A couple of hunting firsts for a 14 year old hunter
My grandson, Troupe, had helped me with off-season work on the hunting lease such as clearing shooting lanes and servicing feeders, and now it was finally hunting season and time to see if our work paid off with meat for the winter.
On our first two outings I sat with him in our two person elevated blind, but the only four footed critter we saw was a grey fox hunting mice a few yards from us. On our third outing Troupe’s mom, Lyle, sat with him in the elevated blind and just before dark they saw deer approaching in the woods beyond the feeder but they were spooked off by a small group of black feral hogs, one of which appeared to be a large boar. The hogs milled about in the brush so much it was impossible to get a clear shot before the gloom of night blacked out everything.
My son Colin accompanied us on our fourth outing and we arrived at 3:45 PM and parked near the entrance gate and I sat in the truck while Troupe walked to the box blind and Colin walked to the pop up ground blind near another feeder. I enjoyed the late afternoon and read and studied an aerial photo of the property and heard occasional sounds of a large hog in the Honey Creek bottom.
A rifle cracked at 5 pm. Then came a text from Troupe that he had a good shot on a nice hog at the feeder and it ran for the Honey Creek bottom (a place where wounded deer and hogs just seem to disappear) and would I come help look for it. I drove back to the stand and saw Troupe following a blood trail in the failing light. He then hollered that he had found the pig and it was dead. It was lying in grass not far from a tower stand some 50 yards from the creek banks; so after being shot, it had run about 100 yards before it died.
That evening, Troupe and I learned together how to clean a feral hog- a bit smelly outside, but very clean inside because it had been shot through the heart and lungs only. I held the heart out so Troupe could see the 7mm-08 bullet holes through it; and it still ran 100 yards!
We tossed it in the truck, picked up Colin (he had heard critters in the woods, but they never showed themselves while there was shooting light) and dropped the hog off at Po Boys Outback Game Processors to be made into breakfast sausage.
The two firsts:
1. Troupe has his Hunters Safety Course Card, but this is the first time he had hunted alone and he did well.
2. He and I have killed several hogs each, but always on a property that provided field dressing and quartering services. This time he really got into it and will be able to field dress his next hog by himself.
By the way, the breakfast sausage is excellent.
