My hog hunting addiction started.
I had been working out of town in Chicago rebricking a coke oven. My wife was at home pregnant with our son Zach. Night shift sucked so there wasn't a bunch to do besides drink. Well we got a break from the job and brought our bows back with us. Didn't take long to find an archery range and we were happy campers again before work every day. Then came the fact that we were missing almost all of Ohio's archery season. One day after leaving the bow shop I picked up a Petersons Bowhunting mag and read a story about an organized bowhunt in South Texas for javelina and hogs. We decide we were doing the hunt as we would be laid off by then. Come March, myself, long time bro Jeff, and an idiot from Detroit were headed to Texas.
We came away from that hunt with one javelina and a few misses. I seen a different land that I wasn't used to hunting and animals I had never seen before. It was so cool to be hunting around cactus and rattlesnakes! I was hooked even though i didn't bring back an animal that first year. As a matter of fact, it took me three years to finally draw blood in the brush country.
This hunt started as a javelina hunt where there would be about 200 or so shot each year, all with bows. But there was never more than 10 or so hogs killed. The hogs moved at night and were just taking hold of this ranch. Night hunting was not permitted, and you would hear the hogs waking up when it was time to come in. It didn't take us long to figure out a way to get after the hogs. We started hunting a 6500 acre pasture that was walk, or bike only. All the other pastures had trucks and atv's flying around them. We also got to know some good guys from Texas that taught us a few things about hogs.
We started concentrating our efforts on water & mud. I had found a dried up creek system that still was holding puddles here and there. It was way off the roads that the rest were hunting and was full of hog tracks. Next thing I need to do was figure out how to hunt it. Being a twenty foot off the ground guy from Ohio wasn't helping here. I decided to cut in a ground blind in some tall brown grass and hope no snakes would be waiting for me. Sure as shit about an hour before dark I hear squeals coming through the bush. I'm on my knees with a bow and about to encounter wild pigs at face level. Now I'm picturing a big old boar coming up that creek ready to mow me down the first time the wind shifts and he smells my nasty ass. Instead two young sows and about twenty piglets come into view. My heart was still racing a mile a minute and I'm trying to pick out one of the sows. It didn't take but seconds and I had a sow slightly quartered to me at 8 yards. I drew back and settled my pin on her neck. That should give me an exit right tight behind the offside shoulder.
To this day I don't remember releasing the string. All I remember is seeing my arrow bury in her neck. She made a high pitched squeal and all hell broke loose as the other pigs scattered. She made it a total of twenty yards before she ran into a big prickly pear and piled up in front of me. After skinning and gutting her we seen I took out the top of the heart!
This was the start of my hog hunting addiction.
My bike hunting rig!
I had been working out of town in Chicago rebricking a coke oven. My wife was at home pregnant with our son Zach. Night shift sucked so there wasn't a bunch to do besides drink. Well we got a break from the job and brought our bows back with us. Didn't take long to find an archery range and we were happy campers again before work every day. Then came the fact that we were missing almost all of Ohio's archery season. One day after leaving the bow shop I picked up a Petersons Bowhunting mag and read a story about an organized bowhunt in South Texas for javelina and hogs. We decide we were doing the hunt as we would be laid off by then. Come March, myself, long time bro Jeff, and an idiot from Detroit were headed to Texas.
We came away from that hunt with one javelina and a few misses. I seen a different land that I wasn't used to hunting and animals I had never seen before. It was so cool to be hunting around cactus and rattlesnakes! I was hooked even though i didn't bring back an animal that first year. As a matter of fact, it took me three years to finally draw blood in the brush country.
This hunt started as a javelina hunt where there would be about 200 or so shot each year, all with bows. But there was never more than 10 or so hogs killed. The hogs moved at night and were just taking hold of this ranch. Night hunting was not permitted, and you would hear the hogs waking up when it was time to come in. It didn't take us long to figure out a way to get after the hogs. We started hunting a 6500 acre pasture that was walk, or bike only. All the other pastures had trucks and atv's flying around them. We also got to know some good guys from Texas that taught us a few things about hogs.
We started concentrating our efforts on water & mud. I had found a dried up creek system that still was holding puddles here and there. It was way off the roads that the rest were hunting and was full of hog tracks. Next thing I need to do was figure out how to hunt it. Being a twenty foot off the ground guy from Ohio wasn't helping here. I decided to cut in a ground blind in some tall brown grass and hope no snakes would be waiting for me. Sure as shit about an hour before dark I hear squeals coming through the bush. I'm on my knees with a bow and about to encounter wild pigs at face level. Now I'm picturing a big old boar coming up that creek ready to mow me down the first time the wind shifts and he smells my nasty ass. Instead two young sows and about twenty piglets come into view. My heart was still racing a mile a minute and I'm trying to pick out one of the sows. It didn't take but seconds and I had a sow slightly quartered to me at 8 yards. I drew back and settled my pin on her neck. That should give me an exit right tight behind the offside shoulder.
To this day I don't remember releasing the string. All I remember is seeing my arrow bury in her neck. She made a high pitched squeal and all hell broke loose as the other pigs scattered. She made it a total of twenty yards before she ran into a big prickly pear and piled up in front of me. After skinning and gutting her we seen I took out the top of the heart!
This was the start of my hog hunting addiction.
My bike hunting rig!
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