rwlittle
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- Sep 20, 2001
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[attachment=36532:attachment]What a great time we had over at Chopper’s place. It was truly a pleasure meeting and hunting with some of my fellow JHO’ers. Rancho, thanks for setting up the hunt and definitely thanks for the boar and abalone Jambalaya!! Tasty stuff. Bummer about loosing the pig. Speck, fellow true southern gentleman, thanks for bringing up those pheasants…very tasty off the grill. Wtpops, thanks for the chili and the info regarding recurves. Madreagan, the tuna was killer!! Yes, ask Santa for a range finder. TRA, awesome orange chicken! Did you see anything on Sunday? Seriously guys, I think I gained about 5 lbs. from the feast….and another 5 lbs. from the brewski and Crown & Pepsi (thanks Chopper)…and gained 5 bucks in poker.
As many of you know, Chopper runs a good operation and the place has the piggies (and deer, turkeys, quail, coyotes..). Thursday was quite warm and the ground was crunchy (loud). So one of the reasons the pigs were scarce may have been due to the warning we were giving them via the crunch. I walked up to an area I call “poison oak hill”; it is the area below the lodge were 4 roads come together (not sure what this area is known as, but I call it that based on my prior history at Chopper’s). Last time I hunted that place 2 years prior, I would bust the pigs out of that hill every single morning. This time I decided to give it a looksee. Man, the fresh pig sign was everywhere!! No pigage, but plenty of signage. The only pig my hunting partner and I saw Thursday was in the headlights as we were heading back to the lodge.
Friday. That morning we hunted an area behind the lodge by “the neighbors” place. Old sign, nothing fresh…but did see a nice little forkie buck. Later that day, the rains came in and softened up the ground. The wind was swirling all over, so if you where down wind from anything you where upwind from it in a matter of seconds. Well for the afternoon hunt, I decided to go back to poison oak hill and see if we could get any luck. On top of the hill is nice and open with grasses and oaks. I searched for a nice little place to hide and wait it out. I found a place behind a large oak at the eastern edge of the hill by a nice trail leading down to the north side by a little funnel going down to the thick poison oak area.
At 4:45pm, I noticed movement to my left. It was a big black sow. *gulp* So I knocked an arrow…which took freakin’ forever!! (big mistake..I should have had an arrow knocked; lesson learned). Then noticed that there were actually 3 sows and about 4 or 5 little footballs following momma. They trotted along side of me at about 40 yards away and then went right down the little funnel. As I drew back my Mathews MQ1 (oldie but goodie), I decided to hit the last sow in line, I figured she was not full of milk as the babies were not following her. She looked like about 160 lbs. I lead her a little bit, and let my Muzzy 90 grain 4-blade fly. WHACK!! The arrow hit a little more forward than I was hoping for, but it sure as hell did the trick. She took 3 steps, twitched a bit and rolled down the hill about 30 yards. She was dead by the time I walked down to her.
Big thanks goes out to my long time hunting buddy, Ronnie. As he helped me drag that thing up hill and back down to the truck. As it turns out, the pig weighed about 210lbs. A nice clean sow. Took her to the skinnin’ shed where Chopper, Skeets, Ronnie and I cleaned her up and put her in the cooler. It sure is nice to skin your pig while Chopper says to you, ..”here ya go” as he hands you an ice cold Crown with a shot of Pepsi. Cheers.
As many of you know, Chopper runs a good operation and the place has the piggies (and deer, turkeys, quail, coyotes..). Thursday was quite warm and the ground was crunchy (loud). So one of the reasons the pigs were scarce may have been due to the warning we were giving them via the crunch. I walked up to an area I call “poison oak hill”; it is the area below the lodge were 4 roads come together (not sure what this area is known as, but I call it that based on my prior history at Chopper’s). Last time I hunted that place 2 years prior, I would bust the pigs out of that hill every single morning. This time I decided to give it a looksee. Man, the fresh pig sign was everywhere!! No pigage, but plenty of signage. The only pig my hunting partner and I saw Thursday was in the headlights as we were heading back to the lodge.
Friday. That morning we hunted an area behind the lodge by “the neighbors” place. Old sign, nothing fresh…but did see a nice little forkie buck. Later that day, the rains came in and softened up the ground. The wind was swirling all over, so if you where down wind from anything you where upwind from it in a matter of seconds. Well for the afternoon hunt, I decided to go back to poison oak hill and see if we could get any luck. On top of the hill is nice and open with grasses and oaks. I searched for a nice little place to hide and wait it out. I found a place behind a large oak at the eastern edge of the hill by a nice trail leading down to the north side by a little funnel going down to the thick poison oak area.
At 4:45pm, I noticed movement to my left. It was a big black sow. *gulp* So I knocked an arrow…which took freakin’ forever!! (big mistake..I should have had an arrow knocked; lesson learned). Then noticed that there were actually 3 sows and about 4 or 5 little footballs following momma. They trotted along side of me at about 40 yards away and then went right down the little funnel. As I drew back my Mathews MQ1 (oldie but goodie), I decided to hit the last sow in line, I figured she was not full of milk as the babies were not following her. She looked like about 160 lbs. I lead her a little bit, and let my Muzzy 90 grain 4-blade fly. WHACK!! The arrow hit a little more forward than I was hoping for, but it sure as hell did the trick. She took 3 steps, twitched a bit and rolled down the hill about 30 yards. She was dead by the time I walked down to her.
Big thanks goes out to my long time hunting buddy, Ronnie. As he helped me drag that thing up hill and back down to the truck. As it turns out, the pig weighed about 210lbs. A nice clean sow. Took her to the skinnin’ shed where Chopper, Skeets, Ronnie and I cleaned her up and put her in the cooler. It sure is nice to skin your pig while Chopper says to you, ..”here ya go” as he hands you an ice cold Crown with a shot of Pepsi. Cheers.
