Left out Sunday afternoon to go check on a trap and put corn in it, once that was done I took the two dogs to do a hot lap through the man’s pasture to see if we could jump one up. Nothing there so I move along the woods down the creek, not a lot of sign but the dogs are hustling around, we keep it moving down various trails.
This is a small property about 160 acres in total, we get near the south west property line and I hear a clucking noise, mext thing I see is a turkey flying away from my dogs (Chopper is a birdy dog), the dogs go back to where they jumped the turkey and I’m moving uphill towards the buggy when I hear Chopper with his high pitch locate then barking about 40-50 yards away, it sounds like they’re getting trashed. I hear him coming, I see him through the briars and he’s a stud boar. He stops about 15 yards away, I bring my 30:30 carbine up and shoot once. I think I hit him mid body, he runs off, now the dogs are coming and they run down to the creek.
I hear them screaming again for a brief moment then the race is on again. I start making my way thru the briars to the creek and they’re across heading north, this is when my garmin glitches out (just when I need it most) I get question marks and two false locations. I can’t hear anymore barking and have no signal on the dogs. I check the locations and there’s nothing there, talk to the landowner and the neighbors give permission for me to look for the dogs. Now it’s dark and I’m calling for them with no response, I get back drive all around the whole block of properties for nothing. So I load the buggy and drive to where we turned out. About 10:30 Ruby comes in, she’s got a couple pokes under her chin and one in the armpit. Then about 12:30 my alpha 100 dings and I got a signal on Chopper. I drive to him and get him on the tailgate, he’s got cuts on his cheeks and a pair of bloody spots on his head.
While checking the collars and gear this morning I see his brass nameplate is bent pretty good, looks like the boar hooked him in his collar and gave him the rough treatment. I doctored them up and they rested for the day. As for garmin I called them and will be getting a replacement alpha 100, I have another unit so I’m not without, but my trust in their product has fallen off a little. Sorry for the long ramble and no meat to show for my efforts, but I’ll post a pic of Choppers collar and nameplate.
