Well We are back from the trip to TX hill country, Wow what a great bunch of people down there. We had a fun time. In the last 6 months I have studied up and tried to learn all I could about hogs and hog hunting, I now know that until you see the area you plan to hunt you can't plan a lot in advance. I had my lights set up (focus point) and guns sighted to be 70 yds from the bait. Well as it turns out the distance was either way less than 70 or long shots. I should have just left all guns zeroed at 100 and went with it.
When we first arrived we met the man who manages the hunting priveleges on the ranch and he took us in a little hunting rig to tour the property he said one of us should bring a gun, well not 400 yds from the cabin we found a group of feral goats on the side of the huge hill. My friend Tim had his rifle with so he was able to take two of these goats right away. the shot was almost 110 yds very much at an upward angle. It was late afternoon and we were supposed to learn all the ranch boundaries so I said I would bring the goats down while they did the rest of the tour.
I got them down before they got back so I went and got my gun and a camera and went back up the hill.
The buck or ram was very strong smelling so we only took the head, but the doe was mild smelling and we had some good (never thought I would say it) eating off her for the 10 day trip, the stew was actually very good.
We put any remains of the goats in a pile area the manager told us to, and the next morning after scouting and finding the area Tim (my friend) had seen while learning the boundaries. We left a ground blind by that feeder all ready for the afternoon hunt and we went back to the cabin and decided to go put the trail camera by the meat scrap pile. We were kind of worried because we had no directions for the camera and were not sure if the set up was right.
We ate lunch and headed out to the blind for the afternoon/evening hunt. We saw many of the same deer over and over that week, some nice bucks and some very curious fawns who just didn’t know what to think about the blind. (in one location we had set it up inside a fence by a deer feeder just to keep us away from the hogs... we were a little worried at first) It was fun to see deer like that and not even get a bit of buck fever since we were there to hunt something else. But after seeing no hogs come to the corn, we packed up and headed back to the cabin. It just so happened that right when we were getting back by the cabin going past the road that goes to the goats we saw a flash from the trail camera about 250 yds away. We both looked at each other and thought there were coyotes or pigs in the meat scraps. And we drove over there quick and in the headlights we saw a group of pigs by the pile and one stood there as the others went off to the left. I was stopped and Tim stepped out and shot the one that was still in the light of the headlights. It dropped and squeeled So Tim got back in the truck and we drove up quick (120 yds or so), I was trying to get my pistol out and load it (had it in the pack in the back seat) and I heard a second shot, with a LOUD “HE’S DOWN”! And I turned to see a very happy and slightly shaken Tim. He said “I will never get out of the truck again until we know where the wounded pig is. I was looking toward the cabin and it was right behind me in the grass, it wiggled and I heard it so I shot it again.”
So It was the end of our second day and Tim had two goats and a nice 166 pound boar. We took it up to the meat pole and removed the back straps and they smelled fine, just like any pork, and there was at least an inch of white fat over the whole back. So it smelled good and we took 4 qtrs off and the back straps. Went in the cabin for goat stew, and had a small sample of boar backstraps with it for supper.
We set up the blind in that location for the next two nights but no pigs returned to the meat scrap pile for the rest of the trip. I hunted in back where we saw the most active corn feeder that had rooting around it, I sat there alone the last night in just a brush blind and Tim sat in his blind over by the place he shot the pig and goats. We both sat for maybe 5 hours that evening/ and got back to camp around 10 p.m.
We got up in the morning and checked where we had been watching and saw no pigs, and pulled the corn feeder tubes I had out. And I was just going to rest and call it a trip, but the sun was out and I figured it was just wimping out to quit, so since Tim was out glassing the hill and hunting I figured I would go for a little walk, and Ended up going way farther than I thought I would and went to the farthest hunting place we had been and then returned hooking around a huge hill then cutting up over the top as it was just starting to get to be toward dusk. I saw some great sign and I forgot my camera on this walk so didn’t get any more cactus/rock/hill pictures….
The last afternoon our license was still good I did get to shoot one of the goats, but I never saw any pigs other than when we drove up on them when Tim shot his.
I learned that if there are multiple feeders on a ranch you never know where the pigs will be, with a 2 day long rain ending the day we got there there were puddles every couple hundred yards in big flat rock pools. So hunting the water holes was out. With acorns dropping they can go anywhere and find food. The corn feeders are just a bonus for them. So this MN guy learned a lot about TX hogs in a 5 day stay in the TX hill country. I would love to go back sometime, but I will have to change the title from a “pig hunting” trip to “nature trip and cactus thorn pulling trip”. I was very surprised how rough the country was, While driving down we saw some hills and some flatter brushy country but all the sudden when we entered the hill country it got wilder. It was a very good trip and we had a fun time. Thanks to anyone here who helped prepare me for the HOG HUNTING part of the trip. I just was amazed at the country. I am not sure I will ever get to do it again, but we sure had a good time.
Oh- yeah the LED lights I made worked great to lighten up the coons running around on the bait, but we never got to use them for a hog.
thejanitor
