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Author Topic: 4/2/21  (Read 345 times)
Austesus
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« on: April 04, 2021, 09:16:00 am »


Managed to get off work around 9:35am on Friday and had to go check beaver traps at one of my properties. Looked around to see if hogs were back on the place but didn’t see any sign. Well on Wednesday I managed to get permission to hunt an awesome property near some of my other land. Just great luck, I made a phone call and the land owner said to go ahead and see if I could catch a few hogs, said he hasn’t even been out to the property in over a year. So after checking the traps, I figured what the heck, I’ll go do some scouting on the new spot because me and two of my buddies were supposed to hunt it Saturday morning for the first time. Of course if I was going to scout I figured I might as well take a dog, lol.

Got out there around 1:30pm with my Hopper dog and a 6.5-7month old pup off of him. Well I was seeing a lot of old tracks not really anything fresh. Working down the edge of a creek that ran the backside of a clear cut that was grown up with some real thick canes and briars I had to cross a irrigation ditch that was coming off of the creek I was walking, going in to the cutover. Well I’m trying to get this pup to cross and talking to him for 3-4 minutes and I look over and see Hopper swimming in the irrigation ditch (about 3-4ft wide and maybe waist deep where he’s at) smelling the banks. Not thinking much of it I grab the pup to toss him in the water to make him swim it (y’all know how pups/dogs can be. This pup has probably already swam over a hundred times but decided he wanted to act like a knuckle head). Well as soon as I grab the pups collar I hear some commotion coming from Hopper.

He was about 80yds down the ditch, on the left bank right inside the canes where I couldn’t see him at all. This dog is normally straight catch but I haven’t had him on really any big hogs either. It seems like the last year or year and a half I’ve gotten on nothing but shoats and piglets. And the couple that were bigger were on group hunts where there were quite a few dogs grabbing on to them. Well I hear a bunch of rustling, the pig grunting, and Hopper baying. Ranger goes to run in there to him and I guess the hog heard Ranger coming through the canes and it broke. I hear it running so I waited a minute and I watched the hog come out in front of me and swim the creek on my right. About a minute later Hopper pops out and he could tell where it crossed the water but he didn’t want to commit to crossing it. The creek was about 60-80yds across, and it seems like my dogs will swim the ocean if they’re looking at a hog but just off of smell sometimes they act funny about bigger bodies of water.

After giving Hopper 10-15 minutes of him trying to work the bank and find a spot he wanted to cross, I decided to keep working down the edge of the creek until we hit a spot where there’s a bridge that crosses over it, and I figured I would come back down the other side to get him pick the track back up. Well right about the time I was getting close to that bridge, I notice that my Ranger pup is 280yds back behind me in the thicket trying to work towards me. I stop to give him some time and call my buddy Jake to let him know that we just got on one. While I’m on the phone with him I check the garmin and Hopper has stretched out a little over 700 yards in to a big cutover. I get to where the road and the bridge is and wait on him. Well he’s out there working through some real thick stuff and after about 30 minutes he seems to be working back towards me. I had stood on top of a 4ft tall stump, looking over the clear cut waiting for him, and figured he was winding back to me since the breeze was blowing my scent towards him.

When he’s 112yds from me I hear him let out a awful squall sound and my first though was maybe he got bit by a rattle snake. Well he goes to chopping so I start towards him and when I get there I see there’s a little channel of water about 30ft across, and on the far bank he’s baying a big hog. It was in some brush so I couldn’t see real well, I tried to ease closer so it didn’t break and at the same time Ranger made his way over to them and starts baying. Hopper grabbed a ear and got flipped and goes back to baying him nose to nose about a foot away from him. I should’ve got video if the bay since that practically never happens here, but I was worried that the hog was gonna break or hurt Hopper so I hollered for him to get back and thankfully he took about 2 steps back and I shot the hog. He ran a 100ft loop and dropped. I got over there and he was barely alive and they were still baying him so I went ahead and stuck him. Hopper took a few good cuts but he should heal up fine. It looked like he grabbed his nuts to spin him and when he spun he must’ve hit Hopper because the cuts are on his back hip and leg. It was first time wearing a vest and I’m glad, the vest took a few good nicks on the collar area when he earred up and got flipped, might’ve killed him if he didn’t have it on. At a minimum I probably would’ve been out of a Garmin collar.

The first picture is the irrigation channel going in to the first cutover, where Hopper hit the first hog. Looked to be about 175lb when it crossed in front of me. I wish I could’ve seen what took place to know why it got loose. Hopper has had a few bigger ones get loose from him, I think he has been trying to grab them on the back of the neck like he does with shoats sometimes. Hopefully experience will teach him to get consistent on hitting the ear.








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WayOutWest
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« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2021, 09:48:10 am »

Way to get it done, man!
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Austesus
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« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2021, 10:21:03 am »

Thank ya sir. I’m finally starting to get a solid pack going again after almost 2 years. Hopper had a major set back when I ran him over at 13 months old, but he’s coming back strong and has been really impressing me lately, and I just started a few pups off of him and they are looking promising as well. That was the first real boar I’ve caught in probably 2 years. Most of the tracts of land around here are so small that the hogs might not be anywhere on the land so we have lots of dry runs which makes it hard on the young dogs.


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justincorbell
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« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2021, 10:36:44 am »

Glad to see he is doing what he was bred to do!

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fish4food
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« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2021, 02:35:34 pm »

Good looking dogs Sir.

Good hunt.
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Austesus
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« Reply #5 on: April 04, 2021, 02:52:50 pm »

Justin, if I could ever afford to make the trip back down there I’d get some more from you. My buddy I was hoping to come down with this spring had a company that bought out the place he worked for and now he’s not going to be able get time off anytime soon. But Hopper has been doing great. He would’ve been way ahead of where he is now if I hadn’t had ran him over and had to put him up for so long. He’s a natural


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