Nowhere but Texas! I was enjoying a nonstop white bass catching trip on Lake Ray Hubbard with my friend guide Brandon Sargent on a springlike day with temperatures in the seventies. One day later I found myself all bundled up and shivering, waiting for a wild hog to show in a stretch of remote bottomland up in Wood County. This is typical of Texas and experiences that most outdoors folks can relate to. In last week’s column, I recapped the red hot winter white bass fishing at Ray Hubbard, so suffice it to say the action is still underway. I was back on the water with Brandon Sargent, and white or chartreuse half-ounce slabs in water around 40 feet deep remains the ticket to a limit of good eating cold water white bass.
Man does not live by fish alone and with the blast of Arctic air last week, I decided to abandon the lake and spend a couple days on a solo camping trip/wild hog hunt at my good friend’s ranch. Acorns and other hard mast crops are long gone now and wild hogs are having to hustle to make a living. There is no better time than the present to put some wild pork chops in the freezer.
My plan was to headquarter in a camper on my friend’s place and, rather than hunt the stands around feeders where we usually kill hogs, backpack into the bottoms and hunt off the ground. If successful in harvesting a hog, I would quarter it up and pack the meat out using a pack frame I used up in Colorado guiding elk and bear hunters. I have a new iPhone that I’ve discovered takes quality 4K video and still photos that rival those of my Nikon so my camera gear weighed next to nothing. I documented the hunt on video for an upcoming segment of A Sportsman’s Life, our show on Carbon TV.
Sure, I could have hunted a stand over a corn feeder closer to camp but I thought it would be a bit challenging and fun to backpack into the bottomlands and if successful, retrieve the meat much as I had as a guide in the mountains. Granted, a one hundred pound hog is much easier to deal with than a 700 pound bull elk!
I enjoy hunting with buddies but there is something special about spending time alone in the winter woods. It gives me a sense of freedom that I seldom experience other places. It’s difficult to express with words but I never feel more completely at ease than when I’m back in a remote area listening to the sound of a pack of hunting coyotes gather for their evening hunt or that lonesome sound of a couple of owls hooting to hear others from the treetops. Cardinals are never more brilliant than when they appear out of nowhere and land in a nearby tree; their brilliance stands in stark contrast to the gray winter woods.
I think part of the pleasure I get from these solo hunts is the fact that I am totally dependent upon myself for everything. If I harvest game, it’s up to me to do the chores necessary to turn it into meat and pack it out of the woods. If the evening meal is not to my liking, there’s nobody to blame but myself! Preparing the evening meal has always been a favorite part of these solo winter hunts.
On this outing, I had a few tenderized wild pork loin steaks seasoning in a zip lock bag and my evening meal consisted of baked sweet potatoes and chicken fried very thin pork steaks. I think in Germany the thin steaks are called Jagerschnitzel but I can tell you for sure when fried with a crispy batter they go very well with a big buttered sweet potato!
After backpacking into the creek bottoms a half mile or so, I found a well used hog trail leading out of some very heavy cover up to higher ground where the porkers do much of their foraging at night. I placed a canister of THRP Sow Seduction in the side of the trail and positioned myself about 40 yards downwind on the ground, between the fork of a couple of 12 inch oaks. I found some nearby palmetto bushes and cut the stems on an angle so I could poke them into the ground in front of my make shift blind. Palmettos make a perfect natural blind and their stiff leaves can be bent down to facilitate an opening to shoot through.
I timed my hunt so that I would be set up a couple hours before dark and, as I settled in, I was thankful for packing my lightweight folding camp stool. For the first hour or so, the woods were totally silent and then came the distant yelping of coyotes and birds and squirrels began stirring, as they always do as daylight begins to fade and night settle in. Then, I heard a sound that can best be described as tiny little motors coming from the trail leading back into the heavy cover.
I soon discovered the sound was being made by ten baby pigs, a week or so old. They came running down the pig trail and stopped at the canister I had placed to attract larger hogs. One of the little pigs chewed on the canister a bit and I heard a sharp grunt from a few yards back down the trail. The piglets immediately disappeared back toward their mother and in a minute or so the entire group continued their jaunt down the trail toward the ridge above where they would spend the evening feeding. I have always been amazed at just how young baby wild pigs begin eating solid food. The sow stopped every few yards and threw her nose in the air to test the wind. A stiff north breeze carried my scent to the south and she never knew I was watching only yards away. There will be readers that chastise me for not shooting the sow, thus allowing the piglets to die a slow death but that’s okay. It was my call and I followed my conscience. Had the pigs been a bit bigger, I would have shot one for camp meat. It’s good to know these will be in the woods and in a couple months, maybe we will meet again. I enjoyed my wild pork back at camp and slept the sleep of a contented old hunter that night; all was good with the world.
Remember the Outdoor Ren De Voux in Greenville on March 12 at the Top Rail Cowboy Church. Everyone is welcome. For details contact pastor Charlie Nassar 903-217-3778 or email lukeclayton1950@gmail.com
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