A few months ago found out my wife is expecting our 3rd in June, so managed to get a hunt in with my buddies before the new baby arrives. My oldest will be 3 in January and our second will be 1 in March, so next fall is going to be too busy for much hunting.
My buddies have been going to a national forest in TN every year for 6 years to hunt wild pigs the week of Thanksgiving. It's not legal to hunt pigs outside of the regular deer seasons, so technically we're hunting deer and hogs are incidental. The hunting isn't great - 6 years with 3-4 people hunting 4 days each time, and we've only managed 4 pigs and 1 buck. It's a fun time though. We camp out for the first couple nights, then rent a cabin for a more comfortable experience the rest of the trip.
This year I didn't see any deer or pigs, but I was hunting over very recent sign two of the evenings. We got trail camera video of a nice sized hog at one of our hunting spots, and one of the guys shot two hogs. His first was at 4:30pm on a ridgeline of mature woods, which was odd because the rest of our kills have been at last light. His second (pictures attached) was at dusk two nights later over a wallow at the edge of a small clearing. We worked up a digital scale, rope harness, and frame pack system that we used to weigh the hog at 215 lbs.
My buddies have been going to a national forest in TN every year for 6 years to hunt wild pigs the week of Thanksgiving. It's not legal to hunt pigs outside of the regular deer seasons, so technically we're hunting deer and hogs are incidental. The hunting isn't great - 6 years with 3-4 people hunting 4 days each time, and we've only managed 4 pigs and 1 buck. It's a fun time though. We camp out for the first couple nights, then rent a cabin for a more comfortable experience the rest of the trip.
This year I didn't see any deer or pigs, but I was hunting over very recent sign two of the evenings. We got trail camera video of a nice sized hog at one of our hunting spots, and one of the guys shot two hogs. His first was at 4:30pm on a ridgeline of mature woods, which was odd because the rest of our kills have been at last light. His second (pictures attached) was at dusk two nights later over a wallow at the edge of a small clearing. We worked up a digital scale, rope harness, and frame pack system that we used to weigh the hog at 215 lbs.