I'll post a brief report later, but my buddy (that I met here, actually; thanks AR!) had me down for a quick trip for hogs and some fishing. It was a great time, and successful.







Since it seems regular to do so, I'll ask how much folks think this one weighs.







We loaded up on these tasty guys



We weren't fishing when we came across this little guppy. A bizarre story attached to it (and I now know that it's not legal to even have them on board, but after a quick couple of pics it was released). Any guesses on its weight?



Cheers,

KG

You picked him up, what do you think? If I had to guess, 80 to 100 lbs. In a bunch more years, it could make to 800 or so. You've done good fishing and hunting in FL. best-o-luck

I know what I think. The idea was to see what others folks think, just out of curiousity. Follow?

264# on the pig

88# on the grouper


Great pics, thanks for sharing!

You've got a pretty good eye, Kudu. You high-balled one, and low-balled the other, though. I'm not going to drag it out, so after another couple of guesses I'll let you know.

KG

Ok! One more time. Since no one else is!
213# on porky, Mrs. Porky!
It is hard to tell by the pig photo, but when you look at the hams and feet!
112# on Mr. Grouper!

Nice jewfish! The last trip I was on we caught one that was estimated aroun 150#. I'd guess yours between 90-100#.

Sow was 230. Goliath grouper/Jewfish estimated at ~120.

Cheers,

KG

I`ll bet that pig of a fish put a "twang" in your string. Took some pictures and put it back...4 thumbs up!

Cast and Blasts are a ton of fun. Down here it's usually trout and ducks. I'll have to say your's is the heaviest pair I've seen. Congrats!

Nice! Congrats on the haul. I'll take Snapper's like that anyday.
LDK

Thanks for the comments, fellas. Here's a c&p from another site I posted a quick and simple write-up at.

Disclaimer: I seek no debate nor argument WRT my comments about baiting. It's not a condemnation nor judgment; it's a personal decision. Leave the flammenwerfers in the off position, please.

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South Florida Cast and Blast

As it is with many of my hunting and fishing trips, this one would be quick, with my buddy picking me up at the airport, and getting headed off to hunt directly from there. My return flight back to the Mean Bean would be less than 72 hours from the time I hit the ground in sunny south Florida. Our primary quarry on this trip would be wild hogs. I’ve always wanted to hunt them, and Dilip had what sounded like a great opportunity to chase them with some friends. The plan was pretty straightforward: directly from the airport head north to a cattle farm, meet up with his buddy who works on the farm, get set up in one of their stands, and see what happens. Now, I was told that by far the best chance I’d have at plugging a swine in short order would be from a stand overlooking a feeder, as the hogs didn’t move much, if at all during the day, excepting some of the feeder stations on the periphery of the ranch, in fairly thick cover. This element to the hunt sort of troubled me, in that my personal feeling (albeit backed up by zero experience) has been that hunting over a feeder is really a far cry from what I consider to be hunting. Frankly, I see it more as a target shooting proposition. Note: I don’t have the least bit of a problem at with how others choose to hunt, and I recognize fully that in many places hunting over bait is both legal and the standard. That said, I can’t with any honesty say that I felt great about what I’d chosen to maybe do. However, as I’d have only a few hours to try to put one down, I decided to put aside my reservations for the day ( I conveniently folded like a cheap Chinese restaurant napkin, I guess you could say ) and agreed to jump on a stand. I didn’t have to shoot, after all, if I didn’t want to.

In the time before the hunt, I was told the shots would almost certainly be very close, so decided I really wanted to bring a gun that I hadn‘t yet blooded, with either my 50-odd years young model 1894 Winchester in .30-30, or my Super Blackhawk in .44 magnum being frontrunners. When I was told that there may however be shots to 200+, if hogs weren’t cooperating with the feeders and a longish shot might be required, I chose instead to bring my stainless model 70 classic in 7mm mag, and not have to worry one way or the other about having to take a chip shot or go long. As to ammo, I simply grabbed a box of plain Jane Remington Core-Lokt 150 grainers for the job.

I arrived at PBI without incident, but Dilip said that instead of going right to the hunting spot, we’d be heading back to his pad for a little while first, as getting to the place early would serve little purpose, with the pigs there being largely crepuscular. After dropping off some gear, we headed out with Dilip’s lovely wife to have a bite locally. After a nice soft shell crab sandwich and some catching up, we headed back to home base to pack up, and set out. We were at the ranch within a couple hours of landing at PBI. Dilip’s buddy was waiting near the gate for us, and after introductions to Buck and his friend and co-worker Jarrett, we hopped into the pickup, made a quick pit stop for Dilip to check his bow, and then were promptly taken to our respective stands.

Dilip, ever the generous hunting bud, told our hosts in no uncertain terms that he wanted to have me put on the most productive stand, as I had traveled a long way and had but this one afternoon to try to knock over a hog. I did not argue, and we piled in the truck and set out.

A few words about the dairy/cattle farm itself: there are two main parcels of about 1500 acres each, with barns, scattered buildings and three strand fences here and there amongst large, wide open pastures, surrounded on many sides by fairly thick vegetation. A small dirt road system wound about here and there. The land was as flat as any I’d ever seen, with nothing so much as resembling a small hill anywhere I could see. After bumping along across pasture and dirt road in the truck for maybe 15 minutes, we let Dilip off at the edge of a thick edge of vegetation, where I saw a rough dirt track cutting a hole in all the greenery. Jarrett explained that about eighty yards on down the road there was a stand, and some 30 yards beyond that, a feeder. Dilip has killed many, many hogs over the years, and jumped out of the truck, needing to be told no more. He and I wished each other good luck, and Jarrett and I pulled away with the truck to get me to my stand. Mine was only ten or fifteen minutes away, but much deeper in some of the heavy vegetation surrounding the open pasture lands. Instead of being dropped off at the entrance to a similar hole in the bush, we drove into it, and stayed on a boggy, muddy mess of a track for maybe another quarter mile. Jarrett at some point stopped the truck and explained that a hundred yards or so off the track, I’d see the stand and feeder. I asked for any last-minute suggestions and he said, “Nossir. Pretty basic.You see one you like, you go ahead and kill ‘im†I grinned and assured him that I could do that. He did suggest I keep aware of my surroundings carefully, and to know that the hogs could come in from any direction, and that in all likelihood it’d be an hour or more until things started moving. As I closed the door on the pickup, he offered a bit more advice. “They’ll starts tuh git’ up good once the sun gits low. I’m purty shore yous gon’ git one here, they bin right busy up in this here area. But, if you haven’t seen nuttin’ by about an hour before dark, turn yore phone on and I’ll come gitcha’, and we’ll try to git you on one on foot tuh kill. Sometimes they just ups and changes where they wants tuh beâ€. “Fair enough, and thanksâ€, I said, and got set to traipse out along the muddy road. “Yessirâ€, he said, as he smiled and emptied his neoprene jacket-wearing Bud Light.

I headed down to the stand, and on the way saw two large fresh rooting areas, and tracks everywhere. Soon after, I saw the stand and feeder. I was immediately surprised at how close the feeder was, at perhaps 35 yards from the stand, but hey, when in Rome…I climbed up the stand, got settled and so the wait began.

About 45 minutes into my sit I was caught by surprise by a loud mechanical whirring, and my hands gripped my rifle in nervousness. I then watched as corn kernels were sprayed by the feeder over a circle of a couple hundred square feet. The sound was much louder than what I expected—or hadn’t—and I said to myself then that if hogs started running into the feeder right then that I’d not shoot one. That would be just a bit much. Alas, they neither came into the feeder creeping quietly, or on a determined bum rush. In fact, over the course of the next two and a half hours or so I saw nothing but a big black bull walk by on the other side of a fence a few hundred yards off, and this guy. You want to talk about being as happy as a pig in shite? This guy came in and out of the feeder area a few times, each time sitting himself down for 15 minute grub sessions. I could hear his distinct crunching very clearly, in fact. I watched him with interest for over an hour, and at some point, the feeder went off as he was standing beneath it. I thought he’d maybe bolt at the noise. Not so much! In fact, all he did was look directly up at the corn raining down on him, before getting back to stuffing himself with what sure looked like a raccoon smile to me. I was kind of surprised that he didn’t just lay on his back, open his gob and just kind of let the kernels fall in, the little bugger.

Soon after, with the sun starting to get low, I turned my cell phone on. Within about 5 minutes the phone rang. It was Dilip, who explained he had arrowed a nice hog with a good shot, but that it had bolted off into the thick stuff. Buck was on the way to help with tracking. I explained that I’d not seen any hogs, ort any signs of them whatever. Dilip said to sit tight, and said that he was going to call Jarrett and explain that I’d seen nothing, and that I’d need to be moved. There were only about 45 minutes, tops, left for shooting light, and since I’d seen nothing, it was decided that trying to find something to try to stalk would be my best chance. If nothing had come into the feeder in 2+ hours, then the chances were that the hogs had changed routines. Hmm. Not my lucky day, apparently.

The man came to get me, and said that on his way in, he’d seen a bunch of hogs making their way into the open fields. It could be tricky, but he explained that if we saw any in the open, he’d try to get me behind some cover to see if I could bail out and get close enough to one for a shot. And so it was.

The truck was stopped near some heavy brush, and I was told that some hogs had been seen traveling through, and thought there might be something to shoot on the other side. He reminded me that if I wanted a ‘trophy’, to shoot a boar that stood higher at the shoulder than my knee, but that the meat would at best be OK for sausage, but that if I wanted good eating, to shoot a sow of the same size and smaller. I told him that I understood, and exited the truck. He drove off, I assume in an effort to make any hogs that maybe lurked on the other side think that the human threat had driven off. By this time it was getting very close to dark. If I didn’t see anything inside a few minutes it would be game over. I racked a round into the chamber and made sure the rifle was safe, then quietly snuck around to the other side of the thick bush. I peeked around, and took a look through my binos to see if I could see anything in the fields of knee-high grass before me. I was in a bottlenecked spot, where I was looking out at an ever widening area, and it looked promising to me (whatever that means). Unfortunately, I saw nothing. A bit dejected, I was about to unload and call Buck back when I saw some shadowy movement at around 70 yards, just along the edge of the right side of the bottleneck. I took a knee against next to some brush, and brought the 7 mag to bear. As I looked through the glass, I saw that I was being watched back by a healthy looking sow. Sonofa! She stood at attention, staring in my direction but seemingly unsure about what she was seeing. I had been told and had read that pigs do not possess the greatest eyesight, but that their sense of smell was amazing. Blessedly, I was downwind. Just the same, the sow must have felt something was amiss, and began to move to her right, and my left. She set off at what I would call a trot, with me able to follow her with the rifle, set on three power. I flicked off the safety, and decided that if and when she stopped, I’d drill her. Just as that thought crossed my mind, she stopped dead in her tracks to stare hard in my direction. I set the crosshair just behind the shoulder and slapped the trigger. As I recovered from the recoil I saw the beast rocketing off to my left, directly toward the thick vegetation. The shot had felt good, but Dilip’s words of advice regarding hogs and their being tough, with the recommendation for hitting them right in the shoulder to bring them down quickly ran through my brain.

Sonofa! As I watched and tried to get the pig back in my sights it disappeared into the darkness of the bush. Just then I heard something big behind me. I spun around in a panic, only to see Buck standing behind me. I think I thought an angry mob of pigs was about to assail me, and was jumpy, I'm sure. I started to blurt out that I’d hit one and to explain when he immediately silenced me with a hand motion and a face that said without confusion, ‘shut the hell up—nowâ€. I stopped what I was saying, and watched Buck. He cocked his head to the side hard, and looked to me to be in some sort of weird trance, or beginning to really feel his beer buzz coming on all of a sudden. I was getting a bit nervous, to tell the truth, when Buck smiled, stuck out his hand and said, “your sow’s down. I jist heard ‘er stack up just over yonder, inside 50 feet of that there bush line. Let’s go git ‘er!†in his thick accent. If he had a banjo with him, I'd have made him walk ahead of me.

I walked with Buck the short few yards into the bush to find exactly what Buck had predicted--or or heard, should I say. There was a 4†or so diameter tree that the sow had smashed into in her hurry to get through the thick brush and away from me. Buck looked at the blood signs and explained that after smashing into the tree in a panic and knocking the wind out of her escape, she stumbled into some brush, and promptly run out of steam. When I approached her, she quaked a few seconds more , then went still. My first pig was down. Buck took a second to examine the wound I’d dealt the beast, and said simply, “made a good shot on this ‘un, yessir. Not a lotta’ wasted meat. She’ll eat real, real good fer yuhâ€. I was elated.

After dragging the sow out of the thick bush, Buck brought the truck right up to the pig, but she was a bit heavier to manage than we thought. Had we wanted to really work at it, we’d have gotten her in on that flat, muddy ground, but we weren’t looking for any medals, and Buck simply tied some rope to the animal and we dragged it with the truck to a depression in the land, and loaded it up lickety-split. My hunt was over, and I was pleased as hell.

From there we headed back to see about helping Dilip try to find his wounded pig, but by the time we got there it was pitch black. Unfortunately, upon arriving was told that without dogs, there was little point to trying to follow up a trail of an animal that long ago stopped bleeding, and had left no trail, especially in the nasty brush that it had bolted through. After a couple of hours looking, the search was called off, and they joined us back at the butchering shed area. We were told that in the morning they'd see about finding it. Whether they did or not, I don't know.

Our hosts took my sow apart like seasoned professionals, and I packed up perhaps 70 pounds of beautiful, pink, boned-out meat. Actually, I just got a call from my wife, who said that the pork ribs and tenderloin that I left out to thaw that she is cooking smells, and tastes absolutely phenomenal. I'll finish the story of the goliath grouper later, but I can't stop thinking about those ribs, so off I go.

Cheers,

L