When we first started hunting our new place, they were over come with hogs. It was unlike anything we had ever seen before. Anyway, in 9 weekends only hunting an average of 5 hours on both Saturday and Sunday we managed to catch 130 hogs. 30 hogs over the original challenge that they gave us. With that number we closed out hog season with 242 catches with the year of 2014.
Like I said, I'm not going to try to recall every weekend, but one weekend in particular was worth re-telling. We got to our normal meeting spot and got everyone rounded up by 6am. We were hunting with some new now friends of ours for the first time. Southern Style Pro Staffers Wayne and Veronica and another couple and their small children. We voluntarily let them turn their dogs out first out of respect. They run around but never struck on anything. We moved on down the road. Eventually, Henry and I convinced Dad to put just two of our dogs on the ground; Tanner and Whitey. It couldn't have been more than 5 minutes since they hit the ground and they bayed. A little spotted pig about 45 pounds. Tied him and brought him out. Dad decided that that little pig wasn't alone. He walked Tanner and Whitey out the side end of an oat patch not far from our original bay. 756 yards later the tracker was showing bayed. And then, it happened... The call for a bulldog rang out. Me and Charlie struck out. Running that distance anyway would have been hard, but running it with Charlie was even worse. 120 yards from the bay I had to turn him loose. And then the chase was on! About 10 minutes after I turned him loose it was complete silence. No dogs barked and no hog squealed. I didn't know what to do... the only thing I could do was keep heading into the bay. I feel as though I've mislead y'all about the people. All 4 men had been in the woods a good 30-45 minutes ahead of us women. There was 4 of us women, one of which had never hunted before. Well, we finally made it in and finally heard some racket. Problem? Bout 10 yards from us was "big nasty" (the name that one of the women gave this hog) and in between us was a slew. One bulldog who was already beginning to give out and 4 women with no men in sight. Well, we lit out across the slew, calling for help, strategizing if we had to this ourselves. Finally, just as Charlie was giving completely out, Henry showed up! I was so happy to see him I didn't know what to do. Anyway, they struggled a while after I pulled Charlie off to get the hog down. They ended up stabbing him and we brought him out. We didn't catch anything else that day...
This is Rachel, the woman that had never been before. Pretty good first time if you ask us! Lol
Me and Aubry! My "prodigee" That was a Saturday... The following Sunday was just as active. We bayed a good sized hog on the very edge of the Tombigbee River. Had to use both bulldogs, but not much of a run...
The Catch!
Me and Dad
Us crazy girls!! :)
After that catch we went on deeper into the area and met up with one of the president of the club that we were hunting on. He told us to go down a road that we have forever named "The Road to the Left". We turned out and immediately jumped a family of shoats. Doubled bayed 2 of them. After tying those two up we went a little piece and turned out again. Then it happened... Double bay again on two decent sized hogs. One sow and one boar. Henry and Dale struck out on the sow and we went on to the boar only to realize later that we had left Henry and Dale without any string to tie their hog up with. Dale left Henry holding the sow, came and found us, got some string, and went back to Henry.
I know that this post is getting long, but I'm going to tell one more story and call it quits.
Our last weekend, we had hunted all morning without any luck... we were headed out, feeling kind of defeated... but the dogs refused to leave empty handed. We got up into a semi-thick briar area and the dogs jumped a couple pigs. Everybody but me and Melissa left and went to that bay. We were standing there and heard Chiwa barking... on the opposite side of the road. Got to thinking and realized that him and Black Betty were out there together and must have a hog of their own. Here me and Melissa went to get our own hog. We got all the way out there just to realize they were in the middle of a decent sized slew. I tried to cross first, sunk up to my thighs and turned around. It just so happened that a tree had blown down across the slew, so I decided to walk the log out to the hog. On my way across, I took the bark off of the tree with my boots. Know what lives under the bark of a dead tree? FIRE ANTS!! By this time Henry and Dale had arrived and the hog was dead. Hard headed Henry decided he would just go across the slew. It didn't work for him either. Dale walked the log and jumped down to the hog... Henry CRAWLED the log, which stirred up the ants. Dale handed the hog up to me and I handed it up to Henry. He then said he was going to throw it to Melissa... He threw it alright, but it didn't go very far. She managed to get it out though. Then it was time for us to come back to land. Since Henry already stirred up the ants they were out to get us with a vengeance, and boy did they!! We brought out both hogs though and were proud of them...
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