Having been blessed to live in the country, I was able to drink coffee and browse the internet on Saturday morning until 7:00 AM. No drive to a lease or an Allsup's gut bomb burrito for me, even though I do miss that part of deer hunting. I get out of the chair shortly after seven and put on my camo only to find that over the course of the past nine months, the pants shrunk to where it is impossible to button them. Oh well, no one to see so just move on. I grab my bow and head out the door as it is just light enough to see where I'm putting my feet. A doe and her two young ones watch me for a few seconds as I head towards the gate they are standing next to, then they trot off in a direction that I have no intention of going, so no harm done. I walk to the east on a cow path and realize that I really am going blind in old age, as I can't see much of anything other than the glow on the horizon. I decide to stop and let the light get better. I take a couple of pictures of the glorious sunrise and decide to just stand there next to a cedar bush and think things through a bit. Wind; ever so slight from the northeast. Good thing as that will work with my plan of heading east for a quarter mile to check and see if the wheat is up. Before I can even have another thought, a buck steps out from behind another cedar and immediately sees me and does an about face and trots off. Not that I would have had a chance for a shot, but then I realize that I had better pull an arrow out of the quiver and start my hunting. He was either an eight or ten point, definitely a shooter for trad gear but maybe something that I would pass with a rifle. Can't shoot 'em with an empty bow. Another hundred yards and I start walking through an area that looks like a whole pen full of hogs had a holiday. This is new to us as we just haven't had hogs on the place. As I walk, my plan for the day starts to take shape. I have to do something about these hogs. I get to the wheat field and see that the wheat is up and that the hogs have been having a good time rooting around there. There was one area big enough and deep enough to fill with water and take a bath and another area where a hog had rooted along the row for about forty feet. I don't know if he was eating bugs or seed or what. By now I'm plenty ******, so I walk back to the house and hang up the bow and grab a rifle. I get out the four wheeler and patrol the back half of the place but can't find live hogs but do find lots of sign. They have been coming to a feeder on the far east side of the place so I grab the SD card out of the camera and go check it for pictures. No luck as the camera is aimed too high to pick up a hog, even though one had been rooting directly under the camera. So, the rest of my day was spent moving deer stands for hog hunting and setting out bait. Saturday evening I went and sat over the area where they had so much fun rooting, but I didn't see anything. The bait was gone on Sunday and there are fresh hog tracks so I baited it again. I checked that at dawn this morning and the bait was gone again. So today I will find a game camera and set it up in hopes of seeing what time of day they are eating.
The deer hunting will have to wait. Once I pattern the darn things I will go back to the bow, but for now I will carry a rifle. I would be mad at myself if I saw one at fifty yards and couldn't kill it.
Notice the difference in the wheat from Saturday morning until this morning.
The deer hunting will have to wait. Once I pattern the darn things I will go back to the bow, but for now I will carry a rifle. I would be mad at myself if I saw one at fifty yards and couldn't kill it.
Notice the difference in the wheat from Saturday morning until this morning.
Comment