I've been watching too many (if that is a thing) Robert Carter and Jason Samkowiak hog hunting adventures and I just couldn't stand it anymore, so I slipped out a little before noon yesterday and high tailed it out to the marsh to try my luck with the piggies.
The wind was out of the South, mostly, and predicted to be anyway, so I got my longbow and Douglas Firs and my hog backpack and my little 8x25 Meopta binos and headed out to see what I could find.
I decided to cut the downwind edge of really thick, high stem count pines that ran along a narrow finger of hardwoods and scrub along a shallow drainage. I've been finding the hogs at higher elevations lately, so I wanted to give the pines a try. I was slipping along at what I thought was a nice, slow pace and was in a little overgrown lane between the rows of pines and a big pig stood up from behind a large pine about 25 feet to my immediate front. It sort of caught me off guard. Dangit! I did not see it at all before it stood up in spite of its body being about the size of a 30 gallon drum. It was khaki colored with diffuse black spots. I'm telling you this thing was perfectly camouflaged for the pines. It trots in a wide circle to my front while I just look at it for a second and then it occurs to me to try and get an arrow on the string. As I'm doing that it makes it out of the clear area and into the pine thicket. I know it did not catch my wind, but it must have heard me slowly slipping through. That was a close one. If I had just seen it before it woke up and stood up it would have been game on. It disappeared into that thicket so trailing it quietly was not an option.
The lesson for me from this encounter is to slow down even more and focus on scanning every little thing ahead of me. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of that but apparently, I wasn't. In my defense, that thing was wearing a fine set of camo.
Now I really slowed down and I started advancing about 20 feet, stopping and scanning everything ahead of me with the binoculars. I would pick apart every little clump of brush and look into every shadow. After about an hour of this I emerged at the transition where the pines dumped out into a bottom. From here I stood and picked apart the whole valley with the optics before moving slowly down into the draw.
Once in the creek, I could move more quietly and after making my way to a big blowdown, I decide to take a break and rest for a few minutes and just watch and listen. About 5 minutes after stopping at the root ball of the tree, I hear what sounds like an animal walking. To my front is a little rise covered with young pines and trash trees. It's fairly thick. To my right is a really thick pine block and behind me is the creek and draw. The wind is hitting me in the face.
I nock an arrow and wait. It's not 30 seconds later the source of the noise comes into view. It is a spike buck cutting the corner of the pine thicket and the little rise and he is calmly browsing his way right to me. I can't shoot him so instead I fish my phone out of my pocket while his head is obscured by a tree, and I start filming him walking right to me. I can't believe my luck. This is awesome. He gets to about 15 feet and notices me. He doesn't panic since I think he doesn't exactly know what I am, he just does not approve. He turns and starts walking back up the little hillside toward the pines. At this point I look down at the phone and realize that the record is not on. UGH! Man, that would have been a cool video and the dang record was not running. I quickly hit it and start recording him walking away from me. I get a little video before he is out of sight. He stays around up in those pines for quite a while and every once in a while I can see him in there.
It was such a cool experience having that deer come in like that to me while I was on the ground. I count that among one of the better hunts of the year in spite of there being zero legal opportunity to actually take him. He offered me several close shots had that been on the menu.
Once I was sure he was gone, I move out and start stalking through the creek to the South again. I can move quieter through the water than the dry leaves. Soon I find a good bit of fresh hog rooting along a little V shaped mound formed by the splitting of the creek. There is an old blow down up there and the spot is covered in chest high river cane. I decide to stop and set up my Torges seat and sit for an hour or two and see if anything shows.
At this point it is about an hour before dark, so I decide to start slowly stalking my way back toward the boundary of the thick pines and the hardwoods. I eventually make my way back out to the stubble field hoping to see some hogs out there in the last few minutes of the day. No such luck.
Anyway, it was an awesome day hunting for sure. I have to get back out there ASAP.