Monday Morning Dec 1 Report

[Dave1]

I just got back from the hunt camp and the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. I took all of the Cur dogs with me so they were happy to get into the woods. It appears that most of the hogs at my hunt lease have moved off our property onto adjoining property to escape the deer hunters and their deer running hounds. I found much good hog sign right along our perimeter property lines but was hesitant to cast the Cur dogs there because of the likelyhood of them going onto the adjoining ranch.

Sunday morning at daylight it was cold, 38 degrees in my hunting woods. It was breezy and cold and I was hunting by myself. I found some whopper size hog tracks way back on an old clearcut and they were on our side of the property line but was wandering back and forth from our side to theirs. I decided to take a chance and try them but only used one dog in case the hogs crossed into the other property. I put a tracking collar on my big red Florida Cur dog and walked him out to where the hog had walked during the night or early morning hours. As soon as the dog crossed those tracks his nose went to the ground and he took off. I could see him working North up the edge of the clearcut and into our property but then he stopped, wheeled around, and came back by me doing about 100mph going straight into a big bad thick wet baystrand on the other ranch. He had figured out he was on the back track and made the direction change quickly. Within secnds he was long gone and out of sight deep into the bay. I stood there in the crisp cold air and waited. About 10 minutes later I heard him go into a wide open bay bark about 300 yards down into the bay. I took off at a run trying to move fast but it was slow going thru the thick vines, bay trees, mud, and water. It took me about 15 - 20 minutes to get to him and when I got there I could see he had three big hogs bayed up. They were backed up to an old blowdown and were just daring him or I to come any closer. The hogs charged the dog and he side stepped two and snapped the third on the hind leg to stop him, then went back into a full bay bark when the big hog spun to fight. With the big hogs attention focused on the dog that was about three feet in front of his nose and barking every breath, I backed up, made a wide circle around, and eased up behind the hog. When close enough (about 18"), I made the grab of the hind legs, and the bay dog caught the hog instantly. I jerked his feet off the ground and twisted his body all at the same time and manged to throw the hog. Once down, I had somewhat of a degree of control of the big animal. He was actually a her (a sow) and was a real beauty. She was about 200 lbs., real slick and shiny, and healthy looking. With the hog down, I coaxed the red dog off. I did not want to kill the sow but instead wanted to see her go unharmed. I hooked the dog to a lead rope, jumped off the hog, and ran all at the same time. She found her feet and headed off deeper into the bay hopefully no worse for wear.

I was wet. cold, and freezing but happy and thrilled at the bay, catch, and release. I am now ready to go do it all over again.

Dave1

[hunt4fun1]

Wow....great story.
You must be far more agile than I am.
That hog woulda ripped me a new one. ;D

[flhuntress]

very cool....must have had your adreniline just flowin'.
glad to hear you took your dogs out...bout time. ;D

[Dave1]

There is much more to these hog hunting stories than can be put into the few words we can write here, so I do the best I can to abreviate the story and still get most of the facts in there.

Releasing a "caught" wild hog can be tricky because they will come after you and/or the dog. The best thing to do is to have a second and/or third "experienced" person with you to help with all of this. When by myself it is tough to do, so I usually just hunt a single, easily controlled, dog.

When by myself and with a big aggressive hog I try to manuver the hog best I can into a place like in between trees where the hog has to go away from you when released. This will give you a second or two head start on him. If you and the dog can get out of sight quickly they usually will go on and leave. Too bad we don't have some of this on video.

Dave1

[hunt4fun1]

I'd love to see some of that on video.
You should really consider taping some of your trips.

[Dave1]

I would love to have some of this on video but handling 1 - 3 dogs and a big pizzed off dangerous hog is tough enough to do by myself, even with help it is tricky. Carrying a video camera and getting the action on film would not be possible without having another person to do nothing but operate the camera. It takes time to get the camera in there and do some filming and unfortunately we usually don't have that time. I have to get to the dogs and get control of the animal quickly to minimize injury and/or death of either the dogs or the hog. Occasionally I can get some 35mm still shots of the dogs baying a hog before the catch is made but even these shots are in thick brush/cover and dim light and don't turn out very well.

There are some good hog "dog" hunting videos on the market that were shot in the more open country in Texas that shows what happens on hog dog hunts. These videos are real and are very graphic.

Dave1