Cabin fever cure...or a Quick trip to Texas for a hog hunt....

The other day my wife was whining about how rainy it had been, and she was complaining that we hadn't been able to fish...so I said...How about we look for a cheap hog hunt in Texas... Well, her reply to that was...'when are we leaving?'. It didn't take long for me to come up with a cheap 2 day hunt on a low fenced place near Olney, TX...very close to where I had hunted down there last month...
We left home at 4am on Tuesday, by 2pm we were in Olney, by 5pm we were settled into the cabin...
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The cabin was air conditioned...and more than adequate for a hunting camp. Lots of interesting stuff hanging on the walls...woodland and barren ground caribou antlers..musk ox and bison skulls...whitetail and mule deer horns...
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My wife was not sure what she was getting herself into when I booked the hunt. She was quite satisfied with our cabin... It was situated on about 400 acres and was part of a 3000 acre ranch that has land scattered about surrounding Olney.
When Randall our guide showed up, he said we needed to take some nuggets out to the bison herd...so away we went to feed the buffalo...
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The bison were quite docile and looked to be in good shape to me... The rancher is trying to build a small herd for his ranch...he had a fine bunch of calves running around there...
By 6pm we were in our blind over looking a couple of feeders that were about 120yds away... A large hog had been shot from that blind 2 weeks prior to our visit...
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We watched and waited, but only deer showed up...lots of deer....
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We watched the whitetail does come and go to the 2 feeders until it got dark...after dark we headed to a feeder on the other end of the property. Randall wanted to check it and see if the hogs had been feeding there... When we rounded the corner and the headlights hit the feeder about 100yds away, we could see 2 hogs eating under the feeder...one bolted immediately... Randall got the truck stopped and I got out and got a shot off at the second hog just as he was about to make his exit.... He gave no sign of being hit...Randall thought it was a miss...but I felt good about the shot, so we drove up to look for blood.. There was no blood where the hog was standing at the shot, but when I shined my headlight in to the woods where he ran it was a blood bath... I told Randall I didn't think it would go far, and I was right...he made it about 40yds and was DOA...
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It was a young boar...
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At the scene of the crime, Randall guessed his weight at 140lbs, my guess was 150lbs....
When we wrestled him up into the truck...Randall said he thought his guess was low...
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On the scale he weighed 162lbs....the perfect size for eating and he will be a fine piece of meat, destined to be turned into lunchmeat, sausage and barbeque!:p
The next morning we were in the blind again by 6am...on the way to the blind we saw a huge hog in a field that belonged to the neighbor...it was about 500yds from our blind! In the end he never showed up at any of our blinds... We hunted that morning and evening... In the evening we sat in a ground blind that Randall nicknamed Fort Apache...My wife thought it was an interesting spot....it was where I shot my hog....
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And like the other spot the deer liked it...
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And we did have a big fox squirrel come out to the feeder...130yds away...and then he charged the blind...running directly to us the whole distance only to stop and look us over...
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Aggressive as he seemed...actually he was just heading for the stock pond that was directly behind our blind.....:D
The last morning was spent in Fort Apache again..and we watched the deer and turkeys, but the hogs just did not cooperate... So our short hunt was over, It was hot!
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But all in all it was a great trip...we saw a lot of interesting stuff, got some meat, had some excitement, made some new friends (who we will hunt with again), and best of all cured my wife's cabin fever...she was smiling all the way home yesterday...and she was singing in the kitchen when she was cooking breakfast this morning! I guess the therapeutic effect of sitting in the hunting stand is quite effective and the beauty of north Texas was not lost on her....
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Zee
 
Thanks nice write up. The other halves Father stays in Houston and he keeps saying I have to come out hunting some time, every time I am there it is for work so never had the time yet.
P.s I am in awe at the size of that squirrels balls.
 
AlasdairM---Life is short, you need to make time and take your father-in-law up on that offer! There are great hunting opportunities in Texas, and they don't have to be expensive either!

Oh yeah, that squirrel...just remember, everything is bigger in Texas!

Z
 
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