Results on the Cottonwood Ditch with mischief209

[CottonwoodHunting]

Last month I had a chance to guide asaxon & buddies (round 1) on some property to try our luck at some pigs. Fast forward a month later, I'm guiding mischief209 and he brought along RG, a guy who had previously hunted pig & javelina in Texas, RW, a guy who is pretty experienced at hunting (way more than I am, to say the very least) and ZA, who had never hunted before but used to be in the army.

The four guys arrive on Friday, Feb 28th around 1pm. After they settle into their rooms, we start around 3:30pm at the far end of the "Cottonwood Ditch" (trademark asaxon). The plan is work our way back along the ditch to the center of the Ranch where the house is. Its pretty obvious early on this side of the Ranch has only sparse foliage, so the plan to "jump pigs out of their beds" isn't looking too good.

Suddenly we get word on our radio that a huge pig is booking it our way! I'm guiding RG at this point, and we run to the edge of the Ditch to see if RG has a shot, but the pig is 250+ yards down running away at breakneck speed and quickly disappears. Aw snap. We keep pushing.

We start to see tunnel openings (pictured) in thorny berry bushes.



After walking a few miles we're back near the house and the sun is setting soon. We're talking about calling it quits as we get close to the house, & then boom! We don't see anything but hear ZA's gun shot! RG immediately takes a knee and preps for pigs to come running. Next thing I know RG is off and running with ZA. It turns out ZA made a body shot on a sow that miraculously kept running after taking the bullet. After a little bit of maylay, the sow ended up sprawled across a berry bush only 150 yards from the house. After all that walking, we end up nabbing a pig that close to the house?!



To be continued...

 

[jerryt]

nice start

 

[7MMHunter]

This is looking good so far!


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[MGDeer]

cool story and harvest.

 

[CottonwoodHunting]

Its Day 2-- Saturday morning. We head out at 5:30am. This time, we have the same strategy, except we start at the opposite end of the property. We take a flank formation with two guys on the outside and two guys in the Ditch weaving through cover.

View attachment trim.7FE35AE6-3FC9-44CC-B3FC-DC01BA4ADEA9.MOV

I'm flanking wide left with mischief209. There are cows grazing in and around the Ditch. Instead of flanking pigs, we're pushing herds of cows that stay a few hundred yards ahead of us. They're moo'ing and probably spooking our pigs before we even get to them. Good thing I made sure to tell the guys "if it looks like a 1,000 pig, and it says 'moo,' don't shoot it!."

Me and mischief209 try to flank wide around the cows to the left, but, we can't get in front of the cows. Regardless, I take mischief209 to a hill to stand on. Hopefully the other guys push pigs toward us. We hear a shots fired and rush to the hill top. This is where asaxon had a "pig explosion" last month.



We stand there for 15 minutes. Nothing. Then, a little brown piglet runs by-- too small. We wait another 15 minutes. No action. We radio the other guys. The flank formation worked for them on the OPPOSITE side of the river-ditch. RW saw a group of pigs and couldn't help but choose the multi-colored one. Apparently this 48 lb young boar looked bigger from a distance!



To make a long story short, we get three pigs Saturday.

View attachment 80252

To be continued again...

 

[dirtdog]

Eric, thanks for a great hunt. I'll be back for a bigger pig soon. R. W.

 

[REM3006]

I'm excited to hear what happen on Sunday...

 

[CA Karen]

Cool story!

 

[mischief209]

I swear i didnt split my pants and have orange drawers on, its my knife in what looks to be behind my back for some reason, must be the angle of the pic. Im gathering pics from the rest of the crew and i will post up a nice story with some other pics that erik my not have. This is a great picture, one of the few times it was not rainning.

 

[CottonwoodHunting]

Eric, thanks for a great hunt. I'll be back for a bigger pig soon. R. W.

R.W., Sounds like a plan.

I'm excited to hear what happen on Sunday...

Im gathering pics from the rest of the crew and i will post up a nice story with some other pics that erik my not have. This is a great picture, one of the few times it was not rainning.

I'll let mischief209 tell the rest!

 

[spectr17]

Rootin tootin good shootin.

Orange bloomers eh m209? That was funny, it does look like your split your britches.

 

[huntingbret]

Great job putting guys on pigs. Looking forward to you know what. LOL

 

[THE ROMAN ARCHER]

Thanks for sharing your successful hunting adventure story, and congrats to all!....tra

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[mischief209]

Heres my side of the story, ill just start from the beginning. Some of this stuff Erik may have already mentioned but its easier to start fresh then jump around and try and fill in some details.


Day1, we head out about 4 and its raining like hell. We go down to start at the east end of the river and start a push with 4 guys. We had myself and R.W. on each side of the river bed. RG was up top on the north side with Erik about 200 yrds infront of us, and ZA on the south side about the same distance up. Me and RW are down busting bush seeing if we can stir anything up, about 20mins into it we bust a 250+ Hog. It sidelines across the levy about as fast as a cheetah, all we had were ass shots. I radioed/yelled to RG that its head its way. The hog went down into the river bed and hi tailed it into the next county. By the time RG got there it was to late. So 20mins into the hunt the blood is pumping,still raining and starting get rain harder. Everyone pushes for about an hr and nothing. The sun comes out its about 530 and prime time. Boom shot goes off from ZA side, 2 shoots. All i can see is rob get down into a kneeling position up top. He sits there a second and spots 2 pigs running across the river to his side, takes off running to try and get into position. By that time pigs are long gone. We wait for about 10 or 15 before we go up and see if we can find ZA incase something decides to come back our direction. Go up and find ZA and he searching for his pig, cant find it, no blood starting to think he missed. He said he came around some big brush and heard to pigs snorting aggressively, snuck his way around intill he got an eye on them. At this time hes about 80yrds and and puts a shot on the biggest of the 2. After the shot and the recoil he comes back down to see 2 pigs running across to RG side and shoots 1 more time. Clean miss. Now he sees these 2 pigs run off and thinks some how he missed a broad side 80yrd shot on the pig. We all get up there and are talking about it and RG goes around a huge thorn/berry bush and lone behold the pig piled up right before it made it inside. If he made it inside we would have never known and just though he missed the shot. So what happened was, he shots the pig, it turn and runs into the bush, with the shot 1 other pig bust out of the hog house and thats what he seen running when he came back from recoil those 2 pigs. We must have walked 2 miles in the pouring rain, only to have shot this pig a few hundred yards from the house. Literally could have sat in a lawn chair from the back of the house with some Binos and then got down to the barbered wire fence a few feet down the hill and shot those pigs, But what kind of fun would that have been. So we drug the pig up the the house and off to the cleaning station within minutes to start the next process. Could not have planned it better. All in all, 4 pigs seen the first night,1 down,many to go.

View attachment 80276 121ibs Sow

Day 2, we get out a little behind schedule but not bad. This time we go to the opposite end of the property and do the same thing we did the night before except we mix up rotation. Im now up top,north side with erik, RW is down in the river bed. The river is pretty dry down here so he able to walk down there the whole time. ZA is uptop south side, and RG is busting bush in between RW and ZA. He kinda bouncing up from the river and back down busting bush, looking for hog houses. All me and Erik seem be be doing is herding cattle, couldnt have messed are plan up anymore then they did. All we can do it high tail it to the opposeit end of the cattle gate and hopefully they push back were they came from. Well it worked, we get to the top of the hill where we wanna be, only bad part is we got a bit infront of the other guys because we had to run and get infront of cattle. We are not sitting there to long when we hear 1 shot and then a war zone goes off. I get into a shooting postion waiting. Nothing but a cute brown piglet hauling ass. We wait a tad and radio down to see what was going on. All i get back is "3 pigs down". You gotta be shitting me, where the heck is mine. We sit on the hill for awhile longer and head down. We get back and get the story. RW is walking down the middle of the river bed. Spots pigs crossing about 200yrds up. Sets his eyes on the one with cool color. There was 5 or 6 pigs crossing at the time, some bigger but he liked the color i guess, and being 200yrds out it probably looked bigger then it was. So he shoots these pigs take off up the hill towards RG and ZA. ZA is 200yrds behind the other 2, he got held up taking a leak. RG said the pigs came running up the hill in his direction. He got ready turned and shot the front pig on the run. When RG shot he said there must have been atleast 15 pigs running in circle from the shots. luckily for ZA and the nature calls stuff he was just far enough back that when RG shoots the pigs turn and head the other direction and out the barb wire, into the pistachio orchard. ZA shoots the front pig as its going under the barb wire and the pig lays down on the road and ZA shots 1 more time to finish. So to wrap that up, RW shoots 1 down in the river, the pigs run south towards the other 2, RG shoots his pig about 15yrds from the road, and when he shoots more pigs come out of the wood work and they feed right into ZA's hand. ZA's pig is dead on the dirt road, we drag RG a couple feet to the dirt road and RW just throws his over the shoulder and carrys it up. This is ZA's first hunt, just got his hunting license a few weeks back and kills 2 pigs before i even think about shooting at one. We all have 2 tags so hes done but willing to go out in the evening to help the rest of us bust some brush and help with the push.Its now 7:30am and were headed back to the cleaning station with 3 pigs. ZA 134ibs young boar, RG 152 Very fat sow, RW 48ibs very young boar.

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Day 2 second Round 4:00pm we head back to where the other pigs were shot to see if we can stir up more, We walk 2 miles and jump 1 pig. At this time everyone has a pig except me and i now take the position uptop south side where all the pigs have been kill in the last couple days. Lots of sign but we just couldnt kick any up and spot any pigs but 1 that no one had a shot on. Get back to the house knowing i have 1 more shot in the morning to make this happen.

Day 3 we got back and start from the begging and start the final push, with me uptop again, RW is moving up and down from river bed to the top busting brush. RG is walking the river bed and ZA is on the other side out of tags but looking for coyotes, as we have seen 2 the day before, but also helping us spot some pigs. We are almost to the end, i can see the house and the oh shit im not getting anything feeling starts to kick in. We continue to walk and i come across fresh pig tracks on the dirt road over top of our tire tracks. There close, but how close. Walk a few more feet and come a across a rototill-ed section of grass. Were getting warmer but also closer to the house. Bam all the sudden im sneaking down the road and see them. Theres 5 pigs bunched up in the tall brush. They spot me, take off across the river. RG is a little back in the middle of the river, sees the pigs takes aim, shots,misses. The pigs turn and head back up my direction. i see them coming but dont have a shot, all i can see is black spots running through the brush, but there headed right at RW. I know this and take off running towards the barb wire fence knowing there gonna run up to him hang a left and out the barb wire into the field, just like they did they day before with ZA and RG's pigs. Well the stars align, i get up to the fence out of breath, 1 first 1 inline is the biggest, he busts through the barb wire, i shot and knock him down about 10yrds in the field. i hit him high in the spine, paralyzed but alive, take a placement on the post and ficnish the job. As i go out to see what ive got i can tell its a big one. Get up there and its a big boar with big teeth. Drug the hog a few yards back to the road and got the truck and loaded this guy up. We get back and put him on the scale and he weighs 190ibs. So moral to story dont give up, i shot the pig about a 1/4 mile from the house. In about 20mins my trip was over but instead i came away with a beast. Cant thank Erik enough he put us on pigs every day, the accommodations were great, the property was awesome and this was the least i could do to help promote his new business. We ended with a total of 5 pigs/4 guys couldnt have asked for better.

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[7MMHunter]

Thanks for the full report mischief 209! What an awsome hunt. Congratulations to your hunt group and Erik of course! Looks like you all had a blast.

7MMhunter

 

[jdm49]

Great story. Congrats on the final pig. I am surprised that big boar in the last picture was not more than 190 lbs. He looks pretty big. Or was that 190 after field dressing?


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[mischief209]

Thanks alot, it was a blast, so exciting jumping those pigs and chasing them down trying to put a shot on them. Every time we would bust pigs that theme song in my head would go off from the old duck hunter game, meaning you got about 20seconds to nab up all the birds you could get. 190 before field dressing, it was a big guy with no fat, nice and lean, im guessing if he had the amount of fat some of the others had it would tip the scales well over 200. Book your hunt now before its to late. I wish i had pics of the house we stayed in, but it was awesome, built early 1900, had full kitchen and bath, nothing like a shower after all the walking and filed dressing. Thanks again guys any questions id be glad to help out

 

[CottonwoodHunting]

Thanks alot, it was a blast, so exciting jumping those pigs and chasing them down trying to put a shot on them. Every time we would bust pigs that theme song in my head would go off from the old duck hunter game, meaning you got about 20seconds to nab up all the birds you could get. 190 before field dressing, it was a big guy with no fat, nice and lean, im guessing if he had the amount of fat some of the others had it would tip the scales well over 200. Book your hunt now before its to late. I wish i had pics of the house we stayed in, but it was awesome, built early 1900, had full kitchen and bath, nothing like a shower after all the walking and filed dressing. Thanks again guys any questions id be glad to help out

Thanks for the write-up. Glad you guys did well out there! Haha duck hunter theme song, nice. As for the house, it isn't fixed up too fancy, but it has the basics!

 

[Short-Track-Champ]

Cool deal Erik! When I was a youngster we use to dove/quail hunt just up the road a bit from that ranch. We never did jump any pigs but knew there were some around. Sounds like fun and a good deal. Hopefully I can plan a hunt sometime in the future (maybe with some trade work). Keep up the good work.