I promise that’s not a typo… Well, it is, but it was on purpose. A few years ago, my dad and I were able to go on an awesome hog hunt in Estill, SC. {I know what you’re thinking- we always hunt in the most obscure little towns. Yes, yes we do. Sometimes it’s the places you’ve never heard of that have the best hunts!}. This hog hunt was a two day adventure with 3 hunts total, allowing us one hog per hunt. We have been hog hunting plenty of times at our place, and while my dad has had several great successes, I had yet to bag one. You better believe I was ready for it.
We arrived in the early afternoon, just in time to get our bags into the lodge, throw on our camo, and head to the stand. Once there, we settled in for the long haul (about 4 hours in the stand… talk about fanny-fatigue). Now, as long as I am seeing/hearing things, I don’t mind being still for so long. If not, then I tend to get a little bit antsy after the first hour or two. Thankfully, after about an hour, I started hearing a strange crunching sound. It sounded almost like a deer or other large animal walking through the woods, but something was a little off with the timing of it. I could hear it loud and clear for a few minutes, then it would stop for a few beats, and it never got much closer. After nearly 15 minutes of this, I thought I was going to lose it. Dad, being a little on the aged side (love you! :)), and after years and years of shooting, had yet to hear what I kept trying to point out. In fact, he still hasn’t heard it! Finally, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t an animal walking, but a chomping of multiple mouths. Sure enough, about 10 seconds later, my dad saw movement up ahead. “Hollis! LOOK!” Sure enough, there were 8 small hogs going to town rooting around the edge of a path looking for grub. “I TOLD YOU! I knew it,” I said to him. Aha! I’m not going crazy! After a few minutes of watching them, I got my rifle up, put one in the cross-hairs, and pulled the trigger. I could already taste his delicious little self after a long roast in my oven :). And that’s exactly what I did.
The adventure didn’t stop there. The next morning’s hunt proved to be a futile effort, but that’s how hunting goes. All we ended up seeing were turkeys- still enjoyable to watch, but my trigger finger was getting itchy. I was not going home without Mr. Big, and I could feel it in my bones that the third and final hunt was going to be a good one. In another stand bordering thick woods and an open field, we settled in that afternoon and waited. And waited. And waited. And watched close to 20 of the biggest bucks and does I have ever seen lazily munch on the grass, blissfully unaware of our existence. If only it were deer season, I could have emptied my bank account paying for the mounts of those beasts. At long last, a huge group of hogs came through the woods, and I set my sights on the biggest one. At the time, I thought it was just a huge sow since I couldn’t see any tusks, but at that point I didn’t care. She was huge, and size was what I was after. Once we did some scrambling to rearrange ourselves in the stand so I could take the shot, I lowered the boom once again. That big old thing went right down, and didn’t move again. I was so excited, I practically flew out of the stand to admire my work. That’s when we saw them. I could see my dad’s wheels turning in his mind at the very same time. There were tusks. I had gotten Mr. Big, after all! It is such a good feeling when hard hunting and patience finally pays off. Six months later, Mr. Big was up on my wall.
