Four men attended the 3/23/95 - 3/24/95 Hog Hunt at the Brush Country Bowhunting Ranch. This was our first FCS archery only hog hunt. We hunted an evening and a morning. Eddy Chance and Larry Dowden hunted together and Ken Farmer and I, Randy Rowley, hunted together. During the first hunt the ranch hands recommended to Ken and I that we hunt at a relatively open area that was surrounded by heavy brush and trees. There was a lot of hog sign so we agreed to hunt it. We put out several bags of corn in the open area and on the dirt road that led to the area. Our hope was that the hogs would follow the trail of corn down the road to get to the more heavily baited area.
After putting out the corn we set up behind some low brush and waited. After a couple of hours of relative quiet we were jarred by a sound that neither of us had heard before. It kind of sounded like a the clicking sound that a dog makes when it walks on a hardwood floor, except this sounded like a pack of dogs. The sound got louder and louder and then we saw them - a large herd of pigs! They had done exactly what we hoped - following the trail of corn to our kill zone. The sound that they were making was the sound of their teeth as they sucked in and chewed up the corn. They were sucking it up like four legged vacuum cleaners!
One of the rules of the Brush Country Ranch is you are allowed only one hog for your money. That being the case, Ken and I decided that our one hog each was going to be a big one (Eddy and Larry made the same decision). Unfortunately the hogs seemed to know that rule. Only the little and medium sized hogs came into our kill zone. The larger hogs hung out at the edge of the brush. They were very content to wait until it was too dark to shoot before joining the feast. During my many years of hunting hogs I have come to respect their intelligence (they are said to be smarter than dogs). Big hogs and other big animals don't get that way by accident. They had probably seen brothers and sisters killed by going to the corn too early. They knew where the danger was and waited until we were no longer threats. Eddy and Larry saw pigs as well that evening but weren't able to get off a shot.
The next morning Ken and I didn't see any pigs. On the way back to the bunkhouse Ken and I found a hog pen that was heavily wooded, that we later learned was around 40 acres (the hogs could come into the pen but could not get out). We went into the pen and explored it for a few minutes but didn't see anything so we proceeded on to the bunkhouse.
A few minutes later Eddy and Larry arrived. They also didn't see any pigs while hunting but did see a black hog on the way back to the bunkhouse. It was standing in the hog pen by the fence. They though that the fence was a property divider and that the hog was on the neighbor's property. After a couple of questions we determined that they were describing the same pen that Ken and I had explored. We ate breakfast and then went back to the pen and stared to hunt the hog that Eddy and Larry had seen. None of us thought that this was a "canned" hunt due to the denseness of the brush and trees. There were plenty of places for the hog to hide and he could easily escape us.
The pig proved to be very elusive. We would stalk in a line from one side of the pen to the other. We would hear it running through the brush but only saw it a couple of times. After an hour it finally made a mistake and gave Ken a shot. Ken hit it in the head but the arrow bounced off. It ran to the opposite side of the pen again. Remarkably, Eddy finally found it in a tank. Only it’s nose was visible. It was submerged like a submarine! He scared the hog out. It stopped as it emerged from the water (probably to see what had scared it), which enabled Eddy to finally put it down.
While we were chasing the black hog a reddish brown hog bolted and ran between Larry and I. After Eddy finally killed the black hog the rest of us started to chase the red hog (while Eddy field dressed his kill). We chased the red hog for two more hours. I got a shot at it (Ken and I smelled it before we saw it) but all I had time to do was to pull my sting back and release (not aim) as is bolted in front of me at Warp 9. The arrow sailed harmlessly over its back. We decided that we might hunt all day and not get another shot at that hog plus we needed to get Eddy's hog on ice, so we called it a day.