Set out to catch a hog in the snow yesterday with Tim and Rhett, and a neighbor and his son. I brought spoon and Misty, Tim had their brother Pilgrim and 2 of his gyps Alley and Tiny and Rhett had Gidget.
First cast they roll out and doesn’t take too long spoon is opening on track and they are trying to locate one. They finally stand something up in a pretty rank pocket of rose hedge below some of Tim’s feed bunks and spend 15-20 minutes playing ring around the rose hedge before whatever it is breaks and runs.
Problem is it broke and run “the wrong way”. It went north. Which is headed straight in to Weimar and I-10 and not very far either. We watched them break clear across the open on the garmin and we can still hear them, whatever it is they sound like they’re on his tail. Closer they get to I-10 everything is telling me to tone them off or something. Finally they turn back south and are headed straight back in to where they started this race.
They bounce around in there a little more and I’m pretty puzzled at this point, so I start walking towards the corner the dogs are in. They break and are headed right towards me, wide open. I try to get around the corner to see up the fence line they’re gonna cross and I hear something smoke the fence pretty hard, but never saw it. About 5-10 seconds later here come them dogs pouring the coals to whatever it is, absolutely rollin. They cover some country pretty quick and then they go quiet, and everything sprawls out in another pretty bad Mott of rose hedge. Spoon finally come treed again and they fell in on him.
Get that way and they’re in bad spot. After about 5 minutes of me trying to kick a way in from the back, they manage to get eyes on the hog. They start hollering Misty won’t call out to shoot so I run around to them and crawl in there, Clayton is telling me it’s a monster.
I get in next to Tim and we’re looking 10 foot through a rabbit trail at a really big boar hog laid broadside out on his belly with only Misty between us and him. we’re really not in a good spot. If this hog gets up We have 4 grown men a bulldog, and a 12ish year old boy all laying on our belly in a rose Mott that you cannot stand up in or hardly move for that matter.
On top of that I’m having to holler at Misty trying to get her to clear so we can shoot him. Finally I get her to come to me and grab her and pull her to me and hand her to Rhett behind me. Me and Tim both draw a bead and bust him. Sucker gets up on his front end, makes half a circle and then comes at me and Clayton and I shoot him 2 more times at our feet. Dead hog, and a dang dandy at that. Not to mention for them yearlings to stick him like they did was pretty dang impressive, especially in that country.
Dogs rolled over after that and we spend the next 2 hours picking off shoats and sows. Then something i doubt I’ll ever see again happened. Tim has an old dog named Curtis that was in the box. Didn’t use him on the big hog but he was out to catch the rest of em. We don’t really know how old he is but we called him 12 and he looked it. When we got done we called everything in and they all load themselves In the box, including Curtis. We makes the 2 miles drive back up to the pens to put dogs up. Pull up to Tim’s kennels, me and him both grab a young dog to uncollar and put up. And as Tim goes back to grab another dog to put up, Curtis collapses and falls out of the dog box. He Took his last breath about 15 seconds after that. Best I can figure is the old mans ticker gave out on him and he had a heart attack. Was sad, yet oddly poetic. If the choice was mine I’d make all good dogs live forever, but if you said I had to pick how one goes out. With his boots on like Curtis did, is how I’d want it.
Curtis was never an all star, but he was a good and honest dog. Dude left us with some pretty good memories.
Dog on the cooler is Curtis(old picture)
Mid race yesterday on the big hog. You can see how close to I-10 they were.
Bad picture of hog here. Maybe Tim will send me good ones we took this morning. He was right around 275 or so. Misty and Spoon pictured. Broke off both cutters but he had some sure enough big whetters. He was a pretty old hog in my opinion.
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