Trifecta!!!

Today was one of those days! We had a hell of a time finding the pigs but when we did these guys flat got it done! Al was the first to strike anchoring his pig with an incredible 550 yards shot, not bad for a guy who had not hunted in a few years!!!! Paul and Jarrod got it done as well, doubling up on a pair of boars at a mere 50 yards! We spotted a big group of pigs and put a text book sneak on them. At 100 yards they were ready to shoot but I wasn't so we kept sneaking and I finally decided at 50 yards to let them shoot. When the smoke cleared they both looked at me and said "I thought you were going to get us close enough to kill them with rocks". I've seen both these guys shoot and by no means did we need to get any where near that close for them to get the job done but I was having fun watching them look at me like I was nuts so we pressed on! We had a great time on the hill today and I'm sure you will see these guys on the blog again before too long.  

Double down on pigs

We hit the hills early this morning with Dave and Matt in search of some pigs to fill their freezers. The morning started out particularly slow with us only seeing one group of pigs that eluded us but we stayed at it. We had just cruised past the cabin headed to check a few reservoirs when we looked up and spotted a group of pigs feeding in the flat. After a quick stalk the guys picked out a couple shooters and the war started! When the smoke cleared Dave had a nice sized sow down and Matt had a handful of brass! It was warming up so we got the hide off of the pig and went to go check some ponds. The first two we checked yielded nothing but as we topped the dam of the third pond it erupted with pigs and Matt laid the hammer down on a nice sized eater! The pig fell dead in its tracks and we quickly loaded it and got it skinned and ready for their trip home. It was a great hunt with a couple of great guys!

  

Last Minute Gobbler!

Dave and I headed up to the ranch this morning to try and get him a gobbler since they had been eluding him up North. We were at the ranch well before daylight and walked into an area where I had been seeing the birds. Within minutes of setting up the trees came alive and it looked like we had chosen the right spot! The birds stayed in the trees longer than usual but when they hit the ground we could here them coming our way. The birds were sounding like they would appear at any minute but as can happen in hunting things changed quickly!! As the birds came up the road towards us a giant boar walked into the pond directly in front of our set up and started drinking and wallowing. As we watched the show the birds were gobbling and sounded close but the wind swirled and sent the big boar running right down the road towards them, scattering the group of turkeys! We sat patiently and waited to see what would happen but could hear the birds moving off in another direction, dammit!!! We switched gears and hurried to try and get back in front of the birds but they beat us up the canyon. We relocated and got set up again and began calling. Right of the bat we had a gobble up the ridge from us and the bird sounded to be getting closer. Soon he shut up and we waited but he never came, so we went back to calling and to our surprise a hen started talking to us. Both Dave and I were mimicking her every sound and she got louder and closer! While all of this was going on the gobbles started again so we stayed at it until the hen got mad at us and flew across the canyon and landed right in our set up! She stayed put for awhile and then moved up the road and out of sight. About the same time a gobbler came strutting up the road in our direction! He was focused on the hen that had walked up the road and followed her but stayed down low and we only caught a glimpse as he went by us, no shot!!  We waited awhile and decided to move up the road towards them and try to intercept them again. The road that they had went up was right where we had parked first thing this morning and we knew that had to walk right past the rig to get up into the meadows. As we approached the rig we were walking up hill and as soon as we could see over the rise there stood the gobbler fanned out and facing away from us! I quickly got Dave's attention and as the gobbler turned to face us Dave smoked him!! I wasn't exactly text book but that's turkey hunting and a hunt I won't soon forget!