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Wild Hog Bowhunting at Texas
S
Web site www.Texas-SBowhunting
or email hunt@texas-Sbowhunting.com
| Interview
with Merle Smith of Texas-S Bowhunting Ranch | Other
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To
Day 1 of this hunt | Day 2 - morning's hunt
| Day 2 - afternoon hunt | Day
3 - morning |
| Day #3 (continued)
A Red Boar Gets An Attitude
This time I wanted to get within 10 yards so I had a "for sure" shot. It was pretty easy, actually, the hog was already sleeping soundly. Pine limbs were everywhere around the hog and I slipped quietly toward an opening my arrow would pass through. Six yards from the hog and one step shy of the opening in the limbs the hog jumped up and ran to the opposite side of the blow down. It was a big boar, he stopped and looked back toward me. Dozens of limbs were between us and the hog apparently didn't recognize what I was. He walked slowly away for 30 yards and turned clockwise and circled me. Then he walked off toward the swamp, seemingly unconcerned. Merle Smith (the owner of Texas S Bowhunting Ranch) radioed Rick to see how we were doing. Rick called my name out loud, I heard it and located Rick. I told Merle what had happened. Merle told us he was coming in to see if he could find the red boar again. A few minutes later Merle joined us and I showed him where the hog had been laying and the direction he left in. "I'll find him," Merle said. It sounded to me like he could do it. He did. Twenty minutes later Merle radioed us to meet him at my Double Bull blind. The hog was bedded nearby in a mud bog. The brush was thick in the bog and we were only 15 yards away when Merle pointed to the red boar. It was on its left side with his belly toward me, but the mud gave him an upward slant and that improved the shooting angle. (I could even see his head.) This was too good to believe. I didn't need to do any figuring on this one, I drew my bow and shot the boar in the lungs. It came out of the mud going full tilt. Merle jumped the bog and took off to keep the hog in sight. Rick and I picked up the blood trail, a very good one, and trotted along it. Seconds later Merle waved at us and we went to him. "The hog is laying in mud in the creek He is still alive." We went there right away. The hog was on the opposite side of the narrow and shallow creek. "Be careful," Merle said to me, earnestly, "This is the most dangerous situation we can have." There were vines and brush everywhere and I slipped through them until I was past them and 8 yards from the hog, with nothing but mud and water between us. Once again I put my arrow up to the nock in the hog's boiler room. Water and mud flew everywhere as the red boar came out of the mud. He stopped. He was hard hit, dead, for sure, but not yet. And it was clear to me that he wasn't going to run this time. He looked for me and saw me. Everything went into slow motion and things started happening one frame at a time. I already had an arrow out. Fifteen yards behind me I heard Merle say, "God, he's going to charge." These days I use a string loop and sometimes I fumble around when I put the arrow on it. Not this time. The nock clicked in place with a sound that seemed very loud to me. I popped my release's calipers in the loop, sometimes I mess that up if I hurry, but not now, I locked them ... and drew. The hog was moving but suddenly he stumbled and fell, either from slipping in the mud or he was weakening from blood loss. Again, with a sound that seemed much louder than it could have been, I heard my arrow crack as he rolled on it. But he came right back up on his feet looking none the worse for the fall. I was on one side of the shallow creek, he was on the other. I aimed for his heart. And put my arrow in it. He reared up on his hind legs, looking almost as tall as me, and fell over backwards. But he regained his footing again, only this time he wanted out. He headed straight away from me ... and dropped in 5 yards. It was over.
Merle got the 4 wheeler and we took the hog back to camp. Rick packed up his gear and the meat from his two hogs and started home. I went into town and ate at Tracy's Cafe. Then I boned out my two hogs, packed all the meat in my cooler and put it in Merle's walk in cooler. That evening Merle, his wife Vanessa and I had a good visit. And the next morning I headed for home. Merle is quite a character. He is not a jokester but his wry sense of humor and sly one liners kept me chuckling. Stuff like his comment after Jim Autrey interviewed him for TV, "I sound like a hick but I'm not some hick who can't do two things at once. I can think one thing and say something else." So, would I recommend bowhunting at Texas S? Yes, I definitely would. Merle understands wild hogs. He really knows how to find them -- and it's not easy either. He has other animals too, exotic rams, fallow deer, axis deer, red stags and black bucks. Merle is a bowhunter too, and that always helps. Their web site is at www.Texas-SBowhunting or you can email them at hunt@texas-Sbowhunting.com
The Texas-S Bowhunts in 2000
|
Rick
and I split up to look for hogs. I circled in the direction that 
