17 Huntin trip

Bout time I give a lil rundown on this years huntin trip. It was a rough year due to a lot of stuff happening. First off I got stopped 5 hrs into the trip because a half dozen semi's tied up on I 84 in Oregon and they shut the road down. I got a room and left again in the morning and rolled up over 1000 miles. Did 950 the next day and rolled into Rockdale that night. The first hunt we caught 4 with a 200# boar being the first one and he come to Gus and poked him under the jaw barely missing the esophagus. There was a ton of stuff going on including rolling up on a rollover where we witnessed a 19 yr. old girl take her last breath. Bad deal! The next few hunts went well catching quite a few good hogs. We had a guided hunt with some guys from Iowa and sent them home with 3 big sows to eat. (and some great stories) Then we had some guys from Colorado come in (Coors employees) bringing my favorite beer. Free that is. We caught 14 in the 3 days they were here and sent them home with 3 coolers full of meat. On the last hunt with them, my Gus dog took another cut on his upper leg after turning him loose on a walkin bay. My old butt was the first one to the bay with all younger guys along. During this month my buddies son fell asleep after an all night predator hunt and put his truck in the ditch and totaled a 4dr side by side, tweaked a big gooseneck and knocked out both front and back windows on the truck. Bad deal again. On the last hunt we had I took a gyp I brought down after putting her on a hog on a mock hunt. She looked pretty bad when she saw her first pig but after thinking about it for a bit she really went right to the ear. On her first hunt we turned the 2 males to a close bay and the baydog quit barkin right as they were let go, both dogs ran right past the bay and the sow broke our direction and came out in the open. I unsnapped Darlin and about 75 yards later we had a 150# sow caught right on the ear. She is a 50# gamebred dog from LG/Eli blood and I was pretty darn tickled. Well we had another bay going over near the Little River and we went and caught another in a bad thicket. Then saw that we had one down on the river bank so we worked around from 2 sides to try keep it from crossing. Didn't work and we lost an incredible bulldog to the river. This had been a free dog 2 yrs ago that didn't have a weakness unless you don't like big dogs. He was 100# of unknown lineage who after catching the hog would just lay down and wait till you were done tying. He hunted offlead and would go when sent. Great family dog with no aggression issues. Another bad deal! I drove home with a very heavy heart! Next year has to be better!