For my birthday I went hunting in Florida in the Lower
Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge. We were hunting wild pigs, or feral hogs
(which sounds cooler).
It was a great time of year to be out in the woods, a bit
cool in the early morning, but really nice in the afternoons.
I went to an isolated part of our favorite spot to very
thick brush. I got up in a tree where I got one a number of years ago, and
waited. It is black powder season and we were using primitive single shot muzzle
loading guns where you have to manually add the powder and shot. They are MUCH
more accurate and reliable than the old-time kind, and almost always go off,
but the reloading is very time consuming.
After an hour or so ~ 11:00 AM I saw some movement in the bush, and
then a pig appeared rooting around in the palmettos. I waited 5 minutes or so
for him to get closer, and very cautiously got ready. When I thought he was
close enough I took a shot, but I MISSED him.
The noise from these guns is deafening and the hog ran right
toward me. The noise was so tremendous he didn’t know where it had come from,
and he basically run right under my tree, coming within a few feet of me, but
then of course he disappeared into the bush never to be seen again.
Later that same day, about 15:00 I saw another one from another tree, but
he never got close enough to get a bead on, so I didn’t get a shot in on him.
The second one was at a new spot, and I needed to clear a bit more of the dead
branches out of the way to hunt from that tree.
Truth: Sometimes you miss.
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