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TX hog trip was interesting to say the least.....

schmalts

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Well, i got back late sunday, heres the recap.
Thursday night we arrive at 10pm and stay in the motel in town with Shane the outfitter. Nice guy, seems cool, got a motel instead of driving to the moble home on the ranch in the dark. Friday AM in the dark he takes us to the ranch and puts us up in deer blinds and tells us to come out when we get bored and he will show us the ranch in the daylight, and a few spots to try to do some walking. That took about until 9 and i was bored and saw nothing, and freezing my ass of as it is in the low 20's and i am not dressed for Wisconsin, but Texas instead. He drives us around for 1/2 hour and turns us loose and tells us he will see us after dark.

Steve Shoots a big calico boar we jumped sleeping in the thickest cactus i ever had to hunt. It didnt seem too spooked and parralled the dirt road we were walking on and finally walked onto the road and Steve put one in the shoulder and it piled 40 yards later in a pile of cactus. here is his boar
steves%20boar.jpg

A while later we were doing a 2 man drive staying in sight of each other (60 yrds) and i here him take 3 shots! I get ready myself and all the sudden a boar jumps up 30 yards from a cactus patch and starts hauling ass! I found it for a split second and let the .270 rip, and find the shoulder and it piles up 30 yards away. I get to the thing and didnt realize it was that big.. here it is.
monster%20boar.jpg


tusks.jpg

Steve's 3 shots got a nice 150ish meat hog and here is his.
steves%20meat%20hog.jpg

We finish the drive and get back to the truck and grab some straps to drag them out to the road. What a bitch mine was in that cactus, some areas were so thick we zig zagged all over to get out. we were covered in needles big time. I will have plenty of picking to do on the shitter for the next week as they fester out of my legs...
We did some more walking the rest of the day and saw only 2 more including one i bet was 500 lbs, it stood 4 feet at the shoulder but we didnt get a shot as we just mostly saw its back run out of the cactus. I would not shot it anyway as we were told the real monsters taste like crap and i was not looking for a head mount anyway.
We did a little varmit calling and saw some yotes but steve missed a running shot.
The next day we woke to 3 inches of fresh snow. We went to a different ranch that was more open hoping to do some spot and stalk but by 9am we never cut a single track and went back to the cactus. They were in there because this about 100 acre area had ripe fruit on the cactus and they were feeding on them, and there was purple scat everywhere. The guts were even purple as a crayon!! kind of funny as the snow started melting the scat bled through leaving purple and red blotches all over. its the only place we found that the fruit was on the cactus and kind of a fluke. We killed all the pigs in about a 10 acre area both days and saw all the pigs in about a 120 acre area. On the first drive i nailed a nice eating size meat sow about 120 lbs. 3 more got away before i could get off another shot.

headshot.jpg

Steve comes up on a huge boar feeding on cactus and tries his 44mag on it and the boar took one right behind the shoulder and ran off without a blood trail or any sign of trama. i told him the 44 was a bad idea unless he could get one in the head or neck but he didnt believe me until now. A 300lb + boar is tough.
Heres the meatpole with 3 other guys pigs and my big boar and steves boar

meat%20pole.jpg

I will put a full review of this hunt under my other topic of "SJ will get my booking" in the exotic section

[ 02-16-2004, 17:59: Message edited by: schmalts ]
 
seems that the server is down, if pics are a no show check later.
 
Great pictures and good story, Thanks for sharing. What does something like that generally run? Are you charged by the pig or just charged a set price for the weekend, Good Luck, JLG.
 
Looks like a kick in the ass hunts man.I cant wait to get back to Texas and hunt again.Congrats on the hunt it was definately successful man.That Boar you got had some serious Tusks.
 
You the man Pat. It sounds like a great hunt and I love the pictures. Great story, except...
I will have plenty of picking to do on the shitter for the next week
I will know have nightmares for a week. :D

Was it that bad, or is "picking" a metaphor for something else?
hump.gif
 
was it that bad, or is "picking" a metaphor for something else?
hump.gif
[/QB]
I really do have legs full of cactus needles. and a few in my ass, you wanna come over and pull them for me miller?
hump.gif

BTW the hunt was 125$ a day and included 2 hogs a day and a bunk. no food, no guide, just a place to sleep and hunt. plenty of varmits too. not a bad deal. It was a lot of humping in ugly thorny country but was still fun. My only gripe was this was my mid winter getaway to bask in the sun and hunt in a t-shirt
fight.gif
footinmouth.gif
what a joke that was! but not anything to do with the outfitter of course.
 
Looks like a great hunt Patrick. Those pigs sure make good table fare.

Those texas hogs must have more feral bloodlines in them from all the coloring. 95% of the ones I've seen in CA are black.

Was your friend satisfied with the hunt?
 
Originally posted by Calif. Hunter:
Did you ship all that pork home, or bring it on the plane as luggage?
took it as Luggage, and UPS my bed roll, gear, vaccume sealer.... ect.. in one big box.
 
Schmalts, That's a great turn around from what you thought this hunt would be. Just goes to show you can never tell, so when in doubt, go Hunting!!! :D
 
Schmalts great pics and sounds like it was a good hunt other than the tan you were looking to get you did well on everything else. ;) just wondering what load and bullet type your friend was using in the 44 mag? I would of hated to be counting on that thing to do its job if he was up against a charging animal :confused:
 
not sure of his loads in the 44
Cali, i think the opposite of the feral. I saw more brown and white pigs in Paso robles area than black. And these hogs in TX had the longer skull and ridge of hair on their back. They were mostly black but we just seemed to score on the other colors. The one steve got was the only one we saw with White coloring.
 
Pretty neat, thanks for the story. SJ got you a good place, it looks like. I have a pair of tweezers with a magnifying glass, so I can see the cactus thorns to pull out. Its easy to feel them, but hard to see them. The tweezers are great.

The long snout, and the straight snout, is what we call a Russian boar down here, the straight tail, the coarse hair. How about Ca, is there something you call Russian? Feral pigs would have a curly tail, those are straight. They look pretty Russian to me, that big black and brown one anyway.
 
Congrats! Looks like a hoot! Miller's probably getting lonely enough he may take you up on that offer!! :D
 
Great hunt Pat. Sorry about the weather, I put in for good weather for your hunt but the weather man had already booked sun and warmth for AZ those two days. Shaine said that the place has some monsters. One of mine and his buddies who was hunting on the other ranch adjacent to the ranch you were hunting shot a 500 pounder during the same two days you and Steve were there. They shot 5 hogs.That is some ugly land huh? I told you it was up and down and rough, wasn't lying was I? Glad you had a good hunt in spite of the very bad weather,sounds like you two made some good shots. Thank You and Steve for letting us book it for you. Congrats.
 
No i only saved the meat. If I had more time, more cooler space i would have taken the skull.
SJ, actaully it was pretty flat in my opinion. But yes, damn ugly to look at. I hunted near Mason TX in the hill country 2 years ago and that was a lot prettier and a lot hillier.
We made a few good shots but next time i hope to get into them in more of a bow hunt country. The think cactus was not that kind of place as they hid very well and got up and ran like hell. The big calico boar steve got was kind of dumn though, he was just walking away as we followed him along the road when he decided to cross it steve nailed him.
 
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