this is a picture from two years ago showing the original setup of the shooting house
this was the view then
setup after the storm - shooting house sits just into the road
new view...juuussst a bit diff'rent
and now, back to the deer hunting story...
when the deer left, i'm talking as soon as they were crashing and tearing through the woods to the right, a hog zoomed across the field from left to right. zoom-zoom, there went another. in my mind, which is in slow motion mode right now trying to process what my eyes had seen, i'm saying, "dang, there went a hog!
dang, there went another hog!
.
well, if there's one hog, there's two. if there's two...you know.
when the next one entered the field at full gallop, i popped it. it was tan with black spots. down it went. another one entered the field, and another, and another. there were big 'uns and little 'uns. they was fast. i was thinking, again in slow motion doing the ol' processing what i had just seen thing when i said, "self, you can shoot those too!"
i racked the bolt and put another cartridge in the pipe and let 'er rip. black hog down, i repeat black hog down. well, it seems when one commences to shooting hogs and one goes down, the remaining hogs seem to scramble about, unsure what they should do. maybe i took out the head honcho, the leader. maybe they were trying to establish new leadership. it was chaos on a small level. some went left, some went right, some ran into each other, that was funny
. **think chinese fire drill.** when the second one went down, the remaining got their composure and just kind of stood around. maybe they knew their fate and conceded. just behind the tan and black one was another tan and black one with a little one in front of it, both forward facing. i let one fly to the big one and it and the little one went back into the woods from the side they entered.
all of that shooting happened very quickly i guess because i received a text from pete that simply stated, "damn". in my mind, it was slow and methodical but from outside my noggin, i guess it was split second fast and instinctual.
another hunter that had been across the road later asked if it was a semi-automatic i was shooting. guess i was spitting 'em out pretty fast
.
i texted the guide to let him know to send someone, as i had two hogs on the ground and one in the woods and that pete had a nice deer on the ground. i didn't get a reply so i thought i had the wrong number for texting so i called one of three numbers that i had. after we hung up, no more than forty-five seconds later, the first hog that i shot (the single tan with black spots) got up and re-entered the woods
. darn, never seen that before. it was kicking about a bit but i figured about two minutes of that and it would be napping. don't know what happened with that. we found blood where it had laid and the guys tracked it but could not recover. never found blood where the third one was (maybe my psyche wouldn't let me have the best shot on that one since the baby was in front of it, both forward facing...nah!
that one will just be unanswered).
he smelled terrible. i thought it was the blood i was smelling but the guys said no, that was musk (funky, yucky smell is what it is). i have never had the pleasure of smelling a boar hog in the wild until this point. nasty. no one wanted it at the skinning shed and it went on the gut wagon.
pete's deer
8 point with 17 inch spread if that's important. i don't measure antlers, just eat the meat. i think it was the best one brought in that night - not positive as i didn't stay at the skinning shed late.
total for thursday evening hunt - 15 deer / 2 hogs
rest of hunt continued later...
