We load up my truck to Sanford and Son proportions and hit the 8 East out of SD. After 8 hours of hunting stories and exchanged tales of glory days gone by, Brent and I roll into camp. We 4 wheel around in the dark for a while before finding a suitable camp spot for the night. We set up our cots and sack out. COLD, COLD, COLD. I was glad to see it finally get light out.
We had a map that our friend Richard had drawn us so we set out in search of javelina and deer. We glass up a few deer, one small coues buck, and both muley and coues does. No piggies to be seen. We knew we were in the right area as we saw plenty of fresh sign, we just couldn't uncover them. The highlight of the day was having a covey of about 50 Gambels quail mill around within 2 feet of me while glassing. That, and glassing a juvenile mountain lion run across a hillside. Pretty cool start.
We go back to camp to set up camp in a better spot and get the Playboy Mansion (our new Outfitter disco tent) set up. We then run into town for some supplies and touch base with our friend Richard and arrange a time to meet.
Rookie mistake #1: Set your damn clock to AZ time! AZ has a funky ass time schedule where they honor daylight savings, or they don't honor it, or whatever. Sometimes (like the Sept. dove hunt) they are on the same time as CA. Well they are an hour ahead in the winter. Who runs that damn state?
So we're dabbling around camp when Richard comes rallying up the wash road in 10,000 lbs of F250, diesel blowin? white death. Brent and I are wondering why he is so early and he is wondering why we are so late. We apologize for being numbskulls and are on our way.
We motor up to a glassing hill and get set up. Within a minute of butts down we look across the way and there is a nice 90+? coues and a doe checking us out 450 yards away. A close look below us also reveals a herd of pigs. We?re thinking ?who is this Richard dude?? We hump it all morning and don't see jack. 5 minutes with this character and we're into a trophy buck and a herd of pigs already. This just set the tone for the rest of the trip. Let's just say there is no substitute for skilled local knowledge.
Richard has the honors and he sets off after the buck. He has to circle way around to come in above and to the left of the buck, without spooking the pigs below us so we'll have a plan B. Being a pro, he executes a perfect stalk. I'm watching the buck on 30 power in my spotting scope when I see Richard pop up over the ridge above the buck. I have them both in my scope. The buck is chasing his doe and is right below Richard at 24 yards. My heart starts pounding like I'm on that stalk. I was so amped just watching this all go down. I couldn't believe we were just about to watch a trophy coues buck get stuck with a bow, the epitome of trophy bow hunting! But the deer is below a rock ledge and Richard can't see the buck. The buck makes a couple more steps to the right, the wind hits Richard in the back of his neck and it's game over! Richard jumps on the radio and asks if the pigs are still there. They are and he says to go after ?em.
Richard?s buddy Robert grabs his predator call and says ?lets go kill two pigs.? He was that confident. As we are getting ready to head down into the brush, Brent see?s a pig trot across a clearing in front of us about 100 yards. We hustle down in there and get set up in a clearing for any potential shot.
I have read for hours and hours and listened to audio on the how and when to use a javelina call. But this was to be a new and thrilling experience.
Robert wailed on that call with all his might. I looked over at him and expected to see a vein burst from his forehead at any second. A few moments into the calling sequence and I hear hoofs pounding. Here they come! It's a piggie stampede! The first one enters the clearing and veers off to our right. The next one comes in woofing and popping his jaws, revealing the menacing teeth that give them their namesake. He comes running in, hair bristled up and he is pissed! I can admit this now, my knees were actually shaking. He charges into about 8 yards and veers off to the right at a trot. Brent lets one fly on the run and misses behind it. Robert is back on the call and wailing like a man possessed. Here come more, charging in, ready to fight for life. This one charges up and stops 10 feet in front of us. He is staring right at me with fire in his eyes, there is a large mesquite between us, and I'm thinking this is not enough to stop this pig from removing me of my lower appendages. Just then Brent lets one fly. ?Whomp! Grunt, Grunt, squeal.? It was quartering to Brent and he drilled it right behind the shoulder with the arrow exiting the off side ham. It circles around behind me and is visibly hit but shows no sign of going down. I'm at full draw following the pig as it trots around me at 12 yards. Brent says ?anchor him!? and I let an arrow rip. Miss, and the arrow impales a mesquite limb.
Robert and I run off to chase the rest of the herd and leave Brent to start tracking his pig.
He heads up another few hundred yards and wails on the call again. This time they weren't having it and they hauled butt into the next county.
We go back to Brent and help him on the blood trail. We follow it 30-40 yards and look up another 50 to see the pig lying dead. Walking up to him the pig had a softball sized mass of intestine hanging out of the exit wound. With no lungs and his guts hanging out this little bugger made it 80 yards! This is when we first realized just how tough javelina really are. Little did we know.
We get his pig tagged out and back to camp. After 4 years, Brent finally had his javelina. His smile was ear to ear.
The next morning we meet Richard and we're off. We check out a spot at first light and don't see anything. Richard tries the call and gets no response. We waste no time heading to another spot to look at. We drive up a steep hill to glass. Richard put the truck in park and I immediately see a herd of 15 pigs crossing a knoll ahead of us. We set out after them and I eventually stalk in. 3 of them have separated from the herd. I've got 2 pigs at 20 yards in thick cat claw and 1 at 30 yards behind prickly pear. While trying to move to the side for a clear shot my boot scrapes a cactus and they are long gone.
We try to get back on the rest of the herd but they outsmart us. Oh well, on to another group. We drive up near our camp and head out into the same area we were yesterday.
We were literally following yesterday?s boot prints when I look up and see pigs 100 yards across on a small ridge. They are unaware of our presence. We circle around to get the wind right. They are feeding toward us at about 80 yards out. I ease up to a mesquite tree for a closer shot. While they are out of my view they feed up, wind me and blow out. Richard gets on the call and a straggler stops across a small depression. I did not have time to use my rangefinder and guessed him at 45 yards. WRONG! The arrow lands right under and behind his front leg. CRAPOLA! The shot was actually 60 yards. It's amazing what looking across a canyon, or even a small draw, will do to your range estimation. We call it a morning and head back to the truck.
That afternoon we head out to a new area a long ways in on a dirt road. We glass and glass and see a couple deer but no pigs. On the way back out we are paralleling a huge wash when Brent starts hollering. There is a huge herd of 20+ pigs down in the wash. We stop the truck and they haul butt. Richard and Robert both wail on the call and turn the herd. Here they come. Charging hard! Rocks are rolling, teeth are popping, pigs are woofing. One comes up out of the wash to my right so I get set up. He momentarily comes into the clearing but sees me and spooks. 5 or six more pigs come charging in but this time off to the left and, again, there is mesquite in between us. I'm at 7 or 8 yards from several pigs and no shot. They file past us right at the truck. One straggler turns and runs back across the wash. He gets out there a ways and stops broadside. I get a range, 60 yards. I let one rip and literally a nanosecond before the arrow drills the pig right in the boiler room, the pig boogies. The arrow lands with a spark, right where that pig was standing a mili-second ago. That's it. I'm dejected. I've had three close calls in the last two days. I'm beginning to think that it is just not my trip, again. That's bow hunting for ya.
We go back to town and meet my brother Taylor who drove all the way in from San Diego, by himself, just to be a spectator in this hunt. What a stud!
?A day this pig wouldn't die?
A fresh start. After yesterday, a new dawn brought a welcome new sense of hope. We go to a honeyhole mule deer spot but the wind is wrong and we don't see anything. We make the decision to stop wasting our time in bad conditions and go find some pigs before the morning is over. We get to a new spot and glass a small whitetail buck across the draw. We also glass up two other hunters. Shortly thereafter we see a herd of pigs in the bottom of the canyon. We hurry to get on them before the other hunters get there first. We drop in and circle around to get the wind right. The mesquite is so thick you can't see 10 yards. You have to get down on your knees to see underneath the trees. We spot a pig about 40 yards out but no shot. Richard blows the hell out of that call and the pig comes running in. I get ready and come to full draw. He circles around to try and come in downwind of us and busts us at 10 yards in thick cover. Crap! Again? Man, these things keep busting us and I'm thinking it is just not meant to be.
We keep moving about another half mile to stay on the herd. We bust them again at about 25 yards in thick cat claw. Most of the pigs bail and then casually trot over a ridge a couple hundred yard away. One pig hangs up at 54 yards behind a cat claw bush. He is frozen like a statue for about 10 minutes. We just wait him out. Finally he steps out and starts to trot. Richard stops him with a soft toot on the call and I hit my back wall. 60 yards. But damn this wind is blowing. I take my best aim and let fly. ?Thump!? ?Whack!? I hit him! But too far back. The wind (and my nerves) blew my arrow off course and I hit him in the ham, quartering up, just clipping the spine, and exiting in front of the off side hip. He ran about 20 yards and stopped. He starting wavering back and forth and we could tell he was hurt bad. I knew I hit him far back but I thought I might of got liver. I expected him to just tip over at any second. Richard said that for a Javelina to not run like hell when hit, he had to be hurt badly. So we waited him out, for about 30 minutes. He kept looking like he was going to fall over but he never did. Finally he starts moving off the ridge and into a draw with some thick cat claw, out of sight. I move around to try and get an angle on him. It is so thick that I cannot see 10 yards. I see something dark laying down in the ground. My heart races. Yes! My first javelina. I cautiously sneak in. I get about 2 yards away in thick, thorny brush, my heart is racing and pounding in my throat. This is it. The dark spot is not moving. I part the brush and look down to reveal a nice javelina shaped dead log. I was crushed! I went from so high to so low in a matter of seconds.
We go back to the spot of the hit and find lots of good blood. Just then I look up and I see the pig running over a small ridge across the canyon from us. He is just barely limping. We hustle over there and search for ten minutes. I'm crushed. The ground is rocky so there are no tracks and there are several trails he could have taken. Finally, we find blood. We stay on the blood for another 45 minutes. It's just a drop here and there. We stay on it but my hope is wearing thin. Brent can see the sick look in my face. I'm way bummed. I've got a gnawing pit in my stomach. He gives me a ?keep your chin up, we got blood.? It made me feel a little better but I was pretty beat. Especially after 350 yards of tracking. We come to a point where we cannot tell if he went into the thickest cat claw tangle you have ever seen, or whether he dropped down into a big wash. I'm dejected and just about to call it off.
At my lowest point, with head hung low, ten yards ahead my hope is restored. We spot him at 20 yards. We hustle over as he moves into the cat claw. He was facing away from me but I knew I had to get another arrow in him. I draw and release. The arrow makes a good hit as he is quartering hard away. The arrow slips in just in front of the hams, quarters up through the vitals, and exits through the chest. He runs down the draw out of sight. Again my heart sinks. I could believe he wouldn't die after bleeding a lot and taking a second arrow through the vitals. Brent has a higher vantage point and has a visual. He only went 15 yards after the last hit. I hustle over to where Brent is to get a clear shot but the brush is too thick. I have no choice but to close in. I get to about 8 yards and the pig is still very much alive. I draw and drill him right behind the shoulder. He snarls, pops his jaws, reaches back and snaps off my arrow with his teeth. I knock another arrow and drill him though the front shoulder. He tried to bite that one off but finally sinks to his knees. I think he's done. He just took three hot arrows right in the vitals. I give him a couple of minutes and try to walk up on him. I'm at full draw just in case. At 4 yards he gets back up facing me. I can see the hate in his eyes. I have no choice. I put the pin right between the eyes and let rip. 125 grains of sharp steel from 68 pounds of pull plowed into his brain. His head sunk. I walk up again. Holy crap! Is this thing possessed by the devil? He tried to get up again. I'm out of arrows and actually have to reach down, pull one out of the pig and knock it again. Lastly, one shot at 3 feet though the heart did him in. I have never in my life seen such a tough animal. They are survivors in the purest sense of the word. It was over and my heart beat a million times a second. I've never been on such an emotional roller coaster in my life. It took me a couple hours to come down.
Back to camp to skin and get the pig in the cooler. I'm still not quite right after the whole ordeal. It took me about 4 silver bullets to get my head screwed on straight.
So the pigs are done. Thanks to Richard and Robert, the trip is officially a success, and we can now focus on tagging a buck. We head out to a new area that is steep, rocky and barren desert. It honestly looked like moonscape, not deer country. But sure enough we soon spot deer, and bucks, nice bucks. We glass two nice bucks but too far away to attempt a stalk that night. We agree to be on the other side of the canyon they crossed into, come first light the next day.
Back to camp and guess who graces us with his presence? Our own coues, and accompanied by everyone?s good friend Jim Beam. And the fella voluntarily filled up our cooler with ice and got the fire ring ready. What a guy! We had a few good laughs around the campfire and sacked out. The morning came a little too soon and I think we were all a little foggy from the Southern Gentleman?s visit.
We head out to our glassing spot and get set up. After a while we glass up a nice muley buck with some does. They amble up and over a ridge and we lose sight of them. Other than a couple of javelina and a few does that was all we saw for the morning.
That evening we glass some other spots and see nothing other than a few does from 4 different glassing spots. For the time when these bucks were supposed to be rutting, we sure were not seeing much rutting behavior. I think it might have been over or the hot daytime weather had them on hold. Most of the bucks we saw were already broken up and not really chasing, at least not hard. And they we bedded down by 9 am every morning. These conditions really made it tough.
?Big Bad Daddy?
We go back to the honeyhole spot since the wind was blowing the right way now. As we were walking in, we jump a three point at 25 yards as we top a rise. Crap! That was close! We get set up on our hill and after a while Brent says he has a buck and he thinks he's a good one. He guides me in and I get my spotting scope set up on him. OH MY GOD! He?s a hog! 26? wide, super tall and nice forks. An incredible desert buck and a buck you don't pass up anywhere with a bow. We watch him for a while trying to come up with a strategy. We are up on a hill and he is a mile out in the flats. Finally we decide that Brent needs to get going on the stalk, I'll keep and eye on him and Taylor will guide Brent in.
He is moving right to left, in and out of thick cover. Just as Brent is putting his pack on getting ready for the stalk, he goes behind some brush and disappears. We look for an hour or so and he never reappears. We decide to change vantage points and see if we can relocate him from another angle. We hike a mile up to another ridge looking down on the buck from the Northwest. We looked for a couple hours and nothing. But we did see a small draw that we could not see from our previous location and concluded that the buck must have snuck out that draw where we could not see him.
We decide to split up. Taylor and I will head back to the original glassing spot to see if we can spot the buck when he comes out to feed again in the evening. Brent will stay there so he will be in a better position for us to guide him in on the buck. The problem was a storm was blowing in. The wind was building hard and it was getting really cold.
By the time I got back to the original glassing spot the wind was blowing so hard at us that glassing was impossible. I could not see though the binos or the spotting scope. I radioed Brent and told him this wasn?t going to work and that we were going to move off and try to find some other bucks.
Brent toughed out those conditions until 4 pm before pulling the pin. It's always hard to leave a big buck but it was impossible to spot him again with the wind and extremely miserable to boot. We met back up and worked our way back to the truck glassing each pocket on the way. Nothing. It was a long and brutal day. We were spent.
After a dinner in town we got back to camp and it was blowing too hard for a campfire. We tightened down all the guy lines on the tent, fired up the stove and hunkered down. About 3 am I woke up, the wind was howling and it was snowing. I snugged back in my bag and dozed off until about 5:30. I stepped outside to pee and was almost blown over and the snow stung my face as it blew in.
Dawn came? and went. It was too brutal. Glassing would have been impossible. We slept in, got up late, packed up and went home.
We just needed a few more days to figure out those bucks. But duty and family called. Before long we reversed course and were Westbound and down! Back to San Diego and the close of another hunting season. It was a good one, but man, September can't come soon enough. Thanks for reading.
We had a map that our friend Richard had drawn us so we set out in search of javelina and deer. We glass up a few deer, one small coues buck, and both muley and coues does. No piggies to be seen. We knew we were in the right area as we saw plenty of fresh sign, we just couldn't uncover them. The highlight of the day was having a covey of about 50 Gambels quail mill around within 2 feet of me while glassing. That, and glassing a juvenile mountain lion run across a hillside. Pretty cool start.
We go back to camp to set up camp in a better spot and get the Playboy Mansion (our new Outfitter disco tent) set up. We then run into town for some supplies and touch base with our friend Richard and arrange a time to meet.
Rookie mistake #1: Set your damn clock to AZ time! AZ has a funky ass time schedule where they honor daylight savings, or they don't honor it, or whatever. Sometimes (like the Sept. dove hunt) they are on the same time as CA. Well they are an hour ahead in the winter. Who runs that damn state?
So we're dabbling around camp when Richard comes rallying up the wash road in 10,000 lbs of F250, diesel blowin? white death. Brent and I are wondering why he is so early and he is wondering why we are so late. We apologize for being numbskulls and are on our way.
We motor up to a glassing hill and get set up. Within a minute of butts down we look across the way and there is a nice 90+? coues and a doe checking us out 450 yards away. A close look below us also reveals a herd of pigs. We?re thinking ?who is this Richard dude?? We hump it all morning and don't see jack. 5 minutes with this character and we're into a trophy buck and a herd of pigs already. This just set the tone for the rest of the trip. Let's just say there is no substitute for skilled local knowledge.
Richard has the honors and he sets off after the buck. He has to circle way around to come in above and to the left of the buck, without spooking the pigs below us so we'll have a plan B. Being a pro, he executes a perfect stalk. I'm watching the buck on 30 power in my spotting scope when I see Richard pop up over the ridge above the buck. I have them both in my scope. The buck is chasing his doe and is right below Richard at 24 yards. My heart starts pounding like I'm on that stalk. I was so amped just watching this all go down. I couldn't believe we were just about to watch a trophy coues buck get stuck with a bow, the epitome of trophy bow hunting! But the deer is below a rock ledge and Richard can't see the buck. The buck makes a couple more steps to the right, the wind hits Richard in the back of his neck and it's game over! Richard jumps on the radio and asks if the pigs are still there. They are and he says to go after ?em.
Richard?s buddy Robert grabs his predator call and says ?lets go kill two pigs.? He was that confident. As we are getting ready to head down into the brush, Brent see?s a pig trot across a clearing in front of us about 100 yards. We hustle down in there and get set up in a clearing for any potential shot.
I have read for hours and hours and listened to audio on the how and when to use a javelina call. But this was to be a new and thrilling experience.
Robert wailed on that call with all his might. I looked over at him and expected to see a vein burst from his forehead at any second. A few moments into the calling sequence and I hear hoofs pounding. Here they come! It's a piggie stampede! The first one enters the clearing and veers off to our right. The next one comes in woofing and popping his jaws, revealing the menacing teeth that give them their namesake. He comes running in, hair bristled up and he is pissed! I can admit this now, my knees were actually shaking. He charges into about 8 yards and veers off to the right at a trot. Brent lets one fly on the run and misses behind it. Robert is back on the call and wailing like a man possessed. Here come more, charging in, ready to fight for life. This one charges up and stops 10 feet in front of us. He is staring right at me with fire in his eyes, there is a large mesquite between us, and I'm thinking this is not enough to stop this pig from removing me of my lower appendages. Just then Brent lets one fly. ?Whomp! Grunt, Grunt, squeal.? It was quartering to Brent and he drilled it right behind the shoulder with the arrow exiting the off side ham. It circles around behind me and is visibly hit but shows no sign of going down. I'm at full draw following the pig as it trots around me at 12 yards. Brent says ?anchor him!? and I let an arrow rip. Miss, and the arrow impales a mesquite limb.
Robert and I run off to chase the rest of the herd and leave Brent to start tracking his pig.
He heads up another few hundred yards and wails on the call again. This time they weren't having it and they hauled butt into the next county.
We go back to Brent and help him on the blood trail. We follow it 30-40 yards and look up another 50 to see the pig lying dead. Walking up to him the pig had a softball sized mass of intestine hanging out of the exit wound. With no lungs and his guts hanging out this little bugger made it 80 yards! This is when we first realized just how tough javelina really are. Little did we know.
We get his pig tagged out and back to camp. After 4 years, Brent finally had his javelina. His smile was ear to ear.
The next morning we meet Richard and we're off. We check out a spot at first light and don't see anything. Richard tries the call and gets no response. We waste no time heading to another spot to look at. We drive up a steep hill to glass. Richard put the truck in park and I immediately see a herd of 15 pigs crossing a knoll ahead of us. We set out after them and I eventually stalk in. 3 of them have separated from the herd. I've got 2 pigs at 20 yards in thick cat claw and 1 at 30 yards behind prickly pear. While trying to move to the side for a clear shot my boot scrapes a cactus and they are long gone.
We try to get back on the rest of the herd but they outsmart us. Oh well, on to another group. We drive up near our camp and head out into the same area we were yesterday.
We were literally following yesterday?s boot prints when I look up and see pigs 100 yards across on a small ridge. They are unaware of our presence. We circle around to get the wind right. They are feeding toward us at about 80 yards out. I ease up to a mesquite tree for a closer shot. While they are out of my view they feed up, wind me and blow out. Richard gets on the call and a straggler stops across a small depression. I did not have time to use my rangefinder and guessed him at 45 yards. WRONG! The arrow lands right under and behind his front leg. CRAPOLA! The shot was actually 60 yards. It's amazing what looking across a canyon, or even a small draw, will do to your range estimation. We call it a morning and head back to the truck.
That afternoon we head out to a new area a long ways in on a dirt road. We glass and glass and see a couple deer but no pigs. On the way back out we are paralleling a huge wash when Brent starts hollering. There is a huge herd of 20+ pigs down in the wash. We stop the truck and they haul butt. Richard and Robert both wail on the call and turn the herd. Here they come. Charging hard! Rocks are rolling, teeth are popping, pigs are woofing. One comes up out of the wash to my right so I get set up. He momentarily comes into the clearing but sees me and spooks. 5 or six more pigs come charging in but this time off to the left and, again, there is mesquite in between us. I'm at 7 or 8 yards from several pigs and no shot. They file past us right at the truck. One straggler turns and runs back across the wash. He gets out there a ways and stops broadside. I get a range, 60 yards. I let one rip and literally a nanosecond before the arrow drills the pig right in the boiler room, the pig boogies. The arrow lands with a spark, right where that pig was standing a mili-second ago. That's it. I'm dejected. I've had three close calls in the last two days. I'm beginning to think that it is just not my trip, again. That's bow hunting for ya.
We go back to town and meet my brother Taylor who drove all the way in from San Diego, by himself, just to be a spectator in this hunt. What a stud!
?A day this pig wouldn't die?
A fresh start. After yesterday, a new dawn brought a welcome new sense of hope. We go to a honeyhole mule deer spot but the wind is wrong and we don't see anything. We make the decision to stop wasting our time in bad conditions and go find some pigs before the morning is over. We get to a new spot and glass a small whitetail buck across the draw. We also glass up two other hunters. Shortly thereafter we see a herd of pigs in the bottom of the canyon. We hurry to get on them before the other hunters get there first. We drop in and circle around to get the wind right. The mesquite is so thick you can't see 10 yards. You have to get down on your knees to see underneath the trees. We spot a pig about 40 yards out but no shot. Richard blows the hell out of that call and the pig comes running in. I get ready and come to full draw. He circles around to try and come in downwind of us and busts us at 10 yards in thick cover. Crap! Again? Man, these things keep busting us and I'm thinking it is just not meant to be.
We keep moving about another half mile to stay on the herd. We bust them again at about 25 yards in thick cat claw. Most of the pigs bail and then casually trot over a ridge a couple hundred yard away. One pig hangs up at 54 yards behind a cat claw bush. He is frozen like a statue for about 10 minutes. We just wait him out. Finally he steps out and starts to trot. Richard stops him with a soft toot on the call and I hit my back wall. 60 yards. But damn this wind is blowing. I take my best aim and let fly. ?Thump!? ?Whack!? I hit him! But too far back. The wind (and my nerves) blew my arrow off course and I hit him in the ham, quartering up, just clipping the spine, and exiting in front of the off side hip. He ran about 20 yards and stopped. He starting wavering back and forth and we could tell he was hurt bad. I knew I hit him far back but I thought I might of got liver. I expected him to just tip over at any second. Richard said that for a Javelina to not run like hell when hit, he had to be hurt badly. So we waited him out, for about 30 minutes. He kept looking like he was going to fall over but he never did. Finally he starts moving off the ridge and into a draw with some thick cat claw, out of sight. I move around to try and get an angle on him. It is so thick that I cannot see 10 yards. I see something dark laying down in the ground. My heart races. Yes! My first javelina. I cautiously sneak in. I get about 2 yards away in thick, thorny brush, my heart is racing and pounding in my throat. This is it. The dark spot is not moving. I part the brush and look down to reveal a nice javelina shaped dead log. I was crushed! I went from so high to so low in a matter of seconds.
We go back to the spot of the hit and find lots of good blood. Just then I look up and I see the pig running over a small ridge across the canyon from us. He is just barely limping. We hustle over there and search for ten minutes. I'm crushed. The ground is rocky so there are no tracks and there are several trails he could have taken. Finally, we find blood. We stay on the blood for another 45 minutes. It's just a drop here and there. We stay on it but my hope is wearing thin. Brent can see the sick look in my face. I'm way bummed. I've got a gnawing pit in my stomach. He gives me a ?keep your chin up, we got blood.? It made me feel a little better but I was pretty beat. Especially after 350 yards of tracking. We come to a point where we cannot tell if he went into the thickest cat claw tangle you have ever seen, or whether he dropped down into a big wash. I'm dejected and just about to call it off.
At my lowest point, with head hung low, ten yards ahead my hope is restored. We spot him at 20 yards. We hustle over as he moves into the cat claw. He was facing away from me but I knew I had to get another arrow in him. I draw and release. The arrow makes a good hit as he is quartering hard away. The arrow slips in just in front of the hams, quarters up through the vitals, and exits through the chest. He runs down the draw out of sight. Again my heart sinks. I could believe he wouldn't die after bleeding a lot and taking a second arrow through the vitals. Brent has a higher vantage point and has a visual. He only went 15 yards after the last hit. I hustle over to where Brent is to get a clear shot but the brush is too thick. I have no choice but to close in. I get to about 8 yards and the pig is still very much alive. I draw and drill him right behind the shoulder. He snarls, pops his jaws, reaches back and snaps off my arrow with his teeth. I knock another arrow and drill him though the front shoulder. He tried to bite that one off but finally sinks to his knees. I think he's done. He just took three hot arrows right in the vitals. I give him a couple of minutes and try to walk up on him. I'm at full draw just in case. At 4 yards he gets back up facing me. I can see the hate in his eyes. I have no choice. I put the pin right between the eyes and let rip. 125 grains of sharp steel from 68 pounds of pull plowed into his brain. His head sunk. I walk up again. Holy crap! Is this thing possessed by the devil? He tried to get up again. I'm out of arrows and actually have to reach down, pull one out of the pig and knock it again. Lastly, one shot at 3 feet though the heart did him in. I have never in my life seen such a tough animal. They are survivors in the purest sense of the word. It was over and my heart beat a million times a second. I've never been on such an emotional roller coaster in my life. It took me a couple hours to come down.
Back to camp to skin and get the pig in the cooler. I'm still not quite right after the whole ordeal. It took me about 4 silver bullets to get my head screwed on straight.
So the pigs are done. Thanks to Richard and Robert, the trip is officially a success, and we can now focus on tagging a buck. We head out to a new area that is steep, rocky and barren desert. It honestly looked like moonscape, not deer country. But sure enough we soon spot deer, and bucks, nice bucks. We glass two nice bucks but too far away to attempt a stalk that night. We agree to be on the other side of the canyon they crossed into, come first light the next day.
Back to camp and guess who graces us with his presence? Our own coues, and accompanied by everyone?s good friend Jim Beam. And the fella voluntarily filled up our cooler with ice and got the fire ring ready. What a guy! We had a few good laughs around the campfire and sacked out. The morning came a little too soon and I think we were all a little foggy from the Southern Gentleman?s visit.
We head out to our glassing spot and get set up. After a while we glass up a nice muley buck with some does. They amble up and over a ridge and we lose sight of them. Other than a couple of javelina and a few does that was all we saw for the morning.
That evening we glass some other spots and see nothing other than a few does from 4 different glassing spots. For the time when these bucks were supposed to be rutting, we sure were not seeing much rutting behavior. I think it might have been over or the hot daytime weather had them on hold. Most of the bucks we saw were already broken up and not really chasing, at least not hard. And they we bedded down by 9 am every morning. These conditions really made it tough.
?Big Bad Daddy?
We go back to the honeyhole spot since the wind was blowing the right way now. As we were walking in, we jump a three point at 25 yards as we top a rise. Crap! That was close! We get set up on our hill and after a while Brent says he has a buck and he thinks he's a good one. He guides me in and I get my spotting scope set up on him. OH MY GOD! He?s a hog! 26? wide, super tall and nice forks. An incredible desert buck and a buck you don't pass up anywhere with a bow. We watch him for a while trying to come up with a strategy. We are up on a hill and he is a mile out in the flats. Finally we decide that Brent needs to get going on the stalk, I'll keep and eye on him and Taylor will guide Brent in.
He is moving right to left, in and out of thick cover. Just as Brent is putting his pack on getting ready for the stalk, he goes behind some brush and disappears. We look for an hour or so and he never reappears. We decide to change vantage points and see if we can relocate him from another angle. We hike a mile up to another ridge looking down on the buck from the Northwest. We looked for a couple hours and nothing. But we did see a small draw that we could not see from our previous location and concluded that the buck must have snuck out that draw where we could not see him.
We decide to split up. Taylor and I will head back to the original glassing spot to see if we can spot the buck when he comes out to feed again in the evening. Brent will stay there so he will be in a better position for us to guide him in on the buck. The problem was a storm was blowing in. The wind was building hard and it was getting really cold.
By the time I got back to the original glassing spot the wind was blowing so hard at us that glassing was impossible. I could not see though the binos or the spotting scope. I radioed Brent and told him this wasn?t going to work and that we were going to move off and try to find some other bucks.
Brent toughed out those conditions until 4 pm before pulling the pin. It's always hard to leave a big buck but it was impossible to spot him again with the wind and extremely miserable to boot. We met back up and worked our way back to the truck glassing each pocket on the way. Nothing. It was a long and brutal day. We were spent.
After a dinner in town we got back to camp and it was blowing too hard for a campfire. We tightened down all the guy lines on the tent, fired up the stove and hunkered down. About 3 am I woke up, the wind was howling and it was snowing. I snugged back in my bag and dozed off until about 5:30. I stepped outside to pee and was almost blown over and the snow stung my face as it blew in.
Dawn came? and went. It was too brutal. Glassing would have been impossible. We slept in, got up late, packed up and went home.
We just needed a few more days to figure out those bucks. But duty and family called. Before long we reversed course and were Westbound and down! Back to San Diego and the close of another hunting season. It was a good one, but man, September can't come soon enough. Thanks for reading.
