Train Wreck Weekend

This was one of the best and worst weekends we have had hunting in a while. Cward, Van Dorn, Jason Thompson & I were entered in the Caldwell tournament. We caught 13 hogs total in a little over a day of hunting. 7 of the hogs had big time teeth and they wrecked just about everything in the trailers. Marshall mims, t-bob, kelly and chances kids Rowdy and Cattle were all helpers to assist in getting the hogs out.

We went up and hunted north of Buffalo in cattle country since Barr hogs arnt allowed. In 5 years of hunting up there and 20-30 hunts we've never caught any barrowed hogs. We get set and chance drops Ike. We put Briar and Ruby down and Jason puts fuzzy with them. We hunt through 2 big mottes of woods and have just about decided to pick up and go to another spot as its getting dark. All of the sudden a boar hog about 175 breaks out of the pasture and heads through some thinned brush. Drake, Fuzzy and ruby roll with him. 500 yards later we have a solid bay. Send the bulldog in and a solid 275 black monster blows out of a briar thicket. Bays again 150 yards later only to meet the bulldog in a head on crash. From there the race was on. 1/2 mile later chance catches up to them caught in a creek. Get him out and it's a 275# Barr hog. He just about cut Redman, my bulldogs pecker off and split him all down the back leg. We take briar, drake and ruby back around to where the boar hog was and the dogs leave out. Meanwhile Ike had rolled off the first hog and was bayed back towards the incoming race. Pretty soon they were all together hammering on a bad to the bone spotted hog. It was damn near dark and you could still see the ivory this guy was slinging. The son of gun was lightning quick and was very athletic. We got go pro video and some video on my phone I'll upload. He broke and went a 100 yards or so and settled in a creek. We sent redman and the war was on. We got him caught an tied and to our surprise it was another freaking Barr hog about 240#'s. We get him drug up out if the creek and loaded up. Start looking for the dogs and they are bayed 500 yards to the north. Well big E and Kelly had walked the dogs down a fence row after leaving that hog and everything was gone hunting when Drake bayed a few hundred yards from them. Pretty soon everything got there and was hammering. Big e crawled in the briar thicket and Obama had a stud caught, tied him and it's another Barr. This one weighed conservatively at 325#'s. we all get around to the last hog and it's dark now. We notice a yellow dog was dragging guts, we run over and find out my Drake dog has been gutted. For an hour we laid there and kept water on the intestines and slowly worked them back in. There was a pin hole bust in the large Intestines which had to be stitched shut in order to keep stomach acid and septic fluids from leaking into his body. After going into shock about 5 times, each time bringing him out by just continuously talking to him we got him loaded up in a truck and rushed to Jason's kitchen table where with a needle and sewing thread; chance is able to put a stitch in the pin hole. We push everything back in and then chance goes to sewing his belly liner, and finally we staple everything back in place. As of now, drake is still alive but these next 2 days are critical. He will either make it or not. I can't thank Chance enough for everything he did. Really he did everything and anything possible. I am very grateful! For 2 hours he held his fingers in the hole until we were able to finally get him out & sewed back together. Midnight we finally lay it down. We just had one of our best personal hunts ever, and here we are all feeling disappointed because our hogs are "illegal". Down one very good bulldog and a damn solid 4 year old cur dog.

First Barr hog

Saturday it's on. We have to make it happen as we don't have anything in the trailer. Mikey bays a small sow not long into the morning hunt on a nest and we catch 2 pigs as well. Boogie and Joe roll off and are running one a long ways off. Before you know it they run this big hog right back by us and we send a bunch of young dogs with them. Up on a youpon hill about 400 yards away everything sets down as pretty as ever. We get in there and they got a big boar hog bayed. I videoed him some, about time the bulldog was almost there, boogie caught the boar and it was on. We got him flipped and stuck. Guessing he was about 275. Not long after that we had 2 more sows and a shoat caught. It was noon and not much was going on. Chance put Mator down. She trailed in .8 of a mile and bayed. Chance sent Captain to her where I got to watch some nice cur dog stock work a hog and settle him. Bulldogs finally got there and we caught another nice boar around 215. Captain took a bad hit to the shoulder but we finally got it under control and stopped. That was it for that place. We covered it high and dry with no more hogs. Picked up and moved to a new spot right at dark. Goose bayed a helluva mean boar hog around 220. Dogs rolled off immediately and bayed again 600 yards out. We got there to see one of the meanest hogs We've caught in a while. He was straight wrecking $hit. Obama got hit right near his heart. We had hell getting it stopped and finally did after he lost a lot of blood. Goose got it good too. This weekend was the worse weekend Ive ever experienced in getting dogs wrecked. We caught 7 hogs with trophy size teeth, 3 sows, 1 shoat and 2 pigs

This was a bittersweet weekend. We weighed in 846#'s on 5 gutted hogs in the Caldwell Boars of Texas. We hunted the caldwell tourney this year because we once again decided to hunt the trail of tears. This experience has made me realize that I'm pretty much done tournament hunting. Even though I'm currently in 2nd in the trail of tears with the rest of my teammates. I will now be dropping out of the competition. I can no longer support something I so vehemently disagree with. It's not really a measure of "THE BEST"

It's sad that with the society we live in now, there is that "everyone is a winner attitude" that this generation of people have grown up with; people now feel like in order to make the playing fields even they have to exclude certain hogs, even though our dogs & anyone elses have no way of knowing what they are doing. They are simply out there doing their job. Baying hogs. Cward and Van dorn have been barring hogs for 15-20 years. There was never any thought to barring hogs for competitions. It's just the way they were brought up, as well as I. For people to say we fill our spots with trophy hogs for tournaments; they are complete f'ing Idiots!! I could go on for hours with this argument and defending our integrity... but finally you just have to realize you can't argue with stupid

Fun weekend