Got invited by the high school boy that we’ve been helping out a little bit today. Tim and I made the trip down to El Campo/Whitehall. Couple square miles of crop and cattle ranchin country. Macartney rose thicket country. Some of the rankest I’ve seen. And we hunt our fair share of it. This stuff though has 150 years of the best fertilizer Monsanto was making at the time. I’ll trade anybody for palmettos, pine cutovers, the worst kudzu you can think of. I’ll take anything over rose hedge.
Took a little to get in hogs but 3rd cast or so we ended up on top of a set. Caught 3-4 out of that before they got into the one little area we were asked to leave alone. Next cast Tim and I’s males. King, goose, chip, and Tim’s tiny gyp along with mavericks Goose Peeled out and went a mile across a county road to get bayed just off our dang permission lol.
Meanwhile mavs Amber dog(courtesy of Tdog and Deputy Dawg) come out the box with a little sense and goes 300 the other way and puts a little set of hogs up herself. I send spoon to her and mavs goose dog pulls off the trail job the rest of them were in the other way and came to us.
You pretty much have to crawl into these rose thickets and break the bay until they decide to stop it somewhere you can actually get to them. Luckily this wasn’t a huge pile of it so we got 2 killed off that rally before they broke. Dogs needed water so we did that. Other dogs have gotten bayed on their own group at this a mile away just across the road from our permission.
Headed to them a red sow crossed our path so we dumped the 3 we had just picked up on her. Went to other dogs. Took half an hour of waiting once we got to the gate they were 300 yards behind(we could see the Mott they were in and see the dogs) but hogs finally come out of there. They got one caught on the fence line against the road so we pulled it into the ditch and killed it lol.
Spoon Amber and Mavs goose had fallen bayed back about 600 back into our permission from the county road so we went to them and that hog took a while to kill. Big rose thicket and the males all together decided to catch this small sow in the middle of it.
Went to water everything after that and a bunch of dogs peel out from water trough. Go 800 across a big flat and bay in an irrigation ditch. This begins the really not fun part of today lol. After an hour of physically can’t get within 100 yards of the dogs in the middle of this rose thicket on this ditch. We call dogs out. Stroke of luck Tim happens to catch a glimpse of the hogs going out the back door right as we picked everything back up. He lets out in the ranger by himself and by the time me and Mav get there him cardi and the dogs had the best hog of the day, a good sow killed in the middle of a big flat.
Went back to truck, swapped our dogs to our gyps and rusty.
First cast no good. 2nd cast didnt happen because we run into a little discrepancy with a well pumper on whether we had permission to be in that one little place. I think the gentleman we ran into hunts in there to some degree and didn’t want our dogs in there. Football field of solid rosehedge so didn’t hurt my feelings.
2nd actual cast all the dogs hang up on a canal rose thicket at about 500. Lulu and Misty punch through it. Make a half mile loop through a big flat and come bayed on the back side of the canal they were hunt on, another 500 yards down or so. Dogs all get there and catch in the thicket on the opposite side of the canal. 10 minute wait and she hits the canal, and apparently so do I cause Tim shoved me after the hog! Lmao he wanted it caught before it got back in the thorns.
Canal wasn’t too deep so my drawers stayed dry for most part so we said one more. Mav had a paint boar had beat him and his dogs twice in a rose thicket so we went and cast dogs to where he had been. 5-600 later they’re bayed In a corner just off a high line right of way. Guess what. More rose hedge. Half hour or so got him broke and he went right to where Mav had bayed him the first two times(we hadn’t seen hog yet but at this point I figured it was him). Right back to where we cast them and after some bouncing him around in a small rose thicket maverick got to shoot him crossing a little trail.
Called it a day about 4 pm. No hogs of any size beside sow maybe 150. Did not see a single black hog all day. All red and spotted. Group they had bayed off our permission was a whole set of red hogs. They helicoptered it back in October and recovered around 150 hogs off 7100 acres. Seems like they knocked a lot of the size out. Grain gets up the big boys will come though.
Kings eye has cleared up a good bit. Not 100% but he hasn’t skipped a beat last 2 outs. He is a big dog to be in them rose thickets but he will peel his eye lids back to get to one. Thats a tdog special for you.
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