Last fall I took two large boars dog-pistol without trouble. And since then I've worked a group of five curs in the field with my experienced dog Red. They are all over 60 lbs. My gyp Uno is a year and half, and I have three males that are just turning 1. My pups have been catching sows, during daylight, all summer long and I was a little worried about how they would do with a big boar hog. I found out Thursday morning nighttime hunting. We hunted in Limestone county 2 days prior at night and found no hogs. We'd walked about 3 miles around Willow creek in Robertson county and found nothing. The wind was out of the south. We came to a hay meadow and I could see what was probably a raccoon in a tree top at the outer boundary west of us and headed toward it. The dogs alerted and were all running around trying to follow the scent. They went south into Willow creek and bayed in a thicket. I have an HID light and was in the bottom of the creek bed with it trying to find what was in the thicket above. Uno was in the creek bottom with me. I saw the hog turning in the patch of very dense yaupan, and just like that he came down into the creek bottom just 10 feet from me after Uno. I let the HID light hang from my neck and took out my revolver. That got the hog's attention and when he turned his head toward me, Uno grabbed his left ear. The hog immediately charged her and she moved back but he got both his left tusks in her. I've been struggling with sight alignment while wearing a headlight and my first shot was high. But my dogs anticipate running in whenever I fire a round, so they were behind him where Uno was and he turned toward them and I dropped the hog with a quartering shot to the right side of his neck. I knew Uno was hurt and started calling for her and then realized I had five dogs nipping at the downed boar. I grabbed her and checked her out then tried to stop the bleeding. The boar was stretched out flat and couldn't seem to move his head but he was grunting and thrashing his legs a bit so I put another round into the left side of his neck. My other dogs were dragging him off while chewing on him.
IMG_2567 by
istitchiphonephotos, on Flickr
Uno's bleeding was controlled and so I gave up trying to stop it and put her on my shoulders and carried her a half mile to the car where I had a stapler. I took a picture of the wounds for the vet before I closed them up.
She's fine but not happy that I put an e-collar on her.
IMG_2583 by
istitchiphonephotos, on Flickr
About 10 hours later I went back and got the hog. I'll keep the scull as a trophy. He was in great shape before we got a hold of him. He had 3 inch cutters and a whip-like tail. Had Uno not been hurt I might have taken him to the taxidermy.
IMG_2587 by
istitchiphonephotos, on Flickr
I had cut collars on all my dogs that had been catching sows. In retrospect, I should have had a cut vest on Uno. I'm sure she'll hunt again, as she was chewing on the hog after it dropped. I just hope she won't try and catch the big ones.
