1/12/07 - 1/13/07 Hog Hunt

One officer and two members had a good, but wet time at the 1/12/07 – 1/13/07 Hog Hunt at the CzC Ranch (Wade Cottrell's Ranch) near Mercury.  Two members could not make it at the last minute.  I, Randy Rowley, harvested a 64 lb. sow and about a five lb. piglet.

The festivities started when I hunted out of Tim Price's stand.  At dusk five hogs came to his feeder.  There were two big ones and three medium sized ones.  It looks like I somehow missed one of the big ones, as it ran off and I could not find any blood.  On the way back to camp to get a lantern I drove up on the feeder by the cow pens.  A large sow ran from the feeder into the woods.  I tried to jump out of my truck while it was running but had to stop and put it in park.  I couldn't get a shot but saw movement under the feeder.  I looked through my scope and there were about 15 piglets enjoying the half bucket of hog bait that we put there earlier.  I put my crosshairs in the middle of the herd and pulled the trigger.  About 14 of the piglets went running after momma.  The 15th lay where I shot her.  I launched another shot at a running piglet but missed.

Jim McGee, Roy Brigman, and I ate dinner (Randy's Radioactive Roadkill Chili) and then went and looked for my hog.  After about a half hour we gave up.  We then went and hunted in the stands until 2:30 AM.  Neither Jim or Roy saw any hogs from their stands.

We ate breakfast (more chili and Roy's Rancid German Sausage, Rice, and Beans; thanks Roy) and about 11:00 AM we went on a group stalk.  Roy kicked up a black hog that ran by Jim and I at Warp 9.  All we got was a glimpse of it.  As we were tracking that hog, I came to a less dense area about an oak field.  I saw movement to my left and saw five blondish hogs running from left to right about 70 yards away.  I threw up my rifle, put my iron sights (I have see-through scope mounts on my rifle) in front of one of the hogs, and squeezed the trigger.  I hit it in it's lower neck, redeeming my earlier miss.

We cut our hunt short because we had heard from Wade's dad that the roads were predicted to ice up.  We didn't leave early enough, as Roy hit an ice patch on the way back to Abilene and slid into a ditch.  Fortunately a guy came along and pulled him out.

The weather folks really missed the forecast.  They were predicting a low of 52 degrees on Friday night.  It reached 28.  My toes got a little cold because I left my cold weather boots at home.

Unfortunately, Wade's lake, which was about 5 - 6 acres in 2005 is now completely dried up, so we weren't able to fish (and probably won't be able to for quite some time).

One unique thing about this hunt was all three hunters hunted with Remington semi-automatic rifles (Roy and I with Remington 7400's and Jim with a Remington 742, the predecessor to the 7400).