This Little Piggy went to Market!
Another one bites the dust at the K Bar Ranchs last pig hunt of the 04-05 season on Saturday, March 5, 2005. The ranch wanted to make the century mark in pigs taken again this year. They were at 98 pigs shot when we arrived at 7:00 am Saturday morning, March 5th. It was very foggy and predictions were for rain. The predictors were correct.
We spent the morning in typical K Bar style walking the dunes looking for pigs in their bedding areas. Intermittent cold rain and overcast did not keep us from sweating during these two and three miles hikes in the dunes. The wet loose sand and up and down terrain quickly take their tool on middle age desk jockeys. It is tough going and being wet sure does not help. We found and followed many trails, some with fresh scat, but none ended up in a pig. Found many beds where they HAD been but alas were no longer. My knees being what they are, bad, and six or more miles of hiking in sand had this hunter beat. Fortunately, it was lunchtime!
Lunch on the K Bar is always a treat. Today was no different. The corn bread in particular was excellent, rivaling Marsha Gails in taste and coming oh so close, but not quite. A great shrimp and sausage gumbo served up on rice was delicious. The food and rest came at exactly the right time and by 1:30 we were back after it.
We decided to walk a long field from the road to a large waterhole that we had been to before. The waterhole is surrounded by the most amazing amount of pig signs, routed up areas of earth, you can imagine. Last hunt we found many signs but no pigs. We had killed a pig on the road to jumping off point of the walk on the last hunt. Today was no different. On the drive to the jumping off point, Greg, our guide, yells there they are. Guinn Ferguson, our host for the hunt, bails out of the truck and nails one with his 30-06. Guinn is an excellent shoot and got this pig running. My knees delayed my bail out just enough to miss the heard as it stampeded off after Guinns shot. Well, K Bar now has 99 pigs in the bag for the 2004-05 season with one to go for one hundred.
Gregs idea is that they are now out feeding and that we can get more pigs at the feeders than by stalking. My knees agree whole-heartedly with Greg. It is off to the feeders that we go. We get to my spot on the South of the ranch near its border with the McElroy ranch just North of Crane at 3:30 pm. Greg puts me at a molasses lick. The wonderful amount of rainfall makes forge for the pigs easy this time of year. The pigs are looking for a sweet snack at the lick before bedtime. Sounds a little to close to home for comfort, Here piggy, piggy.
Greg is an excellent guide and checks the wind before helping me set up a hide. We set up cross wind from the lick box, about 40 yards off in a mesquite thicket. There is water inside a small pipe fenced corral, the lick box full of molasses, several salt and protein cubes out for the cattle. The road and several cattle trails converge at this point. I get my hide set. I have water, a cooler to sit on and my Stoney Point Polecat with my NEF in .45-70 with the Loopy fixed 6 by 36 sighted for 1 high at 100 yards.
The Stoney Point Polecat is an excellent hunting tool. It serves as a walking stick and single point shooting stick. It works well in both capacities and is invaluable in the sand as an aid. The dunes are literally honey combed with rabbit and rodent holes and burrows. Stepping down will often put you through the sandy roof of one their homes and trip you. A good staff like the Stoney Point helps prevent a fall, twisted ankle or worse. The Polecat is adjustable in height with just a twist of the wrist and a great rifle support when shooting. Positioning the Polecat at the balance point of the rifle you are using is fast and easy to provide steady support as an aid in shot placement.
Enjoy the out of doors. That is exactly what I did from 3:30 to 6:45 pm. The incredible beauty of Gods own West Texas on display for me. All of the wonderful sights, sounds, and creatures surrounded me. You can see many things just sitting still. It is times like these that I wish so for all of the Grandchildren to be here. I know they would never be still enough. Nevertheless, I hope so much to be able to get to show them the wonder of natural world around us. It is near spring, the temperature is almost warm. The clouds scud over in blue waves, the wind changes, and the temperature drops. Then I get full of the wonders of nature and I get like Robert my oldest Grandson, fidgety.
Ive seen and enjoyed the beauty, but I aint seen no pigs. The ascetics are nice, but a dead pig is better. I am going native. At six, I think nothing will ever happen and draw my SA XD-9 and blast a bunny that is munching grass near by my hide, so much for my nature idol.
It is now the early glooming. Night is not far off. I keep checking my scope and practicing my trigger pull. Breath, relax aim and squeeze so that noting in the sight picture moves. The Loopy is still sucking in more light than my naked eyes. Not really naked, I am wearing yellow hunting lenses to help with the failing light. It always amazes me the amount of enhancement a scope adds at the early or late times. Things hidden without the scope are still there and discernable with the scope. The Loopy is good, but it cannot make the night day, and day is rapidly giving way now. After three hours of sitting and communing, I am also about to give way!
The two times you gotta be ready, very early morning and at the last flicker of daylight. All the animals wanna be out and about then. True to from, here they come at 6:45 with the barest of fading light left. From my right to left, a black form does its tritty trot, tritty trot pig walk, jog to the lick. Right behind it comes another form, a lighter shade, but still a pig. All of the days walking and waiting have come to this moment. Same for all hunters, this is it, gotta make the shot or make excuses. The NEF is a single shot rifle. Pigs do not stick around to see what that sound was. Gotta pick one and kill it, or call em on the cell to come pick me up and talk about next time and it was just too dark and yadda yadda yadda. Well, this is the last hunt for this season. There is no next time. Lets just do it.
Shooting stick at the hinge pin on the NEF for the most accurate shot. The NEFs are funny that way. Cheek weld is good and tight. Good sight picture and cross hairs on the shoulder of the light colored pig. Breath, relax and I must of done it right because the surprise is a blinding muzzle flash that for brief instant renders me without sight. An aside, does anyone hear, really hear, their shoot. I see lots of stuff, some in slow motion, but I hear nothing for a few moments. 300 grains of jacketed hollow point have reached mach 1.5 in 20 inches evidenced by the thunderclap of sound. This 45-caliber missile then blasts through the skin and bone of his shoulder and goes on to sever his aorta. When sight returns I see out of my right eye the black pig break and run to the right. The tan pig, well he is all squeal.
The pigs had their forelegs up and on this shallow, 1-foot tall, molasses lick. The tan pig went down in a heap when shot, for an instant. Next instant the pig is up and becomes a continuous, very loud, very shrill squeal. He then blasts off in furious run with all of the oxygenated blood left in his body. Anger and fear propel this guy at the dead run, pun intended, in a big half circle that winds up with him charging me, or really at my bush. I am frozen. Not afraid, just totally frozen watching him run and then come at me. I think that I cannot reload; I am not fast enough to pull my pistol. I just sit in stunned amazement and watch him come. Just that tiniest increment of time that can pass before fear sets in, he piles up. He piles up in a giant sandy, rolling summersault 10 feet in front of me. Hes quite dead.
K Bar ranch got 100 pigs, the century mark, for the 2004-05 pig season. I am happy to have been a part of the hunt.
