Hazards of hog Hunting

Mine is water. I shared this story a while back, and I’ll try to keep it shortened up some. Basically around this time last year we were having some flooding around Congaree, which is pretty typical for this time of year. Dogs jumped a couple hogs and took them for a big loop 3/4 mile down to a creek that I knew would be flooded. At regular levels it’s about 35-40ft wide, and pretty deep with banks that drop straight off. My guess would be somewhere between 7-12ft deep. Well I am watching the dogs and see them about to cross it so I start beating feet to them.

This creek is down in a swamp bottom, so I get to the crest of what is normally a 30ft bank that goes down to where it levels out for 50-75yds before the creek bank... and it’s all underwater. What is normally dry ground right there was about chest deep water. I see my young male 120yds out sitting on a log, so I manage to call him out. That in itself was a pain in the butt because he was 9 or 10 months old at the time and had almost drowned a few months before that so he was a little funny acting with water. He comes back so I get him and my RCD rounded up and leashes off to a tree and start trying to find the 3rd dog. She’s showing something like 340yds out across the water, and I can’t see her at all.

I called my wife to tell her I was probably going to have to swim it if I couldn’t call her out and that I was pretty nervous about it, and told her what area I was in. I was by myself and it was around a 40 degree high that day, sun was starting to set and the water temp was probably high 20’s. It was flowing pretty insane from all the flood water. Well she has the idea to see if her dad would bring me his kayak. So I get him and my buddy to come meet me at a kayak entrance about a mile up stream from there. Me and my buddy start towards the dog and end up getting to her in about 45 minutes. This is well after dark now, so we are kayaking through this flooded swamp using headlamps. Almost got knocked out the kayaks by a sounder of big hogs that was on the bank that we spooked and they swam across right in front of us.

Well I found out that day that it wasn’t just a creek like I thought. After you come down from that bank there’s the creek, and after you cross it there’s a few hundred yards of ground, and then a second creek that runs parallel with the first one. The dog was on the opposite bank of the second creek. So we manage to get over to her and find her on a laid over tree. My father in laws kayak was a little skinny kind that tips real easy so I knew we couldn’t both get in it. I get out and am standing in waist deep water and manage to get her inside the kayak and tie it off behind my buddies.

I walk beside them until the hit the creek (at this point I’m still thinking it’s just the one creek and that on the other side it’s chest deep water for 50yds and then high ground with a 800yd walk back to the truck. Well I tell him to take her across the creek and kick her out on the ground then come back for me and I’ll get back in the kayak to cross. All this time I’m standing in freezing cold waist deep water. Well he crosses and doesn’t see any dry ground, and the dog ends up flipping the kayak on that side and gets on a log. Well my buddy was nervous about trying to cross back and says I’m gonna have to try and swim it. Well I still had my kayak paddle in my hand so I start walking forward and probing the ground in front of me and all of a sudden the 8ft paddle goes all the way below the water without touching ground so I know that’s the creek.

I step off the drop off to start swimming and pretty immediately locked up with the cold. Thankfully I had put a life jacket on because of the cold and I managed to hang on to a tree branch for a few minutes until my body adjusted enough for me to try and move. I get across and stand back up on the other bank and it’s still waist deep water. At this point I’m getting worried about hypothermia and I’m shaking pretty bad. So my kayak had got filled with water from where the dog flipped it so I get it back up right and manage to drain some of it, but standing out in waist deep water I just wasn’t able to get it all out.

We start walking the kayaks towards where I think the ground is, and then come across the first of the 2 creeks and I realize that I was wrong and that we still have to cross this creek before getting to the ground. So my buddy throws the dog in his lap and I get in my kayak which is still half full of water and we barely manage to get across. I had lost my paddle throughout all this so he was having to tow me across this part. We finally hit ground and after being in the water for 45 minutes I said to hell with the kayaks, tie them off to a tree and we will get them tomorrow.

We start going back to the truck and Cody starts puking from the cold water since he had been drinking at the house before coming out there to help me, and I’m shaking so bad I can barely walk. We’re almost back and he asks where the dog is, I look at the garmin and she’s caught at 550yds. I tell him that she will just have to wait a minute before we freeze to death, so we warm up in the truck for about 10 minutes and I get out to go kill the pig and get her. Well the pig had broke and she ended up catching 3 different times with me chasing her all over a neighboring property trying to cut her off and get to her every time she was caught or running close to me. Of course she ended up in the middle of a sounder and that dog hunted on her terms, not yours. She finally ends up coming out after getting cut up in a few spots.

We made it back home around midnight and that was the best hot shower I’ve ever had. My body had aches for two days after that lol. Probably the worst hunting experience I’ve ever had.

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