Panhandling

[Stressless]

15 trees split, bucked and stacked, only about 5% left up at the house, stacking it there for seawall and the fireplace in the Gally.

The split stack is 1Mx2Mx7M.

Laid one med sow out the other night, skinned and quatered for small smoker. Just about the right size to smoke whole, did thay with my buddy, Dan Labrador, immigrated from Cuba when he was 11... I got to cut the pig after roasting. Dan was a Crew Chief on MC-130's, passed due to cancer 10 years ago. He turned me onto the Cuban pig roast. When we get into construction gonna make one up front in the burn pit. Got the wood.

Made the stack upfront by the seawall and new, not yet built, Gally fireplace. Little more than a cord.

 

[Jamie]

I like where this is going.

 

[Stressless]

The Egin Base CC PIO has a sense of humor... it is fun to hear them spool up turn on the IP let it Bbbbrrrrttttt 4 miles away from from the seawall.

---

Last of the brush from clearing up front gone last nite...

 

[Stressless]

In case anyone is jonesing for some NaCl+H2O therapy- Okaloosa County pier got it's underwater camera working again.

 

[GoetzTalon]

Like watching an aquarium. Very relaxing!

 

[OO2]

In case anyone is jonesing for some NaCl+H2O therapy- Okaloosa County pier got it's underwater camera working again.

It was neat to see everyone lined up along the pier looking for a cruising tarpon last summer. I didn’t do too hot from the surf that week

 

[Stressless]

@OO2 Give a PM if you come back. I do that bit as well.

 

[Stressless]

Got a new privte parcel N of a local river. Cypress swamps amd AG, such as it is here in NW FL, up higher.

Owner said another guy had put a fenced hog trap on it, owner said I could use it if I want other guy hasn't been on the property in a decade. I'll only hunt wild boar here, although it had some a bunch of deer on it.

Scouted it out the other day, tossed out a camera and some bait. Place had been hit by rooting pigs s day or so prior to walking it... good sign.

Found the old trap sight.

Got after it, cleared the brush, fixed a couple issues with the old t-posts, added some new ones and cut off the old control box and camera.

Got the old lactch to work after a liberal application of lubrication.

Called Jager Pro, the old equipment manufacturer, talked to thier repair guy - sounded good to send it what I removed, vam and control box. He'd look at it and LMK the way forward.

I packed it up senate when he got it.He called and was really excited. Yeager pro is founded by a vet, and most of the guys that work for him are veterans as well.

Apparently the camera that I sent was the gen one of yegerpro from 2014, they had a new one on the wall.But they didn't have one that had been used. He said he put it on the wall and we laughed.Because any good unit has an operational trophy room. That old camera went up in their trophy room.

I put the kill light and camera on the trap bated it and within twenty four hours.I had boar inside the trap.

At this point I wasn't sure if I was planning to just hunt the bait, and pigs coming in and out of the trap, or actually refurbish the thing.

Bought the parts got the. in tofay and planning to set the feeder and refurbish the gate on site If possible tomorrow. If not Keith, and I'll pull it and weld whatever we need and take it back up and a week or so.

 

[Stressless]

Got the clearance feeder in, setup and running. The drop gate should get done this weekend.

Couple pics for scale.

soon

At the NAHB IBS show in Orlando getting schooled on all the latest home building possibilities w the Mrs. for the new home and Gally.

Can't do anything about it until the weekend.

 

[Stressless]

Talked with the landowner Sat afternoon, we agreed where the guy put the trap 12 years ago or so isn't a great place for many reasons so I told Randy I'd move it and all the trap parts ASAP.

Got my bud Eric lined up and we got after it this AM. Cut the hog pannels off the t-posts, pulled them tpost sum'bitches out after 12 years in the swamp. Only had one pannel grown into a Cypress root...

Got it all loaded up and moved about 600 yds to a an out of the way spot Randy said would work better for him.

Advice in any situation: Keep The Landowner Happy.

Took about 90mins to remove it, 12ga wire on tposts were a PITA.

about 3 hours to configure and set it up.

100% operational.

 

[Jackalope]

Nice. Did you stake those feeder legs down with every spike you could find?

 

[Stressless]

You're not kidding, so Eric worked forvthe 1SOW as a chief fabricator. He welded me a set of netal plates and rebar 14" in the dirt, 14" up in the leg. Leg segments are welded together l.

It'll get faq'd by a bear, pigs i think 30/70...

We'll see....

 

[Jackalope]

You're not kidding, so Eric worked forvthe 1SOW as a chief fabricator. He welded me a set of netal plates and rebar 14" in the dirt, 14" up in the leg. Leg segments are welded together l.

It'll get faq'd by a bear, pigs i think 30/70...

We'll see....

Time will tell. I've never round trapped just seen the videos. It seems when the gate falls they all run as one giant blob as hard as they can from wall to wall 3-4 times. I can see where a 200lber hitting a feeder leg would just demolish it.

 

[Stressless]

That COA has crossed my mind, exactly as in your description- my ace in the whole, bought it on clearance at Walmart last week....
My thoughts 30% chance of survival 70% it'll get smashed.

I'd be that FL man taking it back to the Chinese Embassy (wallyworld) with tusk gashes and pig sh@t on it. Take that China

 

[Stressless]

Four days, they found it. Now we watch and wait.

 

[Stressless]

Kids came down for a week to get some appointments done with the kids for moving down later this year. Sent them off on a date night.

First seawall fire of many with the grandbabys... if the wx holds a fire tomorrow with the full moon will be even bigger n better then the view tonight.

 

[Stressless]

Looking to drop it on Thurs night if they show up. Took four days for them to find enter the trap after we moved it.

While their sense of smell is impressive, they didnt mind my sweat/smell, had to cut and install an entrance gate thru the owners fence yesterday so we can get a truck close to trap.

Got a couple guys lined up to help and catch the lil'rooters to put in their pig enclosure to fatten up. The bigger ones we're dropping and roasting.

 

[Jackalope]

Heck yeah man good luck.

 

[Stressless]

Its interesting, feral pigs, wild boar whatever, are the easiest animal I've ever patterned.

WARNORD went out to the guys for Thurs evening. Mooch should have the video of knocking heads and catching the lil'rooters.

Edit:
I went up and added some sour corn today, confirmed with the guys sent the OPORD out for tomorrow night. Should be elucidating tomorrow night !

 

[Stressless]

Went very well. With them coming every night since the 27th, and only one night with just the sow I had high expectations.

i had changed out the solar charger/battery the day before and was trying to be conservative on the power. So set the system up to notify me when the camera tripped. Mooch came over about 1730 and we just setup in my home office and when I got a notification, I then tried the Live function.

The boys from Jager Pro did a good one with Spartan, their camera, front end App on the PC and mobile App are "exactly" like Spartan just different branding. They integrated a TX functionality to the camera to trip the gate RX in the box to close the gate, which is LOS.

So, I get the blip, bring up LIVE feed.. yep.

So shut LIVE feed down, popped a top and talked turkey hunting with Mooch... then BLIP! Notification. I have entertainment setup the PC screen to TV, on full-screen we watched them enter the trap.

Big sow and 6 piglets ... spring it or be greedy?

We waited and sure enough the boar came in about 10m behind the family group. As soon as he entered far enough and settled, I Hit the Gate release.

We got saddled up and headed up North of Yellow River where I set it up. While on the way I was surprised that the group settled right down, and stayed that way until we got within ear and eyeshot.

Coming in, racing back n forth grunting, barking, snapping... lol.

In that 7 day wait for my suppressor, the sub-sonic were fine without and did the trick.

Once the sow and boar were on the dirt, a couple of the guys, I brought two ladders to scale the fence for this. They went into the pen to get the 6 little guys, maybe 20-25# apiece. What a rodeo show. I watched until I couldn't take it anymore and climbed in. When I got in between the four of us, well, we had 230 years experience but all not quite 'agile', I had cut a gate in the fence and had 3'x4' chunk of hog fence left, we used that after some laffs!

This is the trailer for the full event lol.

I got three of the little squealers and we got them all in the pen. Plan to fatten those lil guys for two or three weeks, head knock and roast whole.

John, aka Mooch videoed much of it, he graciously offered to help skin, butcher into quarters and stow.

Two ~100-120# pigs in the cooler, 6 lil'rooters in a pen, males will get cut, get slop for a couple weeks and then we'll butcher 3 for some other buds. Chris will keep the three others to butcher later.

Really satisfying set of chores and tasks to get to this outcome.

Mooch put together a montage of the evening. Got the bpar clean,
The sow took one partial and went but not the clean 'stone' like spearfishing theu the main brian housing group, saw that and just dumped about 1/2 a mag into her main housing group.

A little later talking over beers w the boys the lil'rooters generally don't bite. . "Dont want'em to bite me! "