Wake Forum "up" again...

[Land_Owner]

Went hog hunting last Monday, since the deer season here is closed.  Was sitting in my West Tower Stand, watched the dawn change from dark to light, slowly scanned the horizon from right to left at 6:52 a.m., when I focused on a HUGE "hog" under the feeder 68 yards away.  The more I starred the bigger the "hog" seemed to become.

It was acting unnaturally (imo), just sitting there, leaning against the trunk of a 30" diameter-at-breast-height pine tree, which for a hog is an unusual practice.  I threw up the binoculars and WOW! there lies a HUGE Florida Black Bear (~400#'s) and NOT the hog I had thought in the first place (couldn't see the head at first). 

HE was waiting for the feeder to go off at 7 a.m. and when it didn't (battery low or out of corn) he began to walk around and his full height and breadth could be seen.  I secured my gear, waited for him to wander where I couldn't see him, quietly got out of the stand, slipped away, and went home.  No pig in its right thinking mind is going to forage in these woods with that bear hanging around.

The irony of the morning...as I left the property, within one quarter mile of my gate, on the north shoulder of the 2-lane State Road, there is a 150# boar hog rooting up the right-of-way.  In a half millisecond my idiot brain said, "You could shoot THAT hog!" 

Traffic was practically non-existent at the moment and I had consciously slowed down.  In the next half millisecond my right thinking mind said, "Are you nuts?  Shooting on or across the Public right-of-way is ILLEGAL!"  I drove on. 

Another half mile down the road, "Mr. Sheriff" was just setting up radar to hand out tickets to the unlucky speed merchants along that highway (and there are PLENTY).  I was glad that I slowed down to LOOK at that hog, because I was well under the speed limit when I passed "Mr. Sheriff", or I might have been his first customer, or WORSE if I had done the stupid thing and shot that hog on the right of way...Karma? 

[BUGEYE]

It's too bad you couldn't shoot the bear.
Bear ham and bacon and sausage are as good as a pig.
I know, because I ate a lot of it in Oregon in 1963.

[Land_Owner]

The bears are having a tough time - in part because of my corn feeder.  They started coming around four years ago.  Since then their numbers have increased and the hog and deer numbers have SERIOUSLY decreased. 

Two weeks ago I went hog hunting, drove to the property, found the Fish & Wildlife Bear Management gal with truck and trailer parked across my rural driveway, and helped her remove a bear cub of ~150#'s from the ditch that had been hit an killed by a car.  She told me that three weeks earlier she had removed a smaller bear cub from my driveway that had been killed by a car.

On 23 December '20 my hunting partner, on his way to some night fishing, drove by my gate and witnessed what he said was a "huge dead bear or large hog" that had been struck by a car lying there. On his return at o'dark-30 at night he said the animal was no longer there.  Hearsay, from the friend of a friend of one of the boys that lives near there, "confirmed" a bear had been killed by a car there.  I could not get a confirmation from the Bear Management gal on that.  She had no data and offered that sometimes, people pick up, transport, and keep bear parts illegally.  Figures

ALL of these incidents are in part due to the free food, the wandering of the bear, and their bad luck with the highway and vehicles.  I have let the feeder run dry and will leave it that way for three or four months in hopes the bear will wander off to some other feeder or habitat, but I am not holding my breath on that...

There is no season for bear in Florida.  There was one - one time - in 2015 (the former four decades before), under constant eco-wacko pressure to stop, that was so successful, MORE bear were taken in TWO days of a seven day season than the FWC's expectations, that they canceled the remaining 5-days of hunting.  Sound familiar and like the Wisconsin wolf hunt recently?  Prevalence is not easily estimated.  Only actual hunting pressure (and in my case vehicle "takes) reveals the spread and greater number of these apex predators.

[Lloyd Smale]

got lucky myself once. Was going to camp down a dirt country road. In MI you cant shoot from roads. I saw a nice buck about 30 yards from the truck and said that ones dead. Got the gun out of the case and somehow dropped the shell and had to go back in the jeep and get another shell. Got in and loaded the gun and looked over there and the deer was still standing exactly like it was staring straight ahead and not even looking at me. Something went off in my mind. Something was wrong. I yelled at it and it didnt even flinch. I then know absolutely someone wasnt right so i unloaded the gun put it back in the case and got back in my jeep put it in gear and here came the dnr out of a side road right by there. It was a mechanical deer. Dnr guy got snotty with me and said the mechanicals of the deer had just quit working or id be heading for jail. I laughed and said tough crap and put it in gear and drove away. Never could figure that crap out. To me its entrapment. About like putting a hundred dollar bill on the floor in the grocery store and arresting you for stealing from the store.

[Land_Owner]

It sucks to get tempted and happens a lot.  After an especially difficult three hot days of hunting in South Carolina, not seeing a single deer, I dejectedly drove for home just after dark and encountered a large 6-point buck standing on the road shoulder starring at my headlights.  I slowed, stopped, had the 45 Colt Ruger Blackhawk on the seat beside me, and through the window TOLD THAT DEER OUT LOUD to go back into the woods and to come out when (but forgot to say where) it was LEGAL to shoot it.  Didn't work, but another took its place the next morning, so all was well that ended well and though tempted, I didn't take the bait.  I said a few choice words about "karma" that the deer was not standing in or running across the road as I sped past just to ruin my truck and his meat.

[Mule 11]

They own em until they destroy your vehicle. Then it’s yours...