Well, Chance finally got things worked around to where he could make that long trip down to Fla again. He hunted with Cutter Bay and Spazdog last weekend, then came to my house for a few days. Of course, I had to work Mon and Tues, so that gave them two days to recover before our hunt that started on Wed.
We got up around 4 AM Wed morning and headed to the woods. My buddy Dave, his wife Sally and a friend of theirs named Bob, met us there. We unloaded my Monkey, Spur and a young female Scarlet, along with a female of Chance's named 'Mater. We headed towards a spot Dave and I have hunted for years....the spot I got Monkey and Spur wrecked last year on this hunt....Anyway, before we could get to that palmetto flat, the dogs went off into an oak scrub on the right, with their heads in the air. We heard Chances female bark a couple times running and my Scarlet female yipped a couple times, then silence. Monkey and Spur are 100% silent until the hog is stopped.
A few minutes later we heard them bay down in a river swamp across the road from where they started. We hurried that way with Chance leading his female catch dog . We could hear all four dogs baying so I figured it was a good hog. We got there and they had a big yellow boar bayed down in the edge of the swamp. Chance turned the CD loose and when it caught, so did the other dogs. Rowdy ran in and legged the hog (now mind you, Rowdy is 10 years old and may weigh 50 lbs... and this boar weighed 218 lbs on the scale later). He got some help from Dave, and they got the hog rolled over. We got the dogs off and tied back, Chance showed us how they tie a hog Texas Style, we took a few pics then decided since it was the first morning and other people had dogs on the ground we should go ahead and kill the hog so someone else's dogs didn't find him and chew him up while he laid there tied. Upon checking the dogs we found my Spur dog was cut pretty good on the neck/jaw just in front of the cut collar. I didn't realize it at the time, but the cut went all the way through into the back of his mouth/throat area. My Scarlet female was cut in 5 places, mostly skin cuts, but one pretty good cut on the shoulder. This place must have it in for me with cut dogs!
We went on hunting and the dogs scattered around in the woods. We heard Chance's female open a few times and we went that way. Sows and shoats were running all around us in the palmettos. His Garmin showed the female lined out and headed back towards the truck. We didn't know where my dogs were, then a few minutes later Dave said he thought that he could hear them bayed in a different direction. Chance said his female was still moving west so she wasn't with my dogs.
We headed towards where Dave had heard Monkey and Spur and when we got there they had a sow caught. Scarlet was with them too. We tied the sow, got the dogs tied back and headed towards where Chance said he had last got a reading on his female. This was towards the truck, so we figured to take my dogs, put them up and let a few more of Chances dogs out to go to her.
While Dave and Chance went to try and catch up with his female, Bob, Rowdy and I went to try and get the hogs out of the woods. Bad choice !!
I only had one other dog with me, a young female named Stitch (a littermate to Scarlet) and I let her out to just tag along with us while we went to get the hogs out. She has only been in the woods 3 times. We got in the area we had caught the boar hog in and Stitch put her head up and went off down in the swamp. A few minutes later we heard a dog bark a few times. I didn't think much about it, then Rowdy said some hogs just crossed the road ahead of us, leaving where the dog was. The dog was still barking bayed so we headed that way. We got about halfway there, heard another dog bark a few times and Rowdy said it was one of their dogs. Then the hog went to squealing! Chance had turned two more dogs out and one had wound up down there with us. We got there and they had a sow caught. It was nothing but briars and wait a minute vines going in. I had a briar grab me by the ear...and hold on. I must have squealed a little myself trying to get it loose going to the bay, as Rowdy said later I was squealing louder than the hog!!
So here we are, Bob, Rowdy and myself with 3 hogs that have a combined weight of over 400 lbs....about 2 miles from the truck. We drug them all out to the road, one by one, which about killed us! Then took the cart and picked them up, one by one and got them all loaded. Then found we couldn't pull the cart down the sandy road!
Dave and Chance had caught up with Chances dogs, the dogs had caught and killed a shoat and Dave had come looking for us. Now we had more help and still couldn't move the cart much. It was bogged down in the sand. Now you are not allowed to drive the closed roads in this place... "legally"...but we needed to get the hogs out. I left Dave, Bob and Rowdy and walked the two miles back to the truck. When I got there and was trying to figure out the best way to do this, a guy I know pulls up and asks if we had done any good. I said, yes, we have 3 hogs down and need help getting them out. I told him if he wanted to drive in and get them, he could have them, so he did!! It definately beat trying to drag them out!!
We ate lunch and went back in the woods and wound up catching a few more hogs with Chances dogs. All I took was my Stitch female , as I wanted to see Chance's dogs work. We wound up baying 9 hogs total the first day and catching 8 of them. Dave and Chance had bayed one earlier and turned the catchdog to the bay. The hog broke before the catch dog got there and they spent the next hour trying to get the baydogs back.
I got to see the Texas dogs work and I will tell you that they will definately hunt out and find hogs!! Good noses, lots of bottom and heat tolerant. It was about 80 degrees in the middle of the day and they never showed any signs of slowing down.
Overall the first day was a really good hunt (except for dragging the hogs and trying to pull the cart..which Chance somehow managed to avoid!!)
Here are some pics from day one. This is getting really long so I will write about day two...and more cut dogs...later.
Chance, Dave, Bob and Rowdy with the yellow 218 lb boar hog.
Me, Chance and Rowdy
The three hogs we got out.
Rowdy and the hog
The 218 lb yellow boar
Me, Spur and the second sow.
Rowdy with the third sow. You think he likes to hog hunt???
Bob with the third sow. First hog he has legged!
Chances 'Mater dog bayed this sow and my young dog Stitch (the red one) helping at the bay.
Rowdy legs another one! I told Chance he could just leave Rowdy with me!! Nice having someone 40 yaers younger than you legging the hogs!!
A liitle help from Dad. Not that he needed much help!
