With the lack of deer
activity for the weekend, it sure was tempting to
sleep in this morning, but we sure didn't want to
leave empty handed. There seemed to be more
of a chill in the air this morning, and after
putting on an extra layer of clothing beneath our
Brush Country Camouflage, we made our final trips
to our respective stand locations.
By 8:30, I had seen enough of not enough, and
radioed Casey to see what he and Glenn were seeing
in the pear flat. His radio was not
transmitting clearly, but I thought I heard him
say something about shooting a hog. I
radioed and asked him to repeat what he said, but
again I only heard something about shooting a
hog. I radioed for him to "buzz"
me if he had shot a hog. A few seconds
later, I felt the "Vibra Alert" feature
of the Cobra Mictotalk III FRS radio tremble in my
hands. I radioed for him to buzz me again if
he needed help tracking. At that point, he
removed his Push To Talk mic from the radio and I
could now read him clearly. He said that he
had shot a hog before it got daylight, and after
reviewing the shot, which he had captured using
the Super Night Shot on his Sony camera, it
appeared that he had hit pretty far back, but
there was good blood on the arrow. Click on
the picture to see the shot in Super Night Shot!
I told him I'd come help with the
tracking. I removed the Gametamer and my
treesteps from the tree before walking back to the
four wheeler to ride over to Casey's stand to
help. I didn't want to disturb Glenn, who
was still hunting in his tripod, so I walked to
Casey's stand from the creek side. As I
arrived, Casey showed me the arrow, and then the
blood trail that ended 10 feet from the
arrow. On hands and knees we searched, but
came up with nothing. I stayed and continued
to comb the ground for blood, while Casey decided
to walk in the direction he thought the sow might
have headed after the shot. A few moments
later, I heard Casey call, and walked 75 yards to
find Casey standing over his first bow-killed
hog! The arrow had hit far back, but did not
puncture the paunch, apparently clipping the liver
with the Thunderhead broadhead. The sow was
much bigger than she had appeared to Casey as he
shot and to me as I reviewed the video.
Interestingly, we tried to back-track the hog to
see if we could find the trail, but other than
blood at the arrow, and blood a couple of feet
from the hog, there was no other sign. We
were fortunate to find her, as there was
absolutely no blood trail to assist us in the
search.
We took some pictures, retrieved our stands and
quickly loaded our gear for the return trip
home. I am disappointed that in two trips to
the farm that we didn't see more deer than we
did. We did see hogs on both trips, though
not with the same frequency that we see them in
Encinal. I'm encouraged by the eight point
that Glenn saw, and hope to do a little work to
increase our odds for next season, as I fully
intend to return a few times a year from
now. I'm sure Casey will expect another
invitation then, as he's been the only hunter on
two trips to successfully arrow an animal,
including his spike in December and his hog this
weekend!
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