Mandi and I met up at the ranch in Flatonia this past Sunday with some friends, Ben, John A, his grandson Ray, John's friend Cliff (the veteran), and our neighbor Raul.
This was Cliff's first Hog Dog hunt. I always feel some pressure when taking someone out on their first dog hunt, I think as hunters we all know there is no such thing as a guarantee, but it always feels better to make a showing when it's their first time. Fortunately, on this hunt, we were able to put our guest on several good hogs, and as hunts go everything went smoothly.
Something I thought was neat, on this hunt, is that we had two "families" of dogs on the hunt.
Mandi brought Lizzie, who is the mother to Ben's Chili, Chili is the "aunt" to Ben's Dan
I brought Brandy, who is the mother to Ray's Joe(Brandy x west Texas Plott cur), Ben also brought Trigger (Brandy x Kilo).
While we were at the barns vesting catch dogs, and getting ready, we turned out the bay dogs. Before we were ready, the dogs had one bayed about 900 yards out. We made our way to the bay, were the dogs had a nice sow bayed. Ray sent John's catch dog Riley, and Ben sent his young pit Chacho, this was Chacho's first ever hog.
At this point, I was relieved that we were able to put our guest on a hog, and the pressure was off. The rest of the hunt would be a "downhill run". The dogs rolled out, and while we were getting back to our buggy's the dogs showed to be bayed again. about a half mile out. Ray had brought his young dogo gyp out hoping to get her in on some action, so we told him we would wait on him to drive back to the barn and get his dogo. Once Ray made it back, we headed to the bay. The dogs had this sow bayed in a creek, they sent Riley, Chacho, and Ray's dogo to this one, and all three dogs did their job. We got the sow drug out of the creek, and about that time, the dogs were bayed again a few hundred yards out.
Sow (Dogs - clockwise from bottom, Ray's Dogo, Foxy, Riley, Dan, Chacho)
We started heading to the bay, and John and Ray sent their catch dogs, we ended up with a nice boar hog. decent teeth and I think he went close to 200#, though we did not have a scale with us to weigh him. We took a couple of pictures of the boar, and watched Brandy, Chili, Dan, and Patches drop off the Garmin. We still had Lizzie, Foxy, and Ray's Joe dog. Joe had taken a hit to the shoulder, so Ray and I stapled him up.
Boar
While we were sitting there, we had another group of hogs trot past us at about 30 yard in the woods. Mandi hissed Lizzie and Foxy to them, and the hit the woods and Lizzie bayed the hell out of a little shoat.
I am just glad we were able to get this little dog wrecker out of the woods
We regrouped once again, and decided to load up the dogs we had, then go to the barns and pick up my long range antenna so we could locate the other dogs. Hooked up the antenna, and showed the dogs bayed at ~ 2 miles. So we headed to them, and they had another real nice sow bayed about 300 yards across a creek. We killed her and left her for the coyotes as none of us cared to tote her that far out of the woods.
John and Ray with sow
We ended the day with 4 nice hogs and a shoat, no long races, and a good time had by all.
Cliff and John
Cliff thank you again for your service to our country.
