Well my hunting partner and I found this hog area near an indian reservation. We think the hogs have been in here a very long time. It seems they must have wandered off the reservation and have lived wild here for a whille now. Maybe 20 years or so? Who knows. Anyway the difficulty of getting in there is significant as there are only game trails and no way to get anything but a horse, or a Rokon into the area. The landscape is filled with boulders and big rocks and just shoulder to shoulder sagebush. There are no roads or decent trails. You either hike in or wander the game trails on the Rokon. until you can get close to the game to fetch it.
Anyway, He went way overboard setting this hunt up. The feeders and the area were so well scouted that we had really easy early success. The bigger difficulty was getting the hogs out for a few miles through this difficult terrain.
He hunted the bait the first morning and arrowed a hog within an hour. It was a nice fat sow. She was about 175 pounds. His arrow blew right through and was never found. The ground blind he had constructed was giving him shots slightly up hill. There are no trees in this area. The bush is thick with sagebush. I loaded that sow and we drove him and the pig back to the area we parked. He took care of that one and I went to the same blind. I Parked the rokon about 500 yards away and slowly walked in. The wind was pretty stiff in my face. About 300 yards closer to the hide I heard some pigs fighting. They sounded close but I thought the wind might have been carrying the sound. I waited and could hear them within 50 yards or so. I climbed a small rock out crop and decided to glass the flat below me. I head them fighing again and the sound was really close, ........as in shooting distance close! I slowly creaped up the the top on the other side of this ridge and could hear them right below me. I was afraid to peek over the edge for fear they would see me.
I inched to the very edge and looked over with a single eye while lying on my belly. There were two boars and a sow. The sow was the one squeeling and running in circles as the boars tried to do her and fight each other. At one point the sow was mounted and the second boar mounted the first one so all three were stacked together. It was bizzare to be this close, I was within 25 yards now and could not move. The sow moved to my right into the bush and the two boars were fighting facing straight away. None were looking my way. I quicked kneeled and ranged the nearest boar at 26 yards. They continued fighting and trying to sniff around that sow until one was standing quartering away at about 22-24 yards. I drew and burried the arrow quartering away into the boar about 2/3 of the arrows length. He let out a huge squeel and spun 180 degrees facing me probably thinking his rival was there.
The other boar and sow trotted away and this boar followed but was unable to use his front right leg. I shot him well back of the legs so I was not sure why? He only went about 60-70 yards and began thrashing about. I slowly snuk in and he ws dead. I took the photo's you see here and loaded hom back to the camp. My hunting partner sat at the bait that night with no activity. I buthcerd my hog that night and the next morning. He sat at the bait in the morning and stuck another big boar.
The first one I took from the side of the cliff
another photo of the same boar.
He hit it high and it dissapeared. We spent the rest of the day searching and saw very little blood. We finally saw the boar with the arrow still inside him and sticking up. We followed along as the boar would only run ahead and stop. My partner went around the small mountain of rocks and I went to the top to glass. As he was folloing the hog It came right towards me and just below. I stuck an arrow right between his shoulders and he ran for about 50 yards and died on the run in a huge plume of dust.
So we each shot two hogs but only have three. That was enough work for the day and we finished up the butchering and departed.
loaded and ready to roll to our camp
