I went back out yesterday and had to adjust on the fly since I could not access the area I had been hunting due to a rural bridge closure. I talked to the one of the workers and found out I could cut to the South and head East and bypass around to another area I had been looking at on the maps but had never been too before. The wind was sort of wrong to approach this area since I had to come in from the South with a South wind so I decided to move as fast as I could through a relatively open route that would be unlikely to have hogs midday and hunt my way back toward the truck from the North with the wind right for the last few hours of the day. So, this is what I did. The terrain went from open pines to bottomland to marsh to downright swamp back to bottomland. I had to cross several sloughs that almost overtopped my rubber boots. There was less hog sign in this area than in the spot I had initially planned to go to. There were tracks of various ages and also some old rooting sign. I found very little really fresh sign, and that was about 1.5 miles deep.
At one point I bumped three does and I went over to where they had been but could not see anything that would make me say they were there for a reason. Most likely they were moving through when I bumped them. I did follow their fresh tracks in the wet leaves and mud though, to see where they would go when pressured. I found a nice cane thicket surrounding a marsh that needs to be thoroughly investigated very soon. If the does liked it maybe a swamp donkey will too. It may be a safe haven when they feel pressured.
No hogs were seen during this outing. I did find sign they were in there at some point, but it is a big section and hard to get around some parts of it. I learned some new ground yesterday having to adapt on the fly. Some of my best hunts have been the result of having to adapt and move due to some unforeseen disturbance. If nothing else, I found some new potential deer spots for the fall. You can never have too many of those.
All told I did 3.8 miles in that hunt.