12/17/21 River Hunt

Had a fun hunt on the river last night. Me and my buddy met up at the landing at 10:30pm, he brought 3 young dogs and I brought two of my young dogs, Red and Ranger. We turned off the river and went up a creek, pulled the boat over and cast the dogs. They were trying to line out some scent from some rooting while we were tying the boat off and after about 10 minutes they were out a few hundred yards and we heard them hit a pretty good hog.

They took it back towards the river and ended up stopping it right on the bank. Well we get to em and they’re in a wall of briars, I’m only 15ft from them and couldn’t see anything, was tangled up, and trying to figure out how to get through the solid wall. After a few minutes I hear them drop off the bank in to the water, probably a 6ft drop. Everything went quiet for a minute so I start backing out of the briars and try to find a way to the bank where I can see. I hear some commotion start back up and finally get to the bank and see red struggling in the current after getting caught up in some floating branches. The rest of the dogs are floating down the river with the pig. We get red dragged back up the bank and work back towards the boat.

After getting to the boat we shot back out to the river and find that the dogs have been pushed a little over 500 yards down the river but they made it to the other side and managed to get in a root ball that was on the bank right above the water. The bank was basically a 12ft vertical drop off so they couldn’t get up it. We pulled the boat up to them and I hung off the front of the boat to kill a nice little rank sow. That river is fairly swift moving and in that spot probably 300yds across so I was pretty stoked to see the young dogs cross it and stay on the hog the whole time. They probably had it caught in the river for a little over 15 minutes.

Loaded the dogs back in the boat and went back and turned out in the same spot. We walked in with the dogs and after about 20 minutes we heard the dogs connect with a pig around 300yds from us. Whatever it was must’ve been rank because after they caught out I heard a few of the dogs let go and start baying. It made a run for the river and Ranger stuck with it until he got to the bank and right at that time the other dogs caught a little shoat about 100yds from him and he turned back to honor them. I’m guessing it was a nice sow with some young pigs, but I’m happy with 2/3 for the young dogs. Nothing over two years old and my two have been sitting up for a little while now. I can’t wait for corn goat season to end so that we can really start hunting hard again, these young dogs are earning their feed.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk