Thunderflight
02-17-2008, 09:35 AM
Last week I jokingly asked my wife if I could head down to my buddies Lee's over the long holiday weekend to get in a quick hog hunt. To my surprise she said yes so with that I bought a three day liscense, smoked up my clothes, and yesterday around noon headed South.
My bow shooting has been consistently inconsistent so rather than use the common excuse that my equipment is primative and that is why I missed or wounded an animal I decided to do the ethical thing and use my .44 mag. I would also be backing it up with Dad's old Marlin model 36 30-30 incase a hog came, but was too far to shoot with my pistol.
The trip was longer than I remembered, but it gave me time to call family members and catch up on what has been going on in their life. Around 1530 I arrived at the lease and was happy to see that the forestry service had repaired the majority of the road going into the Heritage Preserve. There were several spots that you needed 4x4 to get through, but now the road is nice enough that I could drive my wifes Jetta and not worry about getting it stuck (better on gas mileage). Once I reached the parking area next to Lee's lease I was surprised to see how much the place had grown up. My last visit was almost years ago and the property was just starting to recover from the clear cutting that happened several years earlier. Over time the pines have grown to 10 or 15 feet talk and it is really thick and swampy.
I "kinda" remembered where the stand Lee told me to hunt was so vise following his directions I diverted off the road and headed straight back into the woods. Normally this area is under water, but with this years drought it was dry and very easy walking. I was amazed at how much the hogs had routed the area up and it like looked someone had taken a plow or hoe around the base of every tree. I've hunted this area least a dozen times and have never seen this much hog sign in the open woods. I thought "Shoot I might actually see a few hogs tonight", but based on my previous experiences I reminded myself not to get my hopes to high. http://www.websitetoolbox.com/images/boards/smilies/rolleyes.gif
When I reached the dike I couldn't find the two person ladder stand I had planed to hunt. I called Lee to check for directions, but it was getting late in the afternoon so he was probably on stand with his boys in Florida. After a few more minutes I found the set up about 50 yards further down the dike and after dumping some more corn I climbed into the stand.
It was around 1600 before I had settled in for the evenings hunt. I thought to myself how good it felt to be in a tree stand and how I need to appreciate this because I won't be doing much of this for another three years. The wind was steady, BUT was headed in the worst possible direction, right over the feeder and down the expected route of the hogs. http://www.websitetoolbox.com/images/boards/smilies/rolleyes.gif I thought to myself that this about as good a test for this scent smoker thing as you can get and that only time would tell if it worked or not...........................................cont ....
My bow shooting has been consistently inconsistent so rather than use the common excuse that my equipment is primative and that is why I missed or wounded an animal I decided to do the ethical thing and use my .44 mag. I would also be backing it up with Dad's old Marlin model 36 30-30 incase a hog came, but was too far to shoot with my pistol.
The trip was longer than I remembered, but it gave me time to call family members and catch up on what has been going on in their life. Around 1530 I arrived at the lease and was happy to see that the forestry service had repaired the majority of the road going into the Heritage Preserve. There were several spots that you needed 4x4 to get through, but now the road is nice enough that I could drive my wifes Jetta and not worry about getting it stuck (better on gas mileage). Once I reached the parking area next to Lee's lease I was surprised to see how much the place had grown up. My last visit was almost years ago and the property was just starting to recover from the clear cutting that happened several years earlier. Over time the pines have grown to 10 or 15 feet talk and it is really thick and swampy.
I "kinda" remembered where the stand Lee told me to hunt was so vise following his directions I diverted off the road and headed straight back into the woods. Normally this area is under water, but with this years drought it was dry and very easy walking. I was amazed at how much the hogs had routed the area up and it like looked someone had taken a plow or hoe around the base of every tree. I've hunted this area least a dozen times and have never seen this much hog sign in the open woods. I thought "Shoot I might actually see a few hogs tonight", but based on my previous experiences I reminded myself not to get my hopes to high. http://www.websitetoolbox.com/images/boards/smilies/rolleyes.gif
When I reached the dike I couldn't find the two person ladder stand I had planed to hunt. I called Lee to check for directions, but it was getting late in the afternoon so he was probably on stand with his boys in Florida. After a few more minutes I found the set up about 50 yards further down the dike and after dumping some more corn I climbed into the stand.
It was around 1600 before I had settled in for the evenings hunt. I thought to myself how good it felt to be in a tree stand and how I need to appreciate this because I won't be doing much of this for another three years. The wind was steady, BUT was headed in the worst possible direction, right over the feeder and down the expected route of the hogs. http://www.websitetoolbox.com/images/boards/smilies/rolleyes.gif I thought to myself that this about as good a test for this scent smoker thing as you can get and that only time would tell if it worked or not...........................................cont ....