I woke up today to Happy Birthday wishes from a great group of friends that I spent the last 3 days with javelina hunting near Laredo, TX.
For the past 20 years or so, this group and I have headed to south Texas for a little spring break hunt. This was the first year in many years that one or more of my kids didn't come along, but it gave me a chance to do a little hunting myself. The past 3 years I haven't even taken my bow out of the case because I spent the entire time filming the kids or trying to get them on a javelina.
I managed to take a pretty good sized one the first afternoon. I saw a group coming up a sendero I had just baited a few minutes earlier. They came in such a hurry, I wasn't even able to get the video camera out. As they walked into a small dip in the road, I dove behind a scrawny mesquite bush and came to full draw. When the first javelina stepped clear of the brush, I let go a 5 yard shot and put the Muzzy MX-4 through both lungs! Seconds later I heard him crash in the brush not 20 yards away! What a great way to start a hunt.
The next afternoon, I went to the same area and set up my Double Bull Matrix and put the camera on a tripod in hopes of getting one of video. At just about the same time of day as I shot the one the day before, another group emerged from the brush an started feeding in my direction down the sendero.
I hit the record button on the camera and got ready. When the first of the group stepped into my shooting lane I came to full draw but the javelina didn't stop and was soon out of the camera frame. With no way to pan the camera while at full draw, I just shifted my sight pin to the next one in line and waited for it to step into the picture.
This one was considerably smaller than the one from the day before, but was still a respectable sized critter. When everything was lined up, I touched the trigger on the release and zipped another Muzzy home.
I couldn't have made a much better shot but this one was much harder to recover than the first one. This one ran close to 100 yards with both lungs shredded. Just a testament to how tough these little critters can be.
After a little hands and knees tracking through the thorny jungle, I almost put my hand on the critter before I saw it. They sure can camoflauge well in the shadows of the underbrush. Thank goodness it was already dead!
The trip from my home to the ranch is almost 500 miles and every year on the way home, I ask myself why I do it. But every year when spring break comes around, I'm always ready to go back. Hunting javelina can be a blast and a little addictive!
Sure feels good to be back in the groove.
Trailboss
For the past 20 years or so, this group and I have headed to south Texas for a little spring break hunt. This was the first year in many years that one or more of my kids didn't come along, but it gave me a chance to do a little hunting myself. The past 3 years I haven't even taken my bow out of the case because I spent the entire time filming the kids or trying to get them on a javelina.
I managed to take a pretty good sized one the first afternoon. I saw a group coming up a sendero I had just baited a few minutes earlier. They came in such a hurry, I wasn't even able to get the video camera out. As they walked into a small dip in the road, I dove behind a scrawny mesquite bush and came to full draw. When the first javelina stepped clear of the brush, I let go a 5 yard shot and put the Muzzy MX-4 through both lungs! Seconds later I heard him crash in the brush not 20 yards away! What a great way to start a hunt.
The next afternoon, I went to the same area and set up my Double Bull Matrix and put the camera on a tripod in hopes of getting one of video. At just about the same time of day as I shot the one the day before, another group emerged from the brush an started feeding in my direction down the sendero.
I hit the record button on the camera and got ready. When the first of the group stepped into my shooting lane I came to full draw but the javelina didn't stop and was soon out of the camera frame. With no way to pan the camera while at full draw, I just shifted my sight pin to the next one in line and waited for it to step into the picture.
This one was considerably smaller than the one from the day before, but was still a respectable sized critter. When everything was lined up, I touched the trigger on the release and zipped another Muzzy home.
I couldn't have made a much better shot but this one was much harder to recover than the first one. This one ran close to 100 yards with both lungs shredded. Just a testament to how tough these little critters can be.
After a little hands and knees tracking through the thorny jungle, I almost put my hand on the critter before I saw it. They sure can camoflauge well in the shadows of the underbrush. Thank goodness it was already dead!
The trip from my home to the ranch is almost 500 miles and every year on the way home, I ask myself why I do it. But every year when spring break comes around, I'm always ready to go back. Hunting javelina can be a blast and a little addictive!
Sure feels good to be back in the groove.
Trailboss
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