NBHunter came down from New Brunswick to hunt hogs with me. We hunted thursday night, friday night, saturday night and sunday morning and caught all the hogs with dogs. We tried to get him to shoot one with the 308 with the night vision scope but when something could go wrong it did, from a jammed rifle to misty rain and fog setting in. We had a good hunt and some good stories to tell. As I type, I can still feel the thorns in my ass from landing in cactus when I had to jump out of the way of a boar that broke free from the dogs.

We walked the dogs around an old field hoping that they'd find a hog. It didn't take long and they had this hog bayed in the brush on the edge of the field. I jumped in an caught him by the hind legs and Jason stuck him perfectly. This was the first hog he'd ever seen. Not bad, eh (in my best canadian accent).


We caught this boar and another one after skylighting them in a field and turning the dogs loose on them.


This next boar we also caught in the brush on the edge of the field. As we were making out way up to where the dogs had him caught, something ran right in front of Jason and he figured it was another dog. As soon as he turned his light on he noticed that it was another decent sized boar. Needless to say this close encounter got him excited.




This was the last hog we killed on Thursday night. We turned the dogs loose and after a little while we heard them bayed up a pretty good ways away from us. We immediately jogged over to them and realized that there was some reason that they wouldn't catch him. As we got close we realized that he was a big hog and he was wedged into a prickly pear thicket, which kept the dogs off of his backside and kept them from catching him. I'd warned Jason earlier about turning on your light in front of one of these hogs that they would charge the light so we were very careful as we eased up closer to him. If you've ever heard a big boar grunt as he fights off dogs you'll know that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I after a few very tense seconds I was able to find an opening in the cactus and shoot him in the neck with my 357 rifle and he dropped immediately. Draggin him out was fun as he was full of thorns.


Here's a picture of the hogs we killed thursday night.








We hunted Friday night with the night vision and we came across a lone boar out in a field about 150 yards out. Everything was setting up perfect until I tried to chamber a round and I realized that a bunch of dirt had gotten into the action and I couldn't even close the bolt. After 15 minutes of cleaning everything out the best we could the boar had spooked and was trotting away from us. After this the drizzling rain and fog began to set in and this limited our visibility to less than 50 yards. I found one more group of hogs but they'd already been spooked by the time I saw them because we were right on top of them with the poor visibility. So we just decided to call it a night and get some sleep on Friday night without killing a single hog.

Saturday night we hunted hard around some corn feeders but just didn't see much sign and the dogs never acted real interested. We killed one sow but I was dissapointed because this has been a great place to kill some big hogs in the past.

Sunday morning we headed out to one more place before our hunting ended. We turned the dogs loose and they immediately began baying. After a little while we heard a hog squealing and we headed in there to kill it. As we approached the white brush thicket that the hog was in I could tell it was a big boar and he broke free from the dogs and busted out of the brush right in front of me and was heading my direction. My only instinct was to jump out of the way and I jumped onto the white brush, rolled off of it and onto some prickly pear. But the dogs were in hot pursuit of him again and caught him a short while later and Jason got in and stuck him. After this hog we killed another boar and saw a pack of about 15 hogs run across the road in front of us but we didn't need to hunt anymore since it was starting to get hot.

Gentlemen, excellent job! Some damn good hogs! A couple of them have some serious cutters! Was that a Kabar I saw one of you using? Looking forward to the stories to go along with the pics!

Yep, Jason was using a Ka Bar knife and he did very well on the hogs. I think he ended up with 5 of the 8 that we killed.

Thanks for the pictures -- pretty good sized group of dogs you were running there. My feed bill is high enough with four dogs that are not good for anything except eating and barking!

I look forward to the details when you have time.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charles_Helm:
Thanks for the pictures -- pretty good sized group of dogs you were running there. My feed bill is high enough with four dogs that are not good for anything except eating and barking!
QUOTE]

We had more dogs than we needed that night but the way we hunt we generally use more dogs than most guys anyway. We don't use dedicated catch dogs (pits, ABDs, etc) so it's helpful to have a few more dogs when you get on a big hog.

quote:

Originally posted by Rattlesnaker:
We don't use dedicated catch dogs (pits, ABDs, etc) so it's helpful to have a few more dogs when you get on a big hog.

Makes perfect sense to me. They just seemed to have that one hog way outnumbered, which I am sure is how you like it.

Some of the finest pics I've ever seen on AR! Bravo!

Great Pics! Congrats on a succesful hunt.

Thanks for the pics and story! Dave

Good hunt. Are you ready to get one with a bow yet??

Nice porkers, great looking dogs.
Roland

Have you written this up for a magazine and submitted it? I know you do this as a hobby but you wrote well and the photos are top notch and taken in bad conditions. That should get you somewhere unless the gun rags want to use their own writers exclusively. It got my heart pumping reading this. Thanks Dave and Jason. Packrattusnongratus

Those are great pictures of what was surely an awesome hunt. I've shot pigs with everything from bows to rifles, but never taken one with a knife. That looks like fun! You guys did great. I'd second the motion for you to submit an article and some pictures for publication...

Thanks for the kind words. We did have a good time. Any ideas on a magazine to write something up and send an article/pictures into? I have a few more pictures that Jason took plus a couple of action shots that my brother in law snapped on the first hog we killed. I haven't seen any of them so there may be a few more good ones hanging out there.

Just curious...do you guys like the action shots better than than the posed after shots?

quote:

Originally posted by Rattlesnaker:
curious...do you guys like the action shots better than than the posed after shots?

I like some of everything myself.

I'm with Charles on that one as well. I love the action shots, makes you really feel the hunt, but the posed shot is nice at the end when the dust settles so that you can get a good look at the hog and the happy hunter.

I've now gotten home and finnaly slept a good night. This was a hunt that will stay burned into my mind for the rest of my being. I don't quite know how to explain what I was thinking or doing but I was sure having fun. Rattlesnaker and his family are tops in my book. They treated me like one of the family and were patient with me not knowing crap about hogs or Texas. It blows my mind to think that one minute I'd never even seen a hog before and within two mintues of seeing my first one I was working my knife and thinking in the back of my mind to, "Git-r-done". This kind of hunting is uncomparable to most anything else. When the dogs would catch one of the hogs the sound was unmistakable and I just started hauling ass to the sound of the fight. I learned quickly though to either carry your own flashlight or don't outrun the fastest guy with one. It's a little crazy to be within 20 yards of a hog/dog fight and not be able to see what's what.

quote:

As soon as he turned his light on he noticed that it was another decent sized boar. Needless to say this close encounter got him excited.

Excited is one word for it. I was running pretty hard when I saw him just a few yards in front of me coming right at me. I think I drug 3 feet of sand trying to stop and run the other direction. Let me tell y'all, that will bring ya to your senses really fast.

As far as pictures, I think we've all wanted to see the man himself in action.





I don't really know what to add to the story already told other than no words can thank Rattlesnaker enough for an opertunity like this. I did a lot of "firsts" on this trip and I owe it all to him and his terrific family.

quote:

Was that a Kabar I saw one of you using?

That was mine. It worked great with the point cutting easily on contact. I didn't know what to expect but it slipped in with little effort. I bought that knife when I was an early teen and I'd wanted to use it on something so I finnaly got the chance in Texas.

wack 'em and stack 'em. runnin' a pack of dogs and stickin' pigs in the brush is some fun huntin'. I think we have not seen the last of NB Hunter in Texas. Kurt.

I simultaneously took pictures with my camera and filmed with Jason's video camera film of the hog that almost ran over me when we finally got in when Jason killed it. If he can ever figure out how to get it off his video camera maybe we can post a small clip of the action. We only took the video camera in on one hog but it might be interesting to see it. Fortunately the camera was pointing at the ground when I took my dive. My wife was laughing when I told her about it and was anxious to see my busting my ass but when I looked at the tape all you can see is the ground in front of Jason.

quote:

Originally posted by Walker:
Good hunt. Are you ready to get one with a bow yet??

Yes, I think that would be fun. I've been day dreaming about all the possibilities.

quote:

I looked at the tape all you can see is the ground in front of Jason.

Yah, when I saw you make the dive from that hog my eyes were not really on the viewfinder. When I looked over the tape I realize that the hog was well passed my legs before it occured to me what had just happened. I finnaly got the pear thorn out of my knee, hows your ass

look at the dog's face in first photo. "yeah, we got that SOB" love it! Kurt.

quote:

Originally posted by NBHunter:

quote:

I looked at the tape all you can see is the ground in front of Jason.

Yah, when I saw you make the dive from that hog my eyes were not really on the viewfinder. When I looked over the tape I realize that the hog was well passed my legs before it occured to me what had just happened. I finnaly got the pear thorn out of my knee, hows your ass

somehow I convinced my wife to pull the thorns out with tweezers last night. with my pants at my ankles, bent over onto the bed as she worked with the tweezers, my wife commented that she hoped the neighbors weren't watching through our windows.

quote:

Originally posted by kweber:
look at the dog's face in first photo. "yeah, we got that SOB" love it! Kurt.

yeah, I just realized that you can see the small cut on his leg in that picture. good dogs get more passionate about what they do when a hog cuts them

Rattlesnaker, I'm surprised there's any pigs left in your area.

What is the heaviest hog you have taken?

quote:

Originally posted by fla3006:
Rattlesnaker, I'm surprised there's any pigs left in your area.

What is the heaviest hog you have taken?

There are more hogs around now than ever, although this dry weather this year in south texas might hurt the population a bit.

I really don't know what's the biggest hog we've ever caught. Maybe 400 something pounds. It's generally too much work to string them up and weigh them but I've weighed enough to know that there aren't too many 300+ lb hogs out there...contrary to popular belief and story telling.

Rattlesnaker--you are dead on about the scarcity of 300+ pigs. In either 7 or 8 years on the current lease, the biggest we've killed weighed 262, and had one other we field dressed in the brush because two of us couldn't drag him 50 yds to the truck. Check the Dilley Feed and Grain web site for their contest each year for the largest hogs.

quote:

Check the Dilley Feed and Grain web site for their contest each year for the largest hogs.

I just checked their site and the 1st and 2d place winners for this year's contest weighed 252 and 177 lbs.

great hunt guys,well doe. I used to hunt hogs with dogs all the time and there is not to much to beat hunting them at night with dogs and knife only. great exitment!!

Man, thanks God you don´t live near my hunting grounds or the only pigs I will see will be in the magazines !!! You are a the worst hog nightmare !!

L

I'm trying to convince my wife that another trip to south Texas for vacation would be in our best interest but she seems to have seen through my plans. Maybe for our aniversary???

quote:

Man, thanks God you don´t live near my hunting grounds or the only pigs I will see will be in the magazines !!! You are a the worst hog nightmare !!

You should meet his father too. Between the two of them they are proof that hogs cannot be eraticated through hunting.

quote:

NBHunter: I'm trying to convince my wife that another trip to south Texas for vacation would be in our best interest but she seems to have seen through my plans. Maybe for our aniversary?

It should be doable. Many Canadians and folks from the Northern climes are "Winter Texans", that is, they spend winters in the Rio Grande Valley. Lots of golf, fun across the border in Mexico, hunting & fishing on the Gulf Coast, etc.