A twig snapped under my knee.
The black hog's ears moved, he heard it. I yanked my bow back to full draw.
It was boogie time for the
black hog and the smaller tan one fell in behind him. I don't like running
shots and didn't take the chancy shot. Forty yards away the hogs hogs stopped
and looked back. I was already tucked away in the greenery and they couldn't
see me.
They watched for almost
10 minutes. Heck, they hadn't seen anything or they would be long gone.
Maybe they would come back.
Nope. They finally walked
away.
And so did we, back to camp.
We took a pic of my surprise hog and then drove into Clarksville for another
delicious daily special at the Italian Bistro. It was so good I had to
have their chocolate mousse desert too.
When we went looking for
blow downs after lunch we had no way of knowing it was going to be a really
big afternoon in the woods for me ... and Merle was gonna find out why
they call them "wild"!
(Continued...)
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