I know it’s been a while since we’ve had the time to post new news to our blog…no excuses…we’ve just been very busy. I decided to post a story that one of our hunters sent to us. Amanda, her father and a friend Phil came to hunt with us and they sure were a lot of fun to be around. Good people, good company all around. It sure makes all the hard work worth the while when you get something like this in your email…Thanks Amanda! We look forward to seeing you again.
I’ll let Amanda tell the rest of the story….
It was cold. Phil’s snores seemed to echo through the dark morning. Setting my compound bow down on my knees, I leaned back in the chair, stuffing my stiff fingers into my armpits. My friend Phil, the self-proclaimed prophet, sat next to me, his chin resting against his chest. For a moment, I considered letting him rumble on, thinking it might draw the hogs in. Smiling, I jabbed my elbow into his leg. His head snapped up.
“You were snoring,” I whispered, still thoroughly amused.
“Oh,” he said, and put his chin down again.
It was our second morning into our hunt at Dos Plumas Hunting Ranch, and I was already more than pleased about the whole experience. Between excellent accommodations and a great hunting staff, I had seen more hogs in those two days than in my entire life, as well as exotics. The owner, Alan Williams, certainly went out of his way to provide a great experience for the clientele.
Staring out into the dark field, I was determined to get a good sized hog, (my dad and I having been dubbed the Hogless Wonders), a feat not made hard by lack of pigs but by my mere three months of shooting experience. Phil and I had both shot a hog the previous evening, two big porkers, but shots made with a crossbow often turn out differently than with a compound.
We had sat in the same blind as the previous evening. The bread we had shucked that afternoon lay in a long pile fifteen-twenty yards in front of us. Phil was starting to get antsy, and our whispered talk had turned more to what we would eat for dinner than seeing any pigs. Loud snorts had snapped us out of our talk of chile and Raman noodles. A black hog sauntered across the road, fifty or sixty yards to our right, vanishing into the mesquite.
“That was a nice one,” he said, gripping up the crossbow. His prediction of him getting Hogzilla and me going home with Babe had so far come true; he had shot two hogs that morning and so it was decided that I take the first shot. Already, I could feel the familiar sense of excitement rising in me…not the same I had experienced in pulling up on my first buck, the hand shaking, gong in your ears sort of excitement, but something different, more controlled.
Five minutes passed and then the Horde of Hogs came. There were medium sized pigs and a couple of wet sows, their many piglets in tow. They trotted across the road from the mesquite, crossing the open field to the pile of expired bread.
“Look at all of them,” Phil breathed. I nodded, surprised at how calm I was. A medium sized hog brought up the rear, maybe the same blackie that had crossed the road by itself.
Slowly, painstakingly, I raised my compound. My breath came in long draws while Phil whispered advice. Absently, I thought he would make a good outfitter. The hog stopped, sticking its nose into the bread. I pulled back, both of us freezing as some of the bigger hogs looked up at us. Losing interest in us, their noses went back down and their contented snorting started up, some of the meaner hogs charging the smaller. I settled my pin onto the black hog’s shoulder. Phil’s voice stopped my release.
“Wait, look at those ones!”
I raised my eyes. Two big hogs emerged from the mesquite. One was shorter and brown, the other longer and black. Phil pulled his crossbow up on them. Several long moments of checking to see if they weren’t wet sows passed, SCOPE SOMETHING
“I’m going for the black one,” I whispered.
They came closer. Again, I drew back taking careful aim.
“Take the extra second,” Phil said, repeating the same advice for the umpteenth time that day. The hog turned broadside. I released.
Phil gave an all too loud cry of victory. “You got ‘im!”
My arrow’s green fletching could be seen sticking just above his elbow as it squealed and ran. We watched with mounting excitement as it charged across the road, stopping abruptly under a tree.
Grinning, we exchanged high fives. Settling back into the chairs, we spent an extremely happy minute chuckling over my success and watching my hog stand stark still.
“Ok, your turn,” I whispered. The hogs, having retreated somewhat at the noise, were returning. Phil shouldered his crossbow. He took aim at the large brown one, taking in a long breath and steadying his shot with an elbow on his knee. He squeezed the trigger. The bolt zinged. The hog squealed, and the Horde took a full retreat. My own wounded pig running into the mesquite with them.
“Yes!”
The next twenty minutes was spent in increasing impatience. We wanted to track, so much that we stood and stared intently into the mesquite from the blind, tapping our feet and checking my watch. At last, we ventured across the field, pulling headlights from our packs and pulling beanies over our ears.
Our eyes on the ground, we walked half bent over, looking for any sign of blood in the rapidly fading light. At last, we found some splatter, and found Phil’s hog not thirty yards off the road, blood from its wound wetting the grass around it. It was amazing how huge it was, and how almost medium sized it had looked coming across the field. After several cautious kicks to its head, we carried it to the road, commenting happily on how heavy it was and how good barbeque ribs sounded.
After taking a few in-field pictures of Phil with his kill, we set out in search of my own, fruitlessly looking for the blood trail. We then set out without one, listening as the hogs returned to the bread pile. The light from our headlights cast long shadows against the mesquite, hogs could be heard scuffling around in the brush, but the beams of light found no downed hog.
Between the fact that a hog’s fat seals up wounds and our greenhorn tracking skills, we returned to the blind pigless, looking for the headlights of Alan’s truck. An hour and a half later, our hunting guide, Roger, Alan and Dad beside us, we trekked through the mesquite, nodding whenever a new drop of blood was sighted. Then the path went cold.
We went back to the cabin, where the disappointment of losing my kill was temporarily forgotten in the joy of a hot dinner. My dad, a traditional bow hunter, had yet to get anything yet either. It seemed the Hogless Wonders would continue their regime.
Phil’s head bobbed. I glanced over, kneading the hand warmers in my gloves, watching as his eyes closed and his chin sank back down. It seemed to take forever for the sun to come up. Once it did, our search again turned up nothing. For an hour, we looked for that hog, and again we sat in the blind, certain we’d never set eyes on it.
The next day, I’d again shoot a hog and foul up the shot miserably. I was beginning to wonder if I would be making any good shots before the long drive home. The last evening of our hunt, God smiled on me. Two other hunters sharing the cabin with us came across my hog laying not twenty yards behind the very blind I had shot it in. My mind was eased with knowing I’d made a good shot, and it had surely died not long after my release. A good lung shot on a hog a little bigger than ol’ Phil’s; too bad it hadn’t made it to the freezer.
Dad got two hogs, one a monster in pig form; Phil harvested four, two little guys and two big ‘uns that, when stretched out, were as tall as him.
I’m happy to report I did bring home one hog…yep, you guessed it, I shot Babe, the little pink one who looks cute even lying there in the dust. So, “technically” I didn’t win our bet…but who knows what next year will bring.
Our twelve-hour drive to Dos Plumas Hunting Ranch was one we’ll happily make again. I know we’ll be coming back next year.
If you’re looking for a ranch that you know you’ll get a great hunt and experience, a place to take the kids and, certainly, to bring home the bacon, there’s certainly no better place in my book.