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.
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