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Texas Hog Hunt
On Mar 26th 9 of us headed to Texas for a wild hog hunt.
We had access to 1200 acres to hunt wild, free ranging hogs near Clarksville Tx.
Bob,Gus and Brent left in the morning
The rest of us rolled at about 8 pm after the shop closed for the night
Shane and Jamie rode with me
Smartass and Brandon rode with Eric
We made pretty good time even with a slight "detour" in Kansas City.
The group rolled into Clarksville TX about 8am on friday morning. We got to the motel and met up with Bob,Gus and Brent
First stop was at Rick's feed store to get our licenses
Next stop was at the Main Street Cafe for some breakfast
After we finally got all our food and finished eating we were ready to hunt
We went back to the motel to meet up with Scott, who had got us permission to hunt the land.
He led us out to where we would be hunting. The trip out was our first battle with the Texas mud, man is that stuff slick! You don't really sink in but you can barely move and it balls up on your tires real bad.
Scott took me in on the quad to show me a little of the sign and find a place for a couple of us to hunt.
He then took Bob and Guss to the other side while the rest of us packed blinds and found places to hopefully see some hogs.
None of saw a single hog on friday! It started to rain pretty hard so we called it a day at about 5 pm.
Friday night we went to Paris for some good ole Texas BBQ. The food was great! I didn't get my usual rack of ribs since Shane was in front of me in line and got the last rack they had! That is the last time I let him get in line in front of me(smile)
Saturday morning it was only about 30 degrees outside which is cold for this time of the year there. We spread out to hunt, with some of us in blinds and some walking around. I got a call from Bob about an hour later, he had shot a big boar! First pig down!
A little while later, Brent stopped by my blind. He had been walking the whole property and hadn't seen a single hog. I was about done sitting in a blind so I started getting my stuff out. He thought he heard a pig squeal in the woodline about 120 yards away and went to check it out. I continued talking my blind down. All of the sudden I heard a loud grunt on a pig, turned around to see Brent nocking up another arrow and backing up fast. I thought he was going to get mauled by a pig so I grabbed my rifle and headed his way. I watched him shoot an arrow at a pig and saw another one heading my way. She saw me, turned and put the pedal down! She was running full bore about 75 yards from me when I started in on her with the .243 I hit her with the 3rd shot and put her down for good with the 4th. Her piglets were still there and we had been told by Scott to kill every hog we could. I reloaded and shot 3 of the 4 piglets. The whole thing lasted about a minute and we had 6 hogs on the ground! Brent said there were about 20 pigs, sleeping when he walked up on them. He shot a big sow first and then shot a smaller one. The arrow I saw him shoot was the 2nd arrow he put in that one as it ran past him.
Good thing Scott had a quad to haul/pull them all out of the swampy field!
By noon Sat we had 4 pigs to gut. Jamie dove right in and once I gave him a sharp knife to use we made short work of that job.
Brent and Eric pared up to hunt that afternoon, Brandon stayed on that side of the property while Smartass and I went aron=und to the other side to try that area. Between the 5 of us we probably walked 20 miles without seeing a single pig. Brent put a nice shot on a Bobcat.
The rest of the guys, except Bob, went to the place Bob shot his that morning.
Jamie was able to stalk up on a pig and put a great shot on it.
We met up at the motel and by the time we got 2 of them caped out and all of the iced down we barely had time to go get pizza at Pizza Hut. The town of Clarkville closes up at about 9 pm on Sat night. It is in a dry county so there are no bars or anything. No big deal to me as I don't drink.
Sunday morning 6 of us went back out hunting. Bob,Gus and Brent headed home.
Brandon shot a coyote on the walk to the back end of the property. Man, is that .338 LOUD!
When we got to the back end we decided to split up and stalk our way back taking a route that wouldn't mess up the spot Smartass was in a ladder stand. I hadn't gone 200 yards after splitting up when I heard a pig grunt and then squeal a little. The sound was about 70 yards away. I then saw some weeds move and heard a twig snap. I nocked up an arrow and started stalking my way towards the sounds. I heard a couple more squeals and stopped to glass the area. I scanned the spot and saw something red, too red to be in the wild? I moved the binoculars down and a little left and saw Eric, laughing so bad he was shaking. I then saw Shane, sitting next to him Yep, they got me! Called me right in! Pretty funny stuff. The only way it would've been better is if had been me, doing that to them.
I went over to them and we all had a good laugh.
We then headed to the trucks, the hunt was over.
Back to the motel to get our stuff and check out, nothing left but the 12 hour drive home.
It was a great trip.
I wish more of us coud've shot pigs or at least had the opportunity but that's hunting. Pigs have no patterns it seems and where there is sign doesn't mean there will be pigs. I learned a little and hope the rest of the group did as well. Maybe we will have better luck next time.
Special thanks to Scott for lining up a place for us to hunt. You couldn't find a nicer guy.
Also thanks to Brooke for making the brownies and cookies for us to eat on the trip.
Of course, thanks to everyone that went on the first Double Lung Hunt
There will be more.
Scott invited us to come back next year and he is going to line up some more land for us to hunt so we might be able to take a few more people with us.
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