One Hell of a Closing Weekend

Since bow season is right around the corner, we figured this would be our closing weekend for hogs. We might get in one more afternoon hunt, but this is our closing weekend.

Saturday we ended up with 4. The first hog we caught about 100 yards from the trucks and not far off the road. A little sow. Since, it was a shoat about 75 pounds we figured that the big sow was somewhere close. So, we drove on about 50 yards and dropped again. Tanner and Whitey bayed her up. Some how the dog box came unlatched and the whole crew hit the ground. Of course they ran in there and tried to catch and the bay broke. Straight to the river they went. Drowned the big sow and came back thankfully. Hog number three was about 50 pounds and I didn't get any pictures of him since they cleaned him before they come back from the bay. Hog number 4 was about 100 pounds and they bayed her right off the side of the road. Even though it was fairly cool, I had to be back in time to go to the horse sale and we had to cut our hunt short...

Letting the boys have a little fun

Dad's little heater lol

And then came Sunday... We had 4 big boars down by 9:30. And with fairly little trouble (other than the usual trying to find roads and what not) I'm just gonna tell the story as the pictures go. I think that would be easiest.

Hog number one

 

Woodie, Melissa, and Kade after hog number 1

 

 Hog number 2              

Chiwa needed to warm up so him and Kade became real good buddies :)

 We had a little accident on the way to hog number 4. Woodie hit a pretty good ditch and it grabbed his dog back and jerked it right off the back... along with the two hogs, his cooler, and his dog

 Trying to find a better way back

Woodie and Kade taking a walk-about

Me and Dad...

A force to be reckoned with!!

 

Closing the Season with a Bang

Saturday was a pretty good day. It was our last day for this season at Woodsbluff Hunting Club. We started the morning off by running one hog about 70 or 80 pounds off in the river. What we didn't see was the alligator swimming right for our dogs. Dale unloaded 3 shots at him and went under. The dogs came halfway out when the gator resurfaced. Apparently they thought he was hog and they went out headed straight for him and he was headed straight for them. Dale shot 5 more times and the gator went under again. This time he was under long enough for us to get all the dogs back and I'm assuming he got a pretty good meal out of that hog.

We hadn't really seen much action from the time of the first hog till about 9:45. Dale and Tanner's dogs went on a run and they left us to go try and get them back. We hadn't been alone 5 minutes when all our dogs bayed. There was no squeal so we sent Jase in to them. Dad went in right after Jase and I gave him a few minutes grace period in case he needed Charlie. I never heard him call for Charlie, but I still never heard a squeal. So, in I went. Got in to the hog and he turned out to be a pretty decent hog.

It wasn't too long after we left that hog that the dogs bayed again. This time we were 900 yards and they were baying in the road. So, wide open we headed that way. We were going so fast that Dad drove right by the bay. Tanner stopped right at it and sent his bulldog in to catch. He was still a big hog, but he didn't have much teeth.

We called it a day after that. We hope to get in one last weekend at Blue Rock before we have to put the dogs up for deer season... but who knows?

We didn't run dogs Sunday, but we did catch a big boar and a sow in a trap that had been tearing an oat patch up...

There are 12 hogs in those 2 pictures... we got a lot of them out of the woods with those 2.

Sunday Funday after the Rough Day... Sep. 27, 2015

Sunday wasn't too much better than Saturday. We were a team of 4. Good number actually. Dad, me, Woodie, and Melissa.

The first hog I didn't go too just in case they got out there and needed a bulldog. They cleaned it on the spot so the pictures came from Melissa.

I looked down at the tracker and it said that Tip was bayed. He stayed bayed for a good half hour... this is how we found him... he was bayed alright...

So we went on and got just past where we caught the big hog Saturday and one of the hunting club members was disking a patch. I thought to myself, there won't be anything down in here because he's kept up so much noise with that tractor. Tanner was the only dog in the box. We got maybe 20 yards past the tractor and the dogs struck up and a black boar came speeding across the road in front of us, headed straight to the river. I didn't want him to swim the river so I ran and let Tanner out. She headed him off and then the bay was on. We sent Jase to him and I stayed in case Charlie was needed. All of a sudden this awful noise that I had never heard before rang out. Finally, everything went quiet and they started calling for the pistol. I got out there and asked them what that noise was and Dad said that the hog had caught tip by the lip and he was hollering and dad flipped the hog on top of him. Then, it started raining, so we took that as a sign to get back to the truck.

We hadn't made it too close to the truck and whatever had snapped under the ranger Saturday finished breaking and we were dead in the road. We hooked to Woodie's ranger and he pulled us the rest of the way back. Thank God for having another ranger there and good friends to help us out.

All in all it was a good weekend with good hogs!

Never Underestimate a Daddy-Daughter Duo... Sep. 26, 2015

Saturday morning turned out to be a blast from the past. We hunted alone... Just me and Dad. We had done it before and we will do it again. So, we struck out and had in mind a game of numbers... not a game of size. We ended up with a game of size...

The first hog was a decent sized boar about 10 yards off the road and down in a 20 foot deep stump hole... but between the road and the hog was a thick patch of vines. Not hurtful but hard to maneuver through. So dad got down in the hole with the hog, but couldn't get out with it. He handed the hog up to me and said to hold him till he could get out. When he got out three dogs caught and pulled them all back in the hole. Finally got back out, got the dogs off, and got him tied. I videoed that one so no pictures of him alone.

The second hog was much more of a problem. I sent Charlie to him and the catch was on. He was in the middle of a tree top and surrounded by thick thick briars. Me, Dad, the hog, the dogs, and Charlie were all trying to work around each other in a circle that might have wide 30 foot wide. Dad finally got the hog flipped and I reached down to start pulling Charlie off and had to grab a handful of briars with his collar. Every time he yanked on the hog the briars dug in my hand and the hogs teeth kept getting closer and closer to me and under Charlie. All of a sudden Charlie started whining and all I could think was that those teeth had cut through the vest and he was hurting. I gave him one good final yank and he turned loose. I picked him straight up through two tree limbs and got him away from those teeth as fast as possible. Never once since I've had Charlie has he tried to re-catch... until then. He ended up catching Dad's shirt sleeve. I finally got him headed away from the hog and then him and Tip decided they need to fight. So, you can just imagine the feeling of being in that tight of a space with two dogs fighting on one side and a big boar hog on the other and no where to go to get out of the way of either. I really didn't want to leave dad alone with such a big hog, but he said take Charlie out of here. I said what are you going to do? He said, "I'm gonna handcuff two feet and then I can tie the other two." So, me and Charlie struck out fighting the briars back to the ranger. Got him back and loaded and the dogs started barking on the other side of the road. Dad was out there with that hog and I was alone, but I figured I could deal with anything they could have caught that close to the ranger. Got out there and it was raccoon that they had caught and killed.

We called it a day after that and headed on back to the truck. We were almost back to the truck with both hogs and all the dogs and both of us and all of a sudden something snapped under the ranger and it started making an awful noise. We got it back and it loaded itself under its own power. That's important tidpit for the next post.

September 19... i'm terrible at titles

We only hunted one day last weekend on account of the Alabama football game being so late. Saturday wasn't our best day, but it wasn't our worst day either.

We started off with a decent boar hog.

Only pic I got of him

 

 

Our second catch was a little more interesting. We sent the dogs out with Dad and Henry. I was watching the tracker and all of a sudden the dogs started barking and the tracker said that they had hit the river. We weren't far so Little Aubrie and I and her Aunt Lisa decided we would walk to the river bank and see if we could see them. Well, all of a sudden I saw this animal running at me... at first I thought it was one of the dogs, but the closer it got I realized that it was a big black boar hog headed straight to us. My first thought was, what do I do with Aubrie because there were no trees close enough for me to get her to one. The only thing I could think to do was stand in between her and him. Thank the good Lord above that that hog saw us and made a 90 degree turn and headed straight for the ranger. My second thought was, Where are the dogs??? Finally after what felt like 20 minutes (probably only 1 or 2) I saw Hound Dog running at full speed after him with the rest of the pack following behind. We really don't know what happened after everyone crossed the road. We assume the boar run through a sows bed and got the dogs to jump track. We didn't get the boar, but we got a no-eared sow...

  All in all we had a pretty decent hunt.

Here are a few random captures:

She wants to know why she cant get out of the box like Aubrie can

Still doesn't know about Aubrie

They killed this one while they were walking the dogs out!

A weekend for REVENGE!!

Last weekend we didn't do so hot. We caught a few, but nothing major. 5 on Saturday and 2 Sunday. Tanner, Travis, and Whitey run a big boy but couldn't ever get him stopped. When we finally found them all 3 had been cut and were just slap worn out. And that cut put one thought in Tanner's mind... REVENGE!!

Saturday we run a pack out of the bed and caught three of them, Thanks to Chiwa!

Team Blue!! We make a good trio!

Fresh and organic!

My little prodigy

Sunday was Tanner's time to shine. She got on a hog at the "top of the world" and ran him almost 7 miles before finally giving up on him. Then, we took her and Whitey back to where they got on their big hog last weekend and she struck him up again. He ran the same track he did last weekend when he lost her, but she wasn't giving up on him this weekend. That hog run her another two miles across a big slew. She finally got him turned around and headed back to where her backups were and they bayed him and bayed him hard. No one was cut, but they were hammering down on him. We sent her both bulldogs and they sealed the deal for us!

Start them young!!

We were happy not only for ourselves or the landowners, but for Tanner and Whitey!

On the way back from that bay we found this bad boy curled up under our feet!!

Not only did Tanner put the lockdown on that big boy, but she triple bayed three sows soon after. Back-to-back-back.... tie one, run to another. After everything was done it was a 800 yard walk back from the third back to the rangers. She was pretty tired after that and we didn't mind calling it a day so that she could rest back up. After all, she well deserved it!

Here's a few random snaps from that day...

 Our view from "Top of the World" at sunrise

Coincidence it looks like a heart?? I think not!

The Woman of the Year!! Tanner