Hunting
Tuskers!
A sticky, wet fog hung low in the river bottom, wrapping palmetto bushes and immature oaks in an eerie mist. Dawn was breaking, but already the clear sky and warming air hinted at the sweltering temperatures to come.
And it was quiet. Almost deathly so. Only a scrub jay here and squirrel there to let me know I wasn’t the only one haunting this Central Florida hammock.
Tension ran high. So did anticipation…and a dash of anxiety. Sign was good and plentiful. Large swaths of fertile, black earth looked as if it were turned up by a demonic rotor tiller. Still, the musky smell of bare, moist dirt could not completely stifle the lingering odor of my prey. They had been here recently. They were here now. And I could hear them rustling on the edge of my small, mist-shrouded world.
Visibility was no more than 20 yards through the thick understory. Ducking around jeweled spider webs and sidestepping large palmetto clusters to avoid waking a napping diamondback, I moved as silently as the crunching live oak leaves would allow.
They were on me without warning. A black shape moved silently through the fog off to my left. Then another. Muted grunts and snapping twigs rent the stillness I had so carefully nurtured. They seemed to be everywhere at once.
About this time I had one of my occasional “What the heck did I get myself into?” moments. Every year the regional hospital treated hunters for the severe beatings they received from the business end of these beasts. Now here I was, by myself, with nothing more than a bow in hand and a knife on the hip, within smelling distance of several 200-pound well-armed brutes. Thoughts quickly turned from positioning for the first good shot to locating the first good tree I could skinny up should things go bad.
But things did not go horribly bad, my imagination not withstanding. In fact, things didn’t go anywhere at all. My quarry’s keen nose picked me up well before any opportunities presented themselves. As quickly as they came they were gone, leaving me with a thumping heart, surging adrenaline and an insatiable need to do it all over again.
Such was my first foray into the habit-forming world of hog hunting. And what a dive into the deep end it was. Within a couple hours of that ghostly early morning encounter I was nearly run over by a band of sows and their young ones. I dropped the bigger of the lot with a mere five-yard shot, then spent the next hour on my hands and knees following a sparse blood trail. In the end it was all pork chops—a fine piney woods rooter and an addiction for pursuing wild swine that has not subsided in the ensuing 15 years.
Hunting wild hogs has been a southern tradition for decades, and a rite of passage for many. Pitting oneself against these cantankerous and often dangerous critters is as much “thrill” as it is “hunt” because you just never know what will happen once the dust starts flying. Hogs are sharp of sense, fleet of foot and, some say, the smartest mammal next to humans. (A few will argue that hogs are a good bit smarter than many people they know.) As a game species, wild hogs offer it all: a cunning adversary, a challenging kill, enough smarts to turn the tables on you and the dental hardware to back their often rank attitude. All in all, a fitting opponent for the more adventurous sportsman.
Wild hogs aren’t native to North America, but from their proliferation throughout the southern reaches of the country one might think so. That said, free-ranging swine have been part of America’s wildlife tapestry since they first came ashore with the Spaniards in the early 1500s.
Depending on the area of the country there are several strains of hogs roaming the woods and fields. The originals are termed piney woods rooters, which are descendents of the feral herd hogs brought over by the Spanish explorers. Eventually European/Russian hogs were introduced by sportsmen and set into the wilds. These strains, combined with the more recent integration of feral domestic hogs into the gene pool, has made for a diverse wild hog population ranging from as far north as the Mason-Dixon line south to Florida and west into Oklahoma and Texas. California even has a thriving population of wild swine which provide excellent hunting in that state.
But one state which is synonymous with wild hogs is, of course, Arkansas. The famed Arkansas razorback (the pig, not the football team) is said to be a mix of semi-domesticated hogs brought in by the early settlers and the wild remnants of the Spanish stock introduced much earlier. Their name is derived from the animals’ pronounced bristle-covered backbone, and they boast a reputation for being downright mean when they want to be.
It was these rowdy Sus scrofa that brought cohorts Ken Byers, Lee Hetherington and me to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, for a bit of early summer fun. Ken tapped friends Butch Thomas and Bernie and Dale Morrell of Morrell Targets for the inside track on some good razorback hunting opportunities in their area, and like true pals they came through for us.
Our first hunt was on private property owned by an associate of the Morrell brothers. After a quick lunch we grabbed our weapons and made for the field. Ken, feeling adventurous enough to hunt with his Ruger Redhawk .44 Magnum, paired up with Lee and his Hoyt Vetrix and took a stand near a pinch point while Bernie and I headed down the mountain in an effort to kick some hogs out of their afternoon slumber. After much brush-beating Bernie and I came up empty, but Ken and Lee had a bit of excitement when a couple of the bristly critters sauntered their way. Unfortunately, they had no shot opportunities.
Regrouping, we decided on another strategy. Ken and Lee moved to a field edge while Bernie and I struck out in the open to see if we could kick something out of the bushes. Bernie pointed out a long, tangled-up hedgerow and said plainly, “There are hogs in there.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No,” he explained to me, “they like to lay up in that thick stuff. Got trails running through it. We’ll walk the upper side of the brush and something will jump out.”
- Serious Hog Gear
- Although we finished up our Ozark hog expedition on the bowhunting-only Taylor Mountain Bowhunting Ranch, firearms were employed for the earlier part of our hunt on private property owned by a friend of a friend.
- For this phase of the hunt I decided to try out a triple-slam combination that I’d had my eye on for some time—a Mossberg 835 Ulti-Mag (ported rifled barrel, .12 gauge, 3 1/2-inch chamber, Mossy Oak New Break-Up pattern), Hornady SST Shotgun Slug ammo and a TruGlo red dot sight.
- The 835 Ulti-Mag I had successfully used on turkey, but the slug barrel option was new to me. The perfect companion for this was, naturally, Hornady’s new 300 gr. SST shotgun slug ammo. Delivered with Mossberg’s proven ported and rifled 24-inch barrel, I figured the Hornady SST ammo, with its flexible polymer tip, conical base and impressive ballistics (2,000 fps muzzle velocity and relatively flat trajectory [+2.4 in. @ 50 yds. to -6.7 in. @ 200 yds.]) would deliver on two counts: incredible knockdown power and long-range accuracy from a slug gun. As advertised, the combination made good on the claim of sub-two-inch groups at 100 yards. A warning, though. Ammo of this size and caliber isn’t made for a leisurely day at the range. Fourteen rounds of freestyle bench shooting nearly put my shoulder in a sling. Fortunately, that was enough to get the TruGlo red dot sighted in to perfection. In the field the result was stunning—one big hog, one shot, one hundred yards…pork chops in under four seconds.
- Speaking of TruGlo’s red dot laser sight, this is absolutely the ultimate sighting system for fast-action short-range (under 150 yards) shooting, such as you encounter when chasing tuskers. The TruGlo provides instant sight acquisition because it is non-magnifying, and the bright laser dot makes it quick and easy to center on your target zone. When you’re in the thick stuff with hogs running this way and that (and sometimes right towards you), quick and accurate target acquisition is a must, and in this regard the TruGlo is the ideal companion.
About 40 yards later Bernie proved himself spot-on. A big brute of a boar exploded out of this seemingly impossible tangle of vegetation not ten feet from me and with no warning whatsoever. The Mossberg 835 jumped swiftly to my shoulder and the TruGlo sight tracked perfectly on the running hog’s vitals, but I had to pull up short. Ken and Lee were somewhere on the other side of the hog. By the time the firing line was clear that pig was safely out of the kill zone.
Later, as the light faded and we headed back to the truck, someone noticed a mess of pigs coming out of the woods to feed, as hogs are want to do in the evening. Our chances of slipping within bow or pistol range was zero, but I was confident in the long reach of my Mossberg and Hornady’s new SST shotgun slugs (see the “Serious Hog Gear” sidebar). With the breeze in our favor we duck-walked through the grass. At 100 yards out a hefty sow presented me with a perfect quartering away shot. Ken handed me his shooting sticks and in a matter of seconds the deed was done.
Next morning we headed to the same area. Ken managed a terrific 30-yard shot with his Ruger, and the 225-grain Hornady LEVERevolution .44 Magnum round put the hog on its back.
Now it was time for some serious bowhunting, so we planted our flag at the Taylor Mountain Bowhunting Ranch—a sizeable high-fence wild hog and ram preserve near Natural Dam, Arkansas. Lee was up, so Ken and I (with a longbow borrowed from Bernie) followed behind as we weaved through the dark woods in search of more swine. And it didn’t take long.
Soft grunts and the clatter of upturning rocks heralded their approach. Caught somewhat in the open, the three of us hunkered down while Lee waited for an opportunity. After several minutes the group turned away, but one lone boar decided to go a different direction. Big mistake. Bringing his Hoyt Vetrix to full draw, Lee tracked the boar as it wound its way through the trees. When a small window opened up in the brush Lee let loose his carbon missile, downing his first razorback.
And with that success we welcomed yet another brother, forever addicted, to the lure of the mighty tusker.