Before we set our bags down James was trying to feed us. What an interesting character James turned out to be…I miss him already. After a quick tour of the compound James took us into the Chat Room to give us a rundown of how his operation works, show us some pictures from his game cameras and tell us some of his crazy ass stories. “First off, sign these papers” James said. Then he went on to say “Basically the forms says if you get hurt don’t call me call someone who cares.” And then he was back to telling more stories.

Our bunkhouse set off of the main road about a mile or two on a hilltop nestled under large pine trees and a variety of other large trees. The setting was picture perfect. It sure wasn’t how I had envisioned east Texas in my mind. The ranch is made up of rolling hills, lush grass land and large stands of old growth timber.

James gives us the low-down on how we will be hunting. “All of our hunting is done around feeders” James tells us. I ask if he minds if we hunt at night. “That’s the only time we hunt…its all night hunting around here” James says. Hot damn I love night hunting! After an afternoon nap Chris and I are up, James has us fed and around 7:30 we were headed to our hunting spots.

All of the feeders are set to go off at 6:00, James says the hogs don’t start moving until around 9:00. We begin hunting around 8:00. I set on a chair with some brush and a tree as my background cover and nothing in front of me except the feeder and the tree it was hanging from. The feeder was hanging 12 yards in front of me. Behind me about six yards away was the trail that Chris and I walked in on. Several yards to my west is where Chris was hunting. The area was creek bottom ground. It was fairly open ground with just enough large trees around to keep the place shaded. To the north of where I set, about 150+- yards, was a running creek. Beyond that was a wooded hillside. To my south was another timbered hillside and the east and west was bottom land. The wind was easterly and I pick my setup off of that. I predicted that the pigs would be coming from the northwest after stopping at the creek.

As the light began to fade I checked my headlamp setup and after a few adjustments I was ready. Around 9:05 I heard a stick break several yards to my east (right) which puts me on full alert. A few minutes later a black form against the lighter background appears about 70 yards away moving at a constant speed to the west. The shape tells the tale…hog coming! In an instant my heart begins to race! James told us that a week ago he was getting large sounders of hogs showing up on his cameras but within the last week the action had really quieted down. He believed that the sows were nesting with their new litter of piglets and that the pigs we were going to see would be sounders of young boars or single older boars. James’ rule of thumb is that it takes a sow approximately 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days from the time of breeding until she gives birth and according to him the birthing time was happening while we were there.

The lone pig keeps its distance from the bait and cruises down wind and then circles back in to the bait. Steadily it closes the gap to the bait. I had my bow in hand and remaining as calm as I could as the pig enter the baited area. My intentions were to let the pig eat for a while and get relaxed. There was no need to rush anything. 12 yds away from me the 150 lb pig stood broadside but I could tell from its movement that it was on full alert. As I watched the pig I stupidly moved my arm causing the slightest noise and I mean the slightest of a noise and with that the hog grunted and trotted to the northwest. “Dang” I thought to myself “there was no way I could have shot that pig! The pig was way too high strung for me to ever get a shot off at it.”

The rest of the night was uneventful. I heard plenty of movement behind me from God knows what and off in the distance but no hog squealing or hog sightings. Around 01:30 we called it a night.

 

The next day we caught up on some much needed sleep and awoke to another of James’ artery clogging meals. You can bet when James is cooking bacon grease or lard of some sort is going to finds its way into the meal at some point.
 

 

Later, after I began reviewing my pictures I found out he spent most of the time driving with his eyes closed.

 

As I wrote before, the property is absolutely beautiful. The pictures don't do the property justice.

 

Here is something you don’t see everyday and it’s not a good sight if you’re a cattle rancher. This is a giant bone pile. James told us that Mr.Tarrant doesn’t throw anything away and this proves it.

Around 7:00 Chris and I were making our way out to our hunting spots. My spot is called the dirt pile. There’s a giant dirt pile about an 1/8th of a mile form where I hunted.
 

For this hunt I was hunting from the ground again. I like the adrenaline rush that hunting from the ground at night gives me. Chris was hunting a few hundred yards to my southeast.

I cleared out two places near the feeder to hunt from. One place was nestled in a little pocket of cedar trees and would have put me 5 yards from the feeder. The place was a natural blind and it would have given me plenty of foreground cover and background cover. It was a perfect little sniper’s nest, but I thought it was going to put me too close to the feeder. After the previous nights experience I figured I needed more distance from the feeder, besides all the trees in the little stand of trees had been rubbed smooth by hogs. I don’t want to be that close to a hog.

The spot I decided on was 10 yards southeast of the feeder. The wind was coming from the south, southwest. I positioned myself in front of a tree and cut some cedars to create background cover. There was no foreground cover for this setup. Using a tip that James told us about, I scattered diesel soaked rags around the bait site. He said this would provide cover scent. He said he sometimes will walk around the whole bait site before settling in to hunt and spray the area down with diesel. According to James the hogs don’t mind the smell or taste of diesel’ but the deer and the raccoons don’t like it so they stay away.

For the most part all was quiet except for the occasional coyote howl or owls call that broke the silence. So there I set watching the light fade until the details of the timber around me vanished. Like the previous night I positioned my head lamp to point where I aimed the bow and the wait began.

The 9:00 o’clock hour rolls by and the 10:00 hour begins to tick away. Occasional I would hear leaves rustle within the vicinity which would put me on alert and I would scan the area with my eyes to see if I could pick out a moving form….nothing only several false alarms.

Then around 10:15 as if hit by a jolt of electricity all of my senses were shocked to attention! From the northwest all hell had broken loose! No warnings nothing leading up to the noise just the sudden eruption of animals running through the timber. PIGS It sounded like there were a hundred of them coming and they were coming fast. The closer they got to the feeder the faster they ran and the faster they ran the more fighting they did and the fighting brought on the squealing. It was absolutely hair raising for me! The squealing made them sound like huge demons from hell coming to get me. In a matter of seconds they were there. It was absolute chaos. My mind was trying sort out how many pigs were there and where they were all at. I could hear and see some of them in front, but there were also pigs to my right and to my left. The only place there weren’t any pigs was behind me.

Following James’ advice I began to shine the light on the pigs gradually. He told us not to shine the light on them abruptly. So with my fingers over the light I gradually let the light peek through until the full beam of light was shining on the pigs. I could see six pigs at that moment but I could also hear other pigs that were hidden by brush. All the pigs looked to be about the same size in the 80 – 100 pound range.

Seven yards in front of me were three pigs two red pigs and on black pig. I was delighted to see the red pigs because that is the color pig I really wanted. To my left a problem was beginning to unfold. One of the pigs was beginning to get down wind of me and starting to growl. I cupped my hand over the light and then shined it in its direction. The pig to my left was standing facing me and growling. Everyone should experience that at least once in their life. I’ve heard pigs make this sound before and usually and alarm grunt follows the growl and pigs will scatter, so I knew my time was very limited.

I turned the light back to the three pigs seven yards away and started focusing on the red pigs waiting for a quartering away shot. The little buggareds were jostling around like ants. Three times I brought my bow back to full draw only to let down when the pig moved or one of the other pigs stepped in the way. And then it happened. Two of the pigs separated leaving one of the red pigs standing alone and I channeled all of my attention on him. With the gray pig to my left continuing to growl I did my best to shut it out and ready myself for a shot. The red pig hurriedly fed in front of me. Feeding this way and that way and then he finally turned giving me a quartering away angle. With that I focused my attention to a spot tight behind his shoulder, drew the 56” pronghorn to full draw, anchored and released the string sending the 31.5”, 650 grain, woodsman tipped arrow flying towards the mark.

In a micro second mayhem erupted! The hit pig let out an ear piercing squeal and vanished into the dark and the rest of the pigs scattered in all directions. With the pig continuing to squeal I tried to tracked the hog’s movement with my ears but that can get a little difficult when multiple pigs are squealing at the same time. When he vanished into the darkness he ran to my right behind the clump of cedars that I was going to use as a blind and then suddenly, to my surprise, a pig springs out of those same cedars hell bent for leather and head straight for me! In a flash the pig passed by me only six feet away. WOW EXCITING! The pig makes and arc and disappears in the dark. My mind is racing…”was that the pig I shot? It was red…but there wasn’t an arrow sticking out of its side!” The pig that ran by me circled to the northwest and I hear it rustle in the leaves followed by a gurgle sound and then all was quiet again. “Yep” I think to myself “that must have been the pig.”

Afterwards I set down to let the adrenaline rush wear off before my legs gave out. With shaky hands I text Chris to let him know that I shot and to tell him to watch for hogs that might be coming his way. Ten minutes later I took up the trail and sure enough the pig I shot almost ran me over.

The arrow entered a couple on inches behind the right shoulder and exited behind the left front leg. The shot took out one lung and cut the artery off the heart and he died 20 yards from where I sat. He weighed 90# and best of all I got my red pig!

 

Here is proof that persistence pays. It’s not over until the fat pig squeals. Congratulations, Chris!

 

Saying Goodbye

Tom Porter
May 2010