| Florida Hog Hunting at its Best | |
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As we walked over to load up in Jim's big pickup for the ride to our stands, Kenny showed us a couple of beautiful custom knives. The blades had a Damascus-steel look to them, and the handles were of whitetail deer antler, with a scrimshawed bear paw on the antler base.
The knives were in nice handmade leather sheaths, and the steel blades were wrought out of nothing other than steel winch cable! Sections of cable had been hammer-forged into very distinctive, good-looking blades.
After I'd handed one of the knives back to him after checking out the nice scrimshaw work on the base of the antler handle, Kenny handed one back to me and to my surprise and everlasting joy he said, "Here, this one's for you." I hadn't even started the hunt and I was already about as tickled as a fellow can get!
This is the beautiful cable-blade knife made by David Mercer, which I received just prior to the hunt. The blade is a little over 3.5 inches long. The inset shows the precise scrimshaw work on the antler base.
Photo Copyright Russ Chastain, all rights reserved.
We made the rounds dropping folks off at their stands, and before long I was settled on a narrow platform in an oak tree, with Thumper (Marlin Model 1895SS lever-action 45-70 rifle) cradled in my arms, hoping for a swine to show itself so I could sure-nuff field-test the Ghost-Ring hunting sights from XS Sights and the handloaded 300-grain Remington jacketed hollowpoint bullets I was using. I spent at least half the time on stand admiring my new knife, which was razor-sharp, well-made, and absolutely beautiful.
I was one of the last to get on stand, a little after 7:00. It wasn't long until John's 270 spoke, with a ka-whump that sounded almost like a muzzleloader from that distance. His radio wasn't working very well, so at the time I didn't know just who had shot, but I did hear that whoever it was had gotten a nice one, and he said there were more in the area.
Turns out he had busted a nice 185-pound hog with a single well-placed shot, using a Remington Core-Lokt bullet which we later recovered, nicely mushroomed and lodged against the hide on the far side of the hog. John was the only one to see any game from a stand, though Dad heard a couple of hogs splashing and grunting behind him at one point.
After I'd been in the stand an hour or so, I got down and strolled around for a little while, until Kenny called me on the radio, looking for help. After a bit of radio tag, I dispatched Jim to Kenny's aid, since Kenny had planted his Ford Ranger (hereafter known as the Stranger) in a not-so-small mudhole while retrieving John's big hog. After that we reconnoitered at the dog pens to get ready for some intense dog hunting.
John with his big ol' barrow hog. A barrow (often pronounced "bar") is a boar that's been castrated before sexual maturity, so the meat will be edible.
Photo by Terry Casselman, used by permission. Copyright 2003, all rights reserved.
I changed into some old worn-out leather boots, added some snake chaps over my britches, and emptied my pockets of anything I didn't want to get wet. I strapped on my old Camillus survival knife and a Sig Pro SP2340 pistol (chambered for 40 S&W) in a KNJ holster, put the Nikon digital camera in a plastic ziploc-type bag and crammed it into my pocket, grabbed the spear and called myself ready. Just how ready, I wasn't sure, but I was as ready as I was going to get.
We piled into Jim's truck and Kenny's Stranger and headed out. Amazingly, Kenny made it almost all the way across a spot where recent excessive rainfall had caused a stream of running water across the road, before the Stranger gave up and settled down. No problem, Jim just reversed and had him out in no time. I was impressed that Kenny made it through the hole on the return trip with no trouble, the man has nerve.
Kenny's Stranger got slightly stuck driving through this rain-flooded creek, on our way to put out the dogs. Normally his place is not this wet!
Photo Copyright Russ Chastain, all rights reserved.
Page Three: The first trail is struck; shooting and sticking a ticked-off boar
