Hunting or Catching?

Ok, I was tired, stressed and just ranting last night. Looking, looking, looking, and more looking for hogs got the best of me.

I love to take people hunting. Mostly others that hunt like we do. But I also enjoy taking what I call spectators. People who have never hunted hogs with dogs and are there to watch. We took a couple and their son last night. They also invited another couple and their son to go.

Which is fine but I have noticed that Im a little more stressed than usual with more than two spectators on the hunt. Im not sure why, I just am.

I think its partly due to the pressure I feel to catch a hog so these spectators can see what they came to see. The longer the hunt goes without producing a catch, the more agitated I feel.

But I was surprised that we didn't even get on a runner or nothing. I know everyone has dry runs from time to time but we have been catching a lot of hogs in this area. Maybe the hogs have had enough and moved out for a while.

On another note. This has nothing to do with my thread but its interesting. On one cast last night, we put Buckshot, Tracker, and Sweetpea on the ground.

They made a good couple of circles and then Buckshot and Traker came back. Sweetpea was still out about 200 yards and we heard her yip, and then all of a sudden she made a sound we are not very familiar with, it sort of sounded like she was caught by something and trying to get loose. Like a very distressed choppy bay.

James put two dogs on the ground to go to her in case she was fighting a hog or something. The dogs head her way quickly. We shinned the spotlight in her direction and we see her eyes in the light. She was booking it back towards us really fast. The dogs that we sent to her were working the area that she just came from. She is a seasoned hog dog. She doesn't run from hogs.

She got back to us, we checked her real good for injuries and didn't find anything. She was big eyed and panting hard. The other dogs eventually came back to us also. We were scratching our heads over this.

At the end of the night when we got home, and were putting dogs up, one of our male dogs that was running loose tried to mount Sweetpea. Its about time for her to start coming into heat.

I wonder it her strange encounter was maybe with a male coyote who caught her scent.