Nothing gets me pumped like an email from my buddy in South Carolina that reads, “Want to go hog hunting this weekend?” That’s exactly what Doubletough contributor Ceth Land of Manning sent me earlier this month and not being one to turn down an invitation, I jumped on it. Waking up at 4:30 on the first Saturday morning of February, I hopped in the truck and by 7:30 was at Bojangle’s to meet the hunting party.
In the past we’ve hunted club property in what has become a spring ritual: bring in some locals with dogs to clear out as many of this nuisance as possible. There is no season for hogs in South Carolina and in a state that allows baiting for deer, they can wreck a small fortune in corn and food plots. I was thankful to be asked since getting the first hog on a hunt (and my personal first) a couple years ago, the subsequent times I’ve been down there we haven’t seen anything. I had been teased as bringing bad luck so a chance to redeem myself was on the line. It wouldn’t take very long for redemption to come.
For this trip we would be on property owned by a friend of the dog owners. It had been raining for weeks and the thinking was the hogs would be a bit easier to locate since a lot of the property was flooded. The local dog owner brought a buddy from Georgia and his crew of dogs, giving us a team that would get a real workout. Hunting pigs with dogs is a wild time; several trackers are released to scour the woods looking for scent, not making a sound until the pig is in sight and then all hell breaks loose. The dog drivers have some sixth sense that helps them determine whether the tracking dogs are on to a big pig. If it’s big, that’s when the catchdog is released. Our catchdog was Camo.
Each dog wears a tracking collar and a kevlar protective collar. Being the catchdog, Camo additionally wears a kevlar vest since he’s the badass and will be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to cornering and catching the big ones. Hogs have tusks that have gutted more than a few dogs and Camo has the scars to prove his worth from these battles. Even so, he’s among the friendliest dogs I’ve met and it takes no small amount of courage to approach him because he does look so badass. Once you do he’ll lick you and let you pet him but once he gets into fighting mode, watch out.
Our group included the dog owners, property owner and his high school daughter, Ceth and two of his kids, me and couple other hog hunt veterans. Once into the woods it didn’t take long for the tracking dogs to find the first pig, a big sow going around 150 pounds. We were walking a road and the dogs were just inside the trees when we heard the distinctive grunt of the pig followed by barking. Ceth told the kids to get near a tree (one they could climb if the pig headed their way) and we dove into the woods. Camo and the trackers had the pig down quickly while Ceth and I had a second pig skirt by us going the other way. The scene was something else: one guy had a knee on the hog’s neck while we started pulling dogs off. Dogs were tied to a tree then someone hollers, “who’s gonna stick ‘im!” Ceth responds, “Chip, come on!” I pull my Buck knife with a 6″ blade and with the hog on its right side, reach towards the heart behind the left front leg, nearly setting my left hand in its mouth! With a good jab I pull the knife and a few seconds later it’s over. It seemed like a long time at the moment but I was a bit distracted as Camo latched on to my leg in all the excitement!
By lunchtime we had one more sow and a couple small pigs. My hex was gone and after a lunch of deer sausage I packed up for the three hour ride back home. By the time I got there Ceth relayed a couple photos of a big russian boar they got. I heard it was pretty wild and no dogs were hurt, always a good thing.
A few days before this hunt I was asked if I would be up for paying $450 for a two-day hog hunt that would have us sitting in deer stands with guns waiting on them to show up. Not much beats the excitement of hogs, dogs and knives so I passed.
Have a hog story? Tell us about it in the Comments!
