June 17, 2016 - Another Friday night at the lease with my husband hunting hogs...the only problem was neither of us have had any success on the new place while hunting with each other; all of our kills had been while hunting with someone else so we were eager to break the curse of the new lease. It was hot...105 degrees hot and I was at the "4 Doe" spot sitting in direct sunshine while Donald was at the "Dirty South" spot enjoying some much needed shade.
It was just a few minutes into the hunt when I received a text from him saying he just shot a small sow, only to be followed with another text that he shot a small boar too! I was pumped for him and wanted to join him to share his success but my hunt had just started. As he cleaned both hogs and put them on ice, I sat patiently waiting on hogs to show up and the sun to go down.
As the hours passed, I was debating how long I wanted to sit. The last feeding is at 9:30pm so I text Donald and said to come pick me up at 11:00pm. At 10:55 I began slowly packing up my things...backpack, camera, tripod, water & Gatorade, arrows, & bow. I stood and put my backpack on, grabbed my bow and turned around to fold up the chair. As I took 2 steps towards the road I heard crunching coming down the road! My first thought was to text my husband not to come pick me up yet because he would spook the hog. I slowly crept back to my spot and waited for him to come into the feeder. He was a solo boar and I knew he would be on edge.
The next series of events took place over 20 minutes but required an incredible effort to not ruin the hunt and provides the name of this blog...Hot Mess! First, I had to get an arrow nocked and my release back on because even if nothing else came together I could at least get a shot on him. The boar went behind the feeder, I didn't have a shot and he wasn't moving from that spot for a while. Knowing I had some time (hogs tend to eat every kernel of corn before moving on to the next pile, unlike deer who tend to graze a bit more) I wanted to get my backpack off but my water bottle in the side pouch still had some ice in it and setting it down would make too much noise. I tried to sit back down in the chair to release my backpack there but I felt my Thermacell dangling off my backpack and knew it would clackitty clack clack on the metal frame of the chair. So I decided the backpack would stay on, I just needed to buckle the chest strap to distribute the weight for a good shot.
Could I even attempt to get the shot on film? I knew I couldn't get the legs of the tripod extended as quietly as I wanted so I just opened it up on the shortest setting, slowly, very slowly, unzipped the camera bag and placed the camera on the tripod. All I wanted was for it to be pointed in the right direction at this stage of the hunt. I stood and watched as the hog continued to feed where I didn't have a shot. I looked down at the camera and saw some brush was blocking the potential future shot; it needed to be higher but could I pull this off? Somehow I used one hand to unscrew the top portion of the tripod to raise the top pole up as high as I could but accidently unscrewed the adjusting nut too far and it fell on the ground. Ugh! All that work to quietly raise the tripod and I messed it up. I fumbled around quietly in the dark searching blindly for the piece while still keeping my eyes on the hog. I just knew he was going to finally turn and give me a shot when I wasn't ready.
Success! I found it and slowly put it back in and began the process of raising it all over again. The camera was as high as it was going to go and I was as ready as I was going to be...or so I thought. The boar finally moved to the right of the feeder and presented a shot. As I drew back I knew something was wrong but the hog moved and I was forced to let down. My release was too loose. I had put it on so quickly I didn't realize I hadn't tightened it to my liking. Quietly I re-adjusted my release but the hog had moved into the brush and I didn't have a shot.
As the hog slowly made his way back into view he was now on the shadowed side of the feeder and I needed to use my bow light. As I clicked it on I could tell he was nervous. I was actually surprised he had hung around for nearly 20 minutes already and knew my time and the corn on the ground was running out. As soon as I drew he backed up and closed off his shoulder with his leg; so I held my draw waiting for the perfect shot opportunity and as he finally put his front leg forward he opened up the sweet spot and I let it fly!
As my arrow hit, he turned and ran off with it still stuck in him but I heard a crash shortly after. I wasn't positive the noise was him going down rather just barreling through the brush to get away. The shot placement felt great but I was worried I hit the other shoulder on the exit and didn't get a pass through so my blood would be minimal. I texted my husband and told him we should wait at least 30 minutes to give him plenty of time to expire.
As I sat there I looked around at everything that was going on and realized what a hot mess this whole situation was. If I had waited just 2 more minutes before packing up I would have been set up better and more comfortable, but nothing ever comes easy for me and I laughed.
30 minutes later my husband came to meet me to help track and to my surprise there was good blood at the impact site and we immediately picked up a blood trail. I was pumped and within just 35 yards I saw him laying in the brush...exactly where I had heard the last bit of crashing after the shot! I couldn't contain my excitement when I saw him because I could see the bubbles and lung matter coming out of the entrance wound and he was much bigger than I was expecting! Of course he went into some pretty thick brush but we were able to drag him out.
As we hung him up to weigh him, he registered 143.4 lbs on the scale and as we cut him open we saw that my arrow had pierced both sides but it just wasn't a complete pass through. He broke my broad head off on the exit wound side and splintered my arrow into 3 pieces but the loss of an arrow and broad head couldn't stifle my excitement! The anatomy inside told the story of the shot and why he died so quickly! My arrow clipped the top part of the heart and punctured both lungs!
It was another great night in the woods with my husband and we broke the curse too, although I had to wait a bit longer than he did for my success and almost blew it by leaving too early! What a hot mess of a hunt!
Video of the hunt here: