Every once in a while we need to spend a day in the wild. I’m primarily a wind shooter — doves and ducks. Most of my bird hunts are early morning short hunts. But my friend Georg Hofmann, who is a professional hunting guide, invited me to spend a day on a beautiful Hill Country ranch hunting feral hogs and young aoudad sheep. Another one of our buddies, Bucky Tucker, accompanied us.
No shotgun on this trip. Only rifles. I climbed into a very plush blind in the dark. After loading my 30.06 autoloader and my little .22 I laid day for a nap, waiting for first light. Before the feeder went off at 7:30 a.m. white tailed deer began to gather near the feeder, waiting for a corn feast. After the feeder slung its payload more deer appeared. Several were bucks. Most were little young four and six pointers. One nice eight pointer soon joined the breakfast party. He was a nice deer for the Hill Country. Certainly not a South Texas trophy but nice. He probably was about 2.5 years old.
Then, like out of thin air, a group of about 12 feral pigs attacked the feeder. They were all sizes and colors — black, grey, red and spotted.
I eased the little .22 Browning autoloader out the window. To thin the hog population we hoped to drop several little guys. I put the crosshairs on the top of the neck of a nice grey pig that was looking my direction. When the little rifle cracked he was on his back, very dead. A .22 is small for hunting hogs but if the little 40 grain hollow point bullet is placed correctly, it’s deadly. I always shoot for the head or neck.
At the report of the rifle the pigs scattered like a covey of quail. Most of the deer did not spook. Soon the pigs couldn’t resist free corn on the ground. They came running back like little track stars.
Again the crosshairs settled on the neck of a nice 40-pound, grey-black pig. He never took another step after the tiny bullet struck his head. “Vamonos,” said the pigs. But I was sure they would come back. The .22 is not nearly as loud as a heavy caliber deer rifle. It doesn’t frighten game drastically.
Then a huge beast showed up to the feeder. It looked like a bill elk, but I knew it was a sika buck. It had four-by-four antlers, a dark neck and a light-colored rump — much like an elk. I saw the same animal two more times in different locations.
“That is a very dangerous animal,” Georg said. “They made a pet out of him. He’s even been hand-fed. He could kill you in a moment. It’s not smart to make pets out of wild animals.
While the sika milled around the feeder, the pigs, to their detriment, returned. A smaller black one offered me a good headshot. Three little pigs lay dead around the feeder.
Texas is overrun with wild feral hogs. They are invading neighborhoods and destroying lawns. There is currently an estimated population in excess of 1.5 million hogs in Texas. It’s difficult to put a dent on that kind of population explosion with a rifle. But we tried.
All morning different exotic animals passed by my blind — feral hogs, white-tailed deer, the sika buck, trophy black buck antelope, huge Barbado sheep with full curl horns, a white Texas Dall sheep but no aoudads. The ranch had hopes of us taking down several aoudads. Far too many of them populated the ranch.
When Georg and Bucky showed up at my blind later in the morning I learned that Bucky had seen no pigs, just an array of other exotics. Georg had dropped three pigs and a big male coyote. The rancher wanted a full body mount of the coyote so we made a trip to Ingram to leave the coyote at the taxidermy shop and ate lunch.
After cleaning our pigs, we tried a late afternoon hunt but it was too hot. My blind was a sauna bath. I hunted with no shirt.
It was time to go home. A day in the wild is always good therapy.
