Texas Hog Hunt

I was very intrigued by these animals. -Stout, very hairy, and jet black with white upward facing tusks, you might think as I did that using dogs to locate them is a little unfair. You might change your mind if you saw how thick the vegetation is in this part of the country. There is no sneaking up on these things as you might do with deer or elk. They are very smart, and if they hear or smell anything that does not fit the scene, they are out of there.

Though the actual hunting was done from a blind about 40 yards from the feeder, Emerson and I had to hike the mile to and from the blind a couple of times each day, and we made a couple of excursions to the swamps if only to prove to ourselves the animals really lived nearby. -We got a little exercise in, but not like elk hunting.   We had planned to join forces on this hunt, -my hunting buddies with my step-father’s friend, but I began to think a dry run without my posse was necessary. My hunting buddies are kinda bush-hippie, so I thought I should see how this goes.

Step-dad and friend were in a wheel-in horse trailer converted into a blind with its own feeder about a half mile from where Emerson and I were holed up. Our feeder went off each evening at 5 and 6PM and every corn admiring critter seems to know the schedule. By the second day, Emerson and I were killing time by playing chess on my smart phone in the blind as we were beginning to think that hogs were not as big a problem to the ranchers as we were told.

While I was taking my turn at chess, I thought I heard Emerson whisper ‘hawk’, and I looked toward the feeder expecting to see a bird of prey swooping down to take one of the visiting rabbits. You see this scene all the time in Colorado. Then I noticed, Emerson wasn’t looking at the feeder rather at the edge of the clearing. A Russian boar at about 100-120 pounds was checking out the scene and apparently decided it wasn’t his cup of tea. Hogs have horrible eyesight, but a great sense of smell and hearing. They are incredibly quiet and you would not think they could be this stealthy. The rabbits were more easily heard 40 yards away.

I did not see the first hog, but about an hour later a hog I estimate at 60 pounds arrived.   The second hog approached the corner of the blind on my side where there is no window, so the shot I took was cock-eyed, around a corner, and unsuccessful. It was also getting kinda dark. I’d’ve adjusted my position, but even the cocking hammer of the gun made the animal stop and take notice. It’s really hard to shoot and stay frozen in place. I was kind of surprised that Emerson did not take a shot as he had the better angle, but he was displaying a patience I was unwilling to match. Given his story of the first skittish hog, I figured this one was not going to stick around very long. It is just as well. A 60 pound hog is nothing to brag about.

Anyway that was it for our hog spotting. The next and final day we got skunked and eaten alive by mosquitos as a thunderstorm dropped three inches of rain on us. Again the smart phone helped to tell us when most of the storm cell had passed over us. -Amazing cell phone coverage in east Texas, not like the mountains of Colorado. We hiked back in the dark as lightning rained down over a flooded dirt road where Emerson stepped harmlessly on an eastern diamondback rattlesnake swimming in one of the puddles It was fairly small snake. We were guns drawn after that.

It was a pleasant road trip, and the cabins were very nice. I would do it again. All in all it was a good getaway.

Roxgilmartin