4-2-11

This morning I guided Robert and Pavel Miller on a pig hunt. Robert was to be the shooter and Pavel was just along for the ride to see what pig hunting was all about. We started the morning glassing all of the usual haunts and saw a few pigs early but they were in non accesible locations, so we continued to search. Again we spotted a group of 15-20 pigs but were unable to close the distance in time. We continued on glassing at every high point and spotted 3 pigs feeding up on the hill side and we tried to get ahead of them and get into position for a shot. We got to the top of the ridge and sat waiting but the pigs never appeared. They must have winded us as the wind was swirling and could not make its mind up as to what direction it was going to blow from. I then decided that we should back track and  take a look in the canyon that we had just come from to see if the pigs were moving later in the morning. As we drove along the ridge top I spotted movement on the opposite hill and Robert and I bailed out of the ranger to see if we could get a shot. We ran a ways down the hill and Robert got on the sticks and ready to shoot. As the pigs came out into the open I ranged them at 340 yards and Robert went to work on them. His first shot was true and he hammered a sow that was roughly 175 pounds. The rest of the group ran off into the brush and as we were glassing  the pig that he had already hit I looked uphill and saw that the others were making their way back down to their  fallen leader. Within seconds Robert was back on the sticks and had another nice sow down. Both of the pigs looked to be hit well but we decided to give them an hour before going over to take a look. The pigs were shot at 10:15 AM and at 11:15 I began to make my way across the canyon leaving Robert and Pavel at the original shot site in case the pigs were still alive and made a move down hill. As soon as I got to where I thought the first pig had fallen I was able to locate it dead in the bottom of the ravine, so I rolled the guts out of it and went in search of the second pig. I searched for quite awhile and finally found where the pig was standing when it was first shot. I found alot of blood and began following the trail as it appeared that the pig had side hilled around the mountain. I was taking my time and marking each place that i found blood when I came upon an area where the pig had laid down for awhile and then got up and moved again. By this time the blood was spotty and the pig kept swithching trails making the tracking very slow and tediuos. I had gone roughly a mile following blood when I lost the trail. I marked the last spot that I saw blood and began looking for freshly torn up dirt in hopes that I could find blood again. I eventually found blood on a trail headed down towards the creek and figured that I was getting close. I was within a 100 yards form the creek when I lost the trail again and sat down to take a break. As I sat there I started to hear rustling comeing from a poison oak patch a mere 30 yards down hill so I snuck down there to take a look. When I peered over the rock ledge into the poison oak I could see the pig taking his final breaths. After tracking the pig for over 3 hours up and down the hill the hunt was finally over and now it was time for the pack out. The canyon was to steep to get the ranger into so I packed the pigs out on my back. I made it back to the ranger with both pigs at 5:15PM. I was dog tired but very happy with the fact that I was able to locate both the pigs as I hate to see any shot animal go to waste. Robert and Pavel were very happy with the hunt and assured me that they will be back again next spring.