Hog Hunt pt 3

The next stop after mine was Grandpa and my Daughter's stand.  They hadn't seen anything all morning.

It turned out that no one else had even seen a single hog, let alone the numbers that had stopped at my feeder.  At my feeder there'd been at least five hogs for over an hour, with several coming and going.

We drove back to the main camp, they took my hog to get gutted and cleaned.  I got on a another swamp buggy to go with Grandpa and my daughter and the other hunters with the dogs.  Grandpa wanted my daughter to see all of the hunt and they hadn't seen anything yet.  We drove around for a while we saw buffalo, deer, and a variety of birds before letting out the dogs.

We came across another group and decided to follow them since Grandpa decided not to get one.  This other group had already gotten a couple of hogs but they hadn't reached the limit yet.  It was a grand father, a father, and his two sons.  They had gotten two hogs, wounded another and never found it (despite the fact that they had found blood and large chunks of bone from the shoot), and were out to get two more.

Hunting with the dogs was interesting.  The dogs get the scent, chase the hog down, grab it by the ears and keep it pinned until the guides could get ahold of it.  The guides would grab the hind legs, pin it down, then the hunter would kill it.  I wasn't particularly interested in this part of the day, it didn't seem very sporting, but we wanted my Daughter to see it for herself, see how she would handle it.

The dogs grabbed a hog and the older of the two sons was volunteered to shoot it in the head with a 30-30.  He did so, my daughter covered her ears.  It was a good sized sow, they loaded it up with the others.  The guide came over and asked who had a decent knife.  I showed him mine and he said it would work, that he would need it at the next stop.

The next time the dogs got a hog, the guides pulled it out of the brush, and pinned it down.  The guide borrowed my knife and handed it to the father who used it to kill the hog.  Despite what I would have though, it was a surprisingly humane way to do it (assuming the person hits the right spot).

Grandpa hadn't gotten a hog and declined the opportunity to get one with the dogs.  It wasn't the kind of hunt that we were looking for.  If he didn't get one from the stand he didn't need to get one at all.  I'm not surprised that Grandpa didn't go for it, I'm not sure I would have either.

The guide's wife was along for the "hunt".  She was very interested in getting my daughter involved, if only to familiarize herself with the whole process.  She convinced my daughter to get a picture taken with the knifed hog, she's grinning ear to ear.  So much for worrying about how she would handle it.

Then it was back to camp.  My daughter was surprisingly interested in the skinning and butchering of the hogs.  Rather than being disturbed she was fascinated as the guides went about their job, getting the hogs ready for butchering.  She watched them being skinned, gutted, and cut up without a hesitation.  That's far more than I can say for myself at her age, I'd probably have been puking my guts out.

All in all, we all had a good time.  We got to drive around in cool buggies, I got a hog, we got to see a lot of animals and have a lot of stories to tell.  I guess it's time to break out the .22 and get her to the range, next time she probably won't be satisfied just tagging along for the hunt.