Muggy tonight--took coffee and should have taken Doctor Pepper. But results were good. First up was a pair of 'coons, then about 45 minutes later there are 3 'yotes in the pasture behind me. Then about 10:45 this guy shows up so I ear-hole him. Down and dead. Hung him on the scales out of curiosity--177#. Big but not the big one I'm after. Note the deformed back leg---first time I saw it on camera, I thought it was an abscess, but tonight when I tried to stick the knife in it, it was hard like bone, so now I'm thinking a broken leg that healed.

Nature heals things so they
can get around.
This guys not overly fat either.

Awhile back someone fwd'd a link
to a two legged coyote. No back
legs from the hock down. Nice n
fat, filmed him walking on front
legs. Short distances at a time.
Amazing.

Glad you got one again.
You getting that heavy rain Bobby is?

George

Well done! I think you are right about the back leg: it was either broken and healed over or -- if that is a scar I see -- perhaps a broadhead went through it and hard scar tissue formed.

Anyway, good shooting!

Guess we'll never know for sure on the injury leading to that large hard mass. But this one isn't gonna root up anymore pasture.

George--we have had about 5" in the last week, but spread over that time frame so not bad. This hunt was over close to Bobby, in Belmont. No mud to speak of anywhere I drove, but this is up on the hill side of the ranch. Down in the river bottom might be a different story.

Gonna have to make another tripout to reset the lights on the less bright setting as they were getting a bit dim after 2.5 hours. Of course, we've not had much bright sunshine to charge them up so that may be a factor too.

I love reading ya'lls stories.. aka, hunting vicariously through them!

jeffe---happy to share our adventures---and I have another to post later today from this same ranch.

OK folks, here is "the rest of the story" -- rancher's wife was on her morning walk and encountered this---called her hubby and he came post-haste and dispatched it. Said it was skinny and wobbly---and no wonder.



And, several years ago on the lease down south (jeffe--you remember the stand you hunted from) one of the hunters shot a hog in the lower jaw. Couple of weeks later I was in that stand and see this apparition walking towards me---a hog head on 2 legs, no body! Well, it was this one, which had lost so much weight that its head was the widest part of his body and everything else was behind the head and not visible. It would put its head down and attempt to eat the corn and when its dangling lower jaw touched the ground it would squeal a bit. Finally turned sideways and I hammered it with the 7 Mag. Ran off the road and my first thought was "did I wound it again?" But, that rifle at 50 yds off a rest---no way. Well it was dead in the weeds just off the road. Dragged it off to the buzzard buffet and then 2 weeks later it was still there--neither the 'yotes nor buzzards had touched the carcass.

That's the kind of thing that
makes for a guy doing his best
shooting.

Far as I know, I've never let a
wounded animal get away. I shot a
p/dogs front leg off once. It went
in the hole awhile then came back and
I couldn't hit it with 3-4 shots.
Finally I nailed it. Sure felt bad til
I hit it solidly though.

When trucking one night I hit five deer,
a nice buck got under the drivers and
just about jackknifed me from the slime.
I swear it was so messed up the coyotes
and crows passed it up. Killed three,
broke a leg on two other does and got the
pistol out and finished them up. Truck
was 3 years old and had killed 9 counting
that batch.

George

i really am jealous of you guys that can sit and watch a lighted area at night hog hunting. i've got 2 grandkids under 10 to deal with while this is all going, still working on house construction and shop, putting up fences, laying in cooking wood, etc etc. on 350 acres and it won't stop raining. mud is unreal. roadbase and gravel cost is killing me. i shoot for a 9 pm bedtime, never make it. "grandpa, i saw a spider on my bed but i didn't kill it as its an undiscovered species" (at 1 AM.) son came over about 7 PM yesterday, we had a coupla adult beverages, and sitting on back porch we picked out a spot to bury some corn and hang a lite about 100 yds away. someday!!!!

Good luck john c. I hope you are starting threads with your kill stories soon. Be Well, Packy.

Ok--the buzzards and 'yotes have completed their dissection and here's what the inside of that huge knot on the rear leg looks like. My theory--gunshot wound, fight, or hit by car and healed up.

Hard to tell much from this.
Flies will clean it up better
in a few days.

George

Hard to tell on the leg knot. Could have been a automobile strike, just catching the back leg or a bullet. Shot a three legged one at my place. I suspect it might have been the second of a twofer.
chosen sebastian newton
Saw this one on my friends place one day. Wonder why it was walking around in the middle of the day. Look closely and you can see its tongue! No bottom jaw! A month to six weeks before I was getting into my tower and saw a pig in the feeder already. It only gave me a head on shot. So I sent a 150 gr. 7 mag on the way. I tarpon leaped out of the pen, all I found were two teeth! Still wonder if this is the same pig!

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Hard to tell much from this.
Flies will clean it up better
in a few days.

George

George--flies aren't going to have much of an effect on that bony stuff, maybe the hide if it doesn't dry out totally. Supposed to get rain tonight bu then dry until Friday.

Snow predicted here.
I'll believe it when it's
on the ground.

You're sure doing a great job
of cleaning up the crips lately.
How many more have you seen and
not finished off?

George

The "pig parade"across the fence is some 200 yds away so I can't tell anything other than relative size of the swine there. When I up the magnification of the thermal it pixellates badly.

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Snow predicted here.
I'll believe it when it's
on the ground.

You're sure doing a great job
of cleaning up the crips lately.
How many more have you seen and
not finished off?

George

whats snow?

Just wait, you'll see snow in Austin
sometime too!

George

just moved from nueces river between san antonio and corpus. in 2001 (2002)? it snowed. people went crazy. was first snow, literally, in 100 years. whole generations that had never seen snow.

Heard that same bullshit from folks
that came up here from Lubbock.
Hell, must have had their heads buried.
The ten years I trucked thru that country
it snowed every winter some.

Right now, there's some blowing in from
the north the past three hours. Haven't
looked in awhile, was trying hard and
getting some on the ground then. Might
not amount to much, but, spring storms
up here can and do dump it at times.

Wish it would warm up again. Sure enjoyed
the 77-80 temps.

George

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Heard that same bullshit from folks
that came up here from Lubbock.
Hell, must have had their heads buried.
The ten years I trucked thru that country
it snowed every winter some.

George

Well, George, what john c said is not BS. You may not realize that there are more than 500 miles and over 8 hours of travel time between Lubbock and Corpus Christi -- and lots of differences in climate and terrain as well.

Even where I am at, snow is an absolute rarity -- and that's no BS.

From the National Weather Service in Corpus Christi:

On 24 and 25 December 2004, a rare, banded heavy snow event occurred over portions of
south Texas. Maximum snow amounts of 20-33 cm (8-13 inches) were reported in the band region.
Such amounts had not been observed in south Texas since the late 1800s. Moisture, lift, stability, and
thermal profiles for the event were examined. On the synoptic scale, the event was associated with
a strong low-latitude upper- level trough (26-28˚N) and jet stream maximum of 72-77 m s-1 across
northern Mexico and southern Texas. This trough and jet maximum combined to produce large scale
lift over an already sufficiently moist south Texas region. At lower levels, a deep freezing/sub-freezing
air mass was present as far south as northern Mexico. Confluent upper-level flow located northeast
of the snow region, helped to maintain a deep cold air mass by producing northerly flow and cold
advection at lower levels.
It was surmised that the rarity of the event was due to the combination of the very low- latitude
upper-level trough, and the deep cold air mass. Anomaly calculations confirmed that both the 500
hPa heights and 850 hPa temperatures within the trough over north central Mexico were around four
standard deviations below normal during the event.
To diagnose the snow band region, cross sections of saturated equivalent potential vorticity (EPV*),
Petterssen frontogenesis, saturated equivalent potential temperature (θes), and relative humidity (RH)
were constructed perpendicular to the snow band. During the entire heavy snow period, the cross
sections indicated the presence of negative EPV* located just above an axis of mid-level frontogenesis.
However, the θes surfaces in the cross sections showed a transition from the release of conditional
instability (CI) and upright ascent at the beginning of the event, to the release of conditional symmetric
instability (CSI) and enhanced slantwise ascent about half way through the event, as the θes surfaces
became more horizontal.
THE HISTORIC CHRISTMAS 2004 SOUTH TEXAS
SNOW EVENT: DIAGNOSIS OF THE HEAVY SNOW BAND
Ronald F. Morales Jr.
NOAA/National Weather Service
Weather Forecast Office
Corpus Christi, Texas
Corresponding author address: Ronald F. Morales Jr.
NOAA/National Weather Service
5777 South Aviation Ave., Charleston, South Carolina 29406

An interesting read. Be sure and check the charts at the bottom of the page to see how rare snow really is in that region.

south tx snow news article

Anyone that thinks it doesn't snow in S. Texas---here's proof from a former lease in La Salle County--about 75 miles south of San Antonio. Best I can tell it was December 2004 which goes with Bobby's post above. Snow was about 8-10" deep on the table outside.