Well, I finally got the Rug rodents to sleep. Love em to pieces, but not used to having them around for Hours on end. What can you do when the littlest crawls up in your lap and goes to sleep?
Along about May 2002, I finally got some time to take some time off since I had about 10 weeks of vacation coming and had been told to burn some off, and was leaving from Maryland where I had been for 5 months straightening out a project for the company. I decided to stop on my way back to Washington State, by going into Kansas City to see one Brother and then going south to Houston and stopping to see my other brother. Well the Houston brother decided that since I was coming through, we'd do some hog hunting on a ranch he had access to down SW of San Antonio. We had it all set up by phone so I stopped in Houston, and dropped off my wife with my Sister-in-Law and we took off for the ranch. Up to this time, had hunted a lot, but never Feral Hogs.
Since I didn't have a rifle with me at that time, crossing about 16 states and not knowing the rules on guns, I only had the 9 mm Beretta that I always traveled with. My brother had an extra 7 mm Remington rifle he had borrowed from his brother-in- law and I was going to use it for my hog hunting.
Anyway, we got down to the ranch and in those days, the ranch house was just a big old dilapidated farm house that served as a hunting lodge of sorts. Inside there was a propane stove, water was furnished by a well, and you had to turn on the pump to have water and if tasted decidedly rusty, and the bunks were just some old worn out bunk beds someone had hauled in over the years. One good thing about the bunks was that they were so old, that the Bedbugs had died of starvation a number of years before.
Again at this time, before the automatic feeders and the built up shooting stands, the way that you hunted the hogs was to wander down the tracks until you found a likely looking trail and then followed it until you either stumbled on them or they stumbled on you. Now the brush, off the tracks, and they were only tracks, was thick Texas scrub and visibility was about 25 – 40' down the trails and about 10-15' to the side through the scrub. Often as not you'd smell them before you saw them and would then try to creep up close enough to get a shot before they spotted you! Also, the trails were about 3' high where the hogs and other game had been moving down them and above that was overgrown across the trail so you were constantly ducking and weaving under branches and around overgrowth. Was a terrific place to be with an unfamiliar rifle and no experience hunting hogs. Anyway, was walking down the trail, ducking and weaving and suddenly there was a sow about 20' in front of me. Up to this time I had been carrying the Remington at high port arms with the barrel pointing up and to the left. I tried to bring the barrel down to get a shot and a branch about 1 ½" thick across the trail wouldn't let me get the barrel down. That sow saw me ran about 5' in my direction, which I thought was a charge and then turned down a side trail and disappeared. Whew!...if that had been a boar, he would have had me for lunch since I couldn't have gotten the rifle down to shoot him before he had me. Didn't let it faze me at all. Just stood there about an hour and a half until my heart slowed back to about half normal and cautiously moved up to the trail where the sow had disappeared. Now I was carrying the rifle pointed down and left. No more branches stopping me from shooting, I hope. Anyway, to get an idea of the brush, I posted a shot of a feeder back about 5-10 pages. Take a good look at the brush across from the feeder and this is what we were hunting in. Thick, low visibility and filled with almost everything on earth, except open space.
Anyway after I calmed down, I started moving down the trail that the sow had taken. Moving a quiet as I could I suddenly heard a snort behind me and turning around there was about a 30" boar coming down the trail abot 25' behind me. Again the limbs growing across the trail stopped me from getting the barrel high enough to shoot standing, so I crouched down and mainly from instinct, lined up the rifle and pulled the trigger. Now, most of my shooting previously had been with a Springfield M1A National Match, which is a semi auto with a 20 round magazine, so after the hog dropped, I sighted in on him through the scope and pulled the trigger again. Nothing….I had forgotten to cycle the bolt. Anyway, he dropped, then kicked a few times and then started to get back up!......Forgetting about the rifle, I pulled the Beretta and hit him in the head with a 9 mm, he kind of shook himself then still standing there, not moving, started growling, literally growling. I shot him again in the head with a 9 mm. Still standing there shaking and growling. Once more with the same result and then I aimed down a little lower and put one between the eyes and he finally dropped. By this time my rectal orifice was somewhere up between my shoulder blades. Absolutely knew I wasn't going to be able to pass gas for at least a week! Thought I was going to have to use all 15 rounds in the Beretta to get him to stay down.
When he stopped kicking and finally didn't move anymore, I edged closer and could see that the rifle round had grazed him on the left side of the head and probably stunned him and the 9mm's had removed skin, but had bounced off the skull on top of his head, stunning him some more. Tough hog!
Only a few other times in my life was I so glad to see something I had shot finally stay down and most of those were in Viet Nam. Then just for insurance, got close enough to put the rifle barrel, after cycling round in, almost in his ear and fired again. Even then, he jumped when that last round went in and started to quiver again, and then finally stopped. Meanwhile my brother had heard a Rifle shot, several pops from a handgun and then another Rifle shot. Figuring I had started a blood feud with the neighbors, he came looking to see what was going on.
When he finally found me, he told me I had been awful lucky with the 9 mm and I asked him why he hadn't said anything before, and he told me he had thought it was a .45. Anyway, we just left the hog where he lay and went back to the cabin. Went into town that night and I picked up several cases of bottled water for me to drink as he said he had been coming down there so often that he was used to the taste of the rusty water, and to prove it drank a glass of light brown water from the sink. Yuk! Over the next few days we got a couple more hogs, but I told him there had to be a better way to hunt them and later him and the owner came in with a Bulldozer and bulldozed roads and clearings throughout the ranch and eventually put in feeder stations and elevated blinds. But this was after my third trip so until then, it was just business as usual.
One anticlimactic event that occurred though happened after we got back to Houston. I guess he and his wife decided to get a little frisky the night we got back, so he went into the bathroom to get a drink of water to wash down a Viagra pill and he had so much iron in his system from 4 days of drinking that rusty water, that as he walked out of the bathroom into the master bedroom, as the pill took effect, he started spinning and ended up pointing due North just like a compass! Guess it would be a good thing to remember in a survival situation!
Packrat
Along about May 2002, I finally got some time to take some time off since I had about 10 weeks of vacation coming and had been told to burn some off, and was leaving from Maryland where I had been for 5 months straightening out a project for the company. I decided to stop on my way back to Washington State, by going into Kansas City to see one Brother and then going south to Houston and stopping to see my other brother. Well the Houston brother decided that since I was coming through, we'd do some hog hunting on a ranch he had access to down SW of San Antonio. We had it all set up by phone so I stopped in Houston, and dropped off my wife with my Sister-in-Law and we took off for the ranch. Up to this time, had hunted a lot, but never Feral Hogs.
Since I didn't have a rifle with me at that time, crossing about 16 states and not knowing the rules on guns, I only had the 9 mm Beretta that I always traveled with. My brother had an extra 7 mm Remington rifle he had borrowed from his brother-in- law and I was going to use it for my hog hunting.
Anyway, we got down to the ranch and in those days, the ranch house was just a big old dilapidated farm house that served as a hunting lodge of sorts. Inside there was a propane stove, water was furnished by a well, and you had to turn on the pump to have water and if tasted decidedly rusty, and the bunks were just some old worn out bunk beds someone had hauled in over the years. One good thing about the bunks was that they were so old, that the Bedbugs had died of starvation a number of years before.
Again at this time, before the automatic feeders and the built up shooting stands, the way that you hunted the hogs was to wander down the tracks until you found a likely looking trail and then followed it until you either stumbled on them or they stumbled on you. Now the brush, off the tracks, and they were only tracks, was thick Texas scrub and visibility was about 25 – 40' down the trails and about 10-15' to the side through the scrub. Often as not you'd smell them before you saw them and would then try to creep up close enough to get a shot before they spotted you! Also, the trails were about 3' high where the hogs and other game had been moving down them and above that was overgrown across the trail so you were constantly ducking and weaving under branches and around overgrowth. Was a terrific place to be with an unfamiliar rifle and no experience hunting hogs. Anyway, was walking down the trail, ducking and weaving and suddenly there was a sow about 20' in front of me. Up to this time I had been carrying the Remington at high port arms with the barrel pointing up and to the left. I tried to bring the barrel down to get a shot and a branch about 1 ½" thick across the trail wouldn't let me get the barrel down. That sow saw me ran about 5' in my direction, which I thought was a charge and then turned down a side trail and disappeared. Whew!...if that had been a boar, he would have had me for lunch since I couldn't have gotten the rifle down to shoot him before he had me. Didn't let it faze me at all. Just stood there about an hour and a half until my heart slowed back to about half normal and cautiously moved up to the trail where the sow had disappeared. Now I was carrying the rifle pointed down and left. No more branches stopping me from shooting, I hope. Anyway, to get an idea of the brush, I posted a shot of a feeder back about 5-10 pages. Take a good look at the brush across from the feeder and this is what we were hunting in. Thick, low visibility and filled with almost everything on earth, except open space.
Anyway after I calmed down, I started moving down the trail that the sow had taken. Moving a quiet as I could I suddenly heard a snort behind me and turning around there was about a 30" boar coming down the trail abot 25' behind me. Again the limbs growing across the trail stopped me from getting the barrel high enough to shoot standing, so I crouched down and mainly from instinct, lined up the rifle and pulled the trigger. Now, most of my shooting previously had been with a Springfield M1A National Match, which is a semi auto with a 20 round magazine, so after the hog dropped, I sighted in on him through the scope and pulled the trigger again. Nothing….I had forgotten to cycle the bolt. Anyway, he dropped, then kicked a few times and then started to get back up!......Forgetting about the rifle, I pulled the Beretta and hit him in the head with a 9 mm, he kind of shook himself then still standing there, not moving, started growling, literally growling. I shot him again in the head with a 9 mm. Still standing there shaking and growling. Once more with the same result and then I aimed down a little lower and put one between the eyes and he finally dropped. By this time my rectal orifice was somewhere up between my shoulder blades. Absolutely knew I wasn't going to be able to pass gas for at least a week! Thought I was going to have to use all 15 rounds in the Beretta to get him to stay down.
When he stopped kicking and finally didn't move anymore, I edged closer and could see that the rifle round had grazed him on the left side of the head and probably stunned him and the 9mm's had removed skin, but had bounced off the skull on top of his head, stunning him some more. Tough hog!
Only a few other times in my life was I so glad to see something I had shot finally stay down and most of those were in Viet Nam. Then just for insurance, got close enough to put the rifle barrel, after cycling round in, almost in his ear and fired again. Even then, he jumped when that last round went in and started to quiver again, and then finally stopped. Meanwhile my brother had heard a Rifle shot, several pops from a handgun and then another Rifle shot. Figuring I had started a blood feud with the neighbors, he came looking to see what was going on.
When he finally found me, he told me I had been awful lucky with the 9 mm and I asked him why he hadn't said anything before, and he told me he had thought it was a .45. Anyway, we just left the hog where he lay and went back to the cabin. Went into town that night and I picked up several cases of bottled water for me to drink as he said he had been coming down there so often that he was used to the taste of the rusty water, and to prove it drank a glass of light brown water from the sink. Yuk! Over the next few days we got a couple more hogs, but I told him there had to be a better way to hunt them and later him and the owner came in with a Bulldozer and bulldozed roads and clearings throughout the ranch and eventually put in feeder stations and elevated blinds. But this was after my third trip so until then, it was just business as usual.
One anticlimactic event that occurred though happened after we got back to Houston. I guess he and his wife decided to get a little frisky the night we got back, so he went into the bathroom to get a drink of water to wash down a Viagra pill and he had so much iron in his system from 4 days of drinking that rusty water, that as he walked out of the bathroom into the master bedroom, as the pill took effect, he started spinning and ended up pointing due North just like a compass! Guess it would be a good thing to remember in a survival situation!
Packrat
