High Water Hogs

The fall and winter of 1997-98 was a banner time in my life. It was my senior year of high school, and I’d be departing for the University of Florida the following autumn to study...something. That August I took a velvet buck in South Carolina and followed him up in November with a fine trophy Florida whitetail, two mounts I still gaze upon fondly. In October I flew out West for the first time on a successful week-long mule deer and elk hunt in the mountains of the Roosevelt National Forest in North-Central Colorado, an adventure that will never be forgotten.

And I way-laid a ton of hogs that winter.

Florida experienced an exceptional amount of rainfall during November and December of that year. We were trapped in the effects of an El Nino cycle that deluged the state. All of the creek bottoms on the properties we hunted flooded. Trails and roads were impassable with anything shy of a canoe. There was a chop of whitecaps across cow pastures. Normally this extra water would've receded in a matter of days, but the rain just kept on coming.

As a result, the game was pushed up on high. The sounders of sows and shoats were particularly susceptible while the bigger boars that were once inviolable were forced onto the dry land. I don’t recall the accurate number of swine we popped…let’s just say it was quite a bounty to this young hunter. We’ve had wet years since, but this one will always stick out in stories.

With two tropical storms and our usual buffet of evening thunderstorms, Florida has had a pretty wet summer. If this continues – which is a big “if” because we typically experience dry autumns and winters – we could realize another hog year like that one. Already on our lease - which is as dry as a box of matches – after months of no hog sign, a few showed up on trail cameras after Tropical Storm Issac passed, no doubt the result of the stormwater pushing these fellows out of their comfort zone. And I’m noticing hogs and hog sign everywhere recently, just driving through the state.

There's no question wild hogs like the water, and it's why they're regarded as cagey swamp dwellers, but pigs aren't aquatic mammals. They don’t possess sweat glands which render them sensitive to high temperatures. If you've ever held a hog hide, you've probably considered how awful it'd be to wear that in the warm months. That and being covered with ticks would be pretty horrible. So to regulate their body temperature they wallow and take to swamps with that wonderful combination of cover, shade and moisture that lends to a life of leisure for a pig. 

Even still, while hogs prefer this habitat, don’t mind traveling through water, and are powerful swimmers, too much is too much. When their bedding and feeding areas flood, hogs behave about like those little sandpipers and plovers you’d see at the beach - they don’t care if their feet get wet, but they’re not going to nest there either. Hogs will be pushed to the peripheries when it's too wet for comfort, and it’s a boon to hunters when this happens.

And I typically witness this during the summer and note on dry years how we don’t see the numbers of hogs we're accustomed to. Travis, Krunk and I were hog hunting in Sarasota County a couple weeks ago. It was blazing hot, and the property was, in its driest areas, a marsh. We saw hogs the majority of the day, atypical for a place where your best afternoon opportunities occur an hour before dark but the hogs had spilled their banks. We should have rung up high numbers with the rifles, but we were spotting and stalking from the truck. The ground was so soggy that the splashing tires alerted the hogs before we could shut off the engine. Our spy-to-kill ratio was remarkably low. With the number of hogs were were seeing, though, a chance or two had to ultimately prevail. 

Around 5:30, Krunk shot a nice sow that hesitated a bit too long before retreating in the palmettos. Soon after, Travis and I bailed out on a sounder feeding in a dry patch of tall grass, probably sharing that patch with fireants, ground-nesting birds, and any other critter seeking the Ark. Travis split left for a direct approach while I moved to the nearest woodline to cut off their retreat. Unfortunately they spooked before T got a shot, but I was ready. 40-pounders burst from the grass as I armed my AR-15. I sorted through the runts until a large sow erupted from cover and into a hail of .223’s.

But that’s summer-time hunting. With deer season starting soon, most of us will be in treestands. Anyone with stands on the water’s edge is likely to have run-in’s. It’s not like you’ll need to keep a watchful eye; you’ll hear them come, a-splishing and a-splashing and a-grunting. 

If the heavy rains do cease like during most FL winters, the hogs will retreat into their swamps, popping out to feed on acorns, palmetto berries, crops, and return to whatever semblance of a normal life a hog has.

But if you have a wild hog on your wish list this year - for a BBQ or for a shoulder mount - I’d continue to pray for rain and swollen rivers and swamps.

It’s about as good as hog hunting gets.

An Open Letter: I Hate You, Bowhunting

Dear Bowhunting,

You clumsy b***h! Why must you make everything so eff-ing difficult? Really! From having to tune you, to your annoying wrist release that clinks on any piece of metal it can find to the point I’m convinced it’s magnetized, you are a chore. Anyone who claims they prefer you over a firearm I have to scan with a Jeweler’s Eye, seeking out that skin-deep flaw that'd betray a symptom of the obvious internal psychological or physiological defect that’d cause someone to say something so foolish.

I prefer a rifle. I am a Cowboy, not an Indian. Take this last weekend. After months of deer hunting, finally, a buck trots by my climber, albeit, behind me. Instead of quietly spinning around and clicking off a safety, I have to rise from my seat, draw back, and try to squeeze an arrow through a maze of twigs and branches. He didn’t wait long enough for me to even straighten my knees. Deader than fried chicken with my .300 or even my .45-70.

Then, as the memory of him fades, a line of does creep down the same trail. This time I was ready. But as I focused in on a gorgeous chocolate-coated nanny, I guess my binoculars knocked the nock because when I hit full-draw, the arrow fell from the string, tinging onto the Viper’s rail as carbon met aluminum, and the does high-whitetailed it out of there.

And if that’s not enough for a day of suffering, consider the evening hunt. An old, old doe came creeping from the palmettos nervous as can be. As luck would have it, she managed to slip right into the one clear five-foot shooting lane I had in that direction. At fifteen yards, she should be between a hamburger bun cozied up with a slice of cheddar right now, but instead, she’s still out enjoying life as the Rage greased her back hairs and planted into the sandy pine soil. Whisker Biscuits, Pendulum Sights...these aren’t harmless consumer products, they are the names of torture devices.

You are a sadist. It is not sportsmanship, as others proclaim, it is lunacy. I personally like venison in the freezer and antlers on the wall, and a bullet is the most efficient means of achieving these goals. I mean, for the time and money I invest chasing a smart animal in his own backyard, I gotta send my best when opportunity arrives. If someone has a great round of golf, they don’t go out the next day with half a bag of clubs and whiffle balls. Chess players don’t say, “Ah, screw it! I’ll play without my rooks today.” If I were a star NFL wide receiver coming off the game of my life and I decided to play the next tilt with one hand tied behind my back, coaches, family, and friends would pull me aside and counsel me on destroying my career and reputation. To choose bowhunting over a rifle for any reason other than paid endorsement or a large wager is impaired judgement. Smell the air for alcohol.

But here’s really the part that chaps my behind – I neeeeeeedddddd you. You are the Belle of the Ball. You get me into these exclusive, A-list hunts on great public lands. Somehow I’m the blight in this relationship, and it...

Forget it; I’m done with you for a near-length of a baseball season. If you think you’re going hog or gobbler chasing with me this Spring, you are the delusional one. Enjoy your stay in the dark of the case in the darkest corner of the closet.

Peace be with you. Until August.

Ian

PS – Tell your cousin, Crossbow Hunting, I said hello.

The PSE Buck

On September 14th, my wife and I welcomed our baby girl and boy - happy, healthy, beautiful, perfect. As one may imagine, the twins have delayed the start of Ol' Huntin' Season. At least for long-range, all-weekend deer.

As much as I hate missing archery season, I should be back on my grind towards the end of October with a muzzleloader.

I took this buck three years ago and the story was posted on my old Polk Voice blog. Since that original website is long gone, I thought I'd re-post this and reminisce.



"All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken." – Thomas Wolfe

An honest 30-bird covey of bobwhite is a rare sight these days. But here they came, a pair or three at a time, near endlessly scooting out from the palmettos, chirping as quail do, picking their way though the short grasses of the oak hammock in their uniquely nervous, quirky procession. And though given the opportunity I’d hunt them with fervor, just seeing these strikingly handsome birds was a pleasure, just enough to knock me out of a foul mood.

See, my gentle disposition in the woods is dictated, sadly, by favorable conditions; too cloudy, too windy, too rainy, or too hot and I start poo-poohing the hunt, second-guessing myself and moping like a jilted bride. And this day was a steamer. Surely, no deer would get within bow range the way I’d been perspiring, scent killer or no.

Making matters worse, my stand was a Frankenstein job – 8 feet of ladder and seat, with a blind fashioned from PVC and camo cloth, barely wide enough for my shoulders. I couldn’t hang a taller stand in the hammock or I’d never see anything through the branches of the live oaks. I wanted to put a ground blind in here, but didn’t want other light-fingered hunters to relieve me of one. This stand was an abomination, uncomfortable and ill-suited for taking bow shots. But there’s one philosophy I do subscribe to; even if your stand is less than ideal, the only way to kill deer is to be where they are, and this hammock swarmed with game.

But, oh, the heat. The quail, my only entertainment in three hours of sitting Saturday afternoon, abandoned me alone, I thought, until I caught the swishing tail of a young doe feeding under the short oaks to my left. A 60 or 70 pounder; if she got in range, she was going in the freezer.

As she slipped behind some palmettos, I awkwardly rose from the seat, catching the stabilizer of my PSE Octane in the blind, and tangling the Grim Reaper in the netting. Ugghhhhhhh. I worked deliberately to right my situation, mad I’d even messed around building a blind, sweating even harder in the desperation and anxiety of having a target nearby and the entire prospect of success rapidly going to pot.

Thank the Heavens though, even with all this commotion, the doe fed undisturbed. Still, it wasn’t to be as she meandered away from the stand, until finally disappearing back towards a creek bottom.

Discouraged and still convinced that’d be the only action for the day, I cursed my way back to the seat, bow dangling over the edge of the blind, and began second-guessing my stand placement. I should have put it closer to the swamp line. But then again, I’ve hunted this hammock for three years. I’m right where most deer cross in the evenings from the creek to get a mouthful of acorns before entering a palmetto flat at dark - the classic transition zone. And there’s still plenty of light left. Luckily, through all my buffoonery, I didn’t spook the doe and wasn’t winded. Hope remained. Just settle back down.

Around 6:30 a cow bellowed in the distance. Almost as a response I heard the unmistakable, “bahhhh, bughhhhh,” of a grunting buck. I stood slowly, this time avoiding hanging the broadhead in the blind, just in time for a tall and wide swamp buck to come trotting out, a mere 15 yards behind my stand.

I half-expected the deer to keep walking to a small clearing where the quail had been feeding. I slowly turned that direction, but the buck – and remember, while I am in a ghillie suit, surrounded by a blind and oak branches, I’m still only 8 feet off the ground – caught my movement. He stopped, bobbed his head a couple times, peering under a low-slung branch, hoping to catch me screw up more.

Avoiding direct eye contact with him, I waited for him to put his head down. When he obliged, I spun back the opposite way, guessing he knew something was wrong and would return to cover. Call it once-in-a-row, but I was right. Not spooked, but definitely alerted, the buck slowly turned around to head back towards the swamp.

I had one window to shoot through; the buck just had to cross there. As he did, with the bow already drawn, I grunted with my mouth and in the next motion as he stopped, touched the release and delivered the arrow to the strike zone, him taking off with two other whitetails that I’d not noticed.

On the ground, I found my arrow with good sign, but still resisted the urge to immediately follow-up. I returned to the truck, called Dad, and chiefed down a couple smokes, just trying to rein in the adrenaline.

After returning to the scene and an easy tracking job, the beautiful eight-point rode the game carrier back to my Dodge for pictures and the triumphant return to the check station where the biologists took a jaw for aging, and examined the kidneys for fat content while hunters approached to congratulate us. As it turned out, mine would be the only buck taken from the property this weekend – blame it on the heat, or moon phase, or lack of acorns.

For all its aggravations, when success finds you, bowhunting is immensely rewarding, and in a couple weeks, I’ll be back for another round.

In all likelihood, sporting a much better mood.

Deer Plans & Scouting - Lake Panasoffkee WMA Special Opportunity Hunt

I stood at the gate staring down into the swamp. I wouldn’t be able to drive my truck any further. The road into the dark was steep – a rough ride back up on bike. Bikes didn’t matter, though. I didn’t have one with me. Middle of July, I wasn’t about to walk into that skeeter pit.

This is going to be a tough hunt, I thought.

I pulled a Lake Panasoffkee Special Opportunity Archery permit for 12/1-12/4. With twins on the way in September, my chances of driving far and wide for deer appeared awfully grim, so I made a desperate tag grab for anything close to home. Luckily, it all panned out, and I may salvage part of this season.

The FWC markets Special Opportunity Hunts as the opportunity to hunt “large areas with lots of game and low hunter quotas and (that) provide excellent opportunities to bag trophy deer, wild hogs, quail, wild turkeys or doves.”

Much of this is done in conjunction with other agencies, in this case the Southwest Florida Water Management District commonly known as “SwiftMud.” You pay for the privilege to hunt here. Pay to apply, pay if you are successfully drawn and want the hunt. It is difficult to draw a tag. This is the first time I have been successful. You can apply for as many hunts as you want to help up your odds. I applied for three. Drew Lake P; am currently on the waiting list for two Green Swamp West deer hunts. One hunt I’m 353rd in line. The other, 435th. So I’m feeling pretty lucky about what I did get, especially since this hunt has a limit of 20 hunters.

But, wow, now the work starts. Lake Panasoffkee WMA is nearly 9000 acres of floodplain forest. From Google Earth you can see the land is mostly swamp and wetlands with scrub and flatwood habitat on the northern end of the property. With a large equestrian camp on the premises and being part of the Great Florida Bird Trail, I am assuming the roads and paths – 26 miles total - will be easy to travel.

The greatest trouble with hunting swamp like this is figuring where to set up. For starters, there’s no telling how much water will be standing come December. I betting not as much as there is now – and that makes scouting difficult, as well. All it takes, though, is a hurricane or tropical storm to fill up those bottoms through most of the season. Next, swamps – at least those from my experience – lack many of the funnels and edge territory that one would normally queue on when setting up a stand. Scouting from the sky doesn’t help a whole lot. Also, I’ve not found much in my research about the property.

And to top it off, it’s an archery hunt with a four-point on an antler rule. Really limiting my odds, people.

Ideally, in a swamp like this, I’d find a promising locale, hang a lock-on, and pour corn 'til it shined through the canopy. Of course, I’d probably end up with a whole lot of hogs and not many deer. And it's illegal on public land anyhow.

Hunting in the swamp is much different than hunting broken and mixed terrain. I could sit and percolate on this hunt for a while and makes desperate guesses and assumptions of how it’ll play out, but it’s just going to take shoe leather. Look for some oaks, old rub lines and trails. It's standard issue scouting, just much more difficult to know where to start.

I’ve signed up for a tough hunt, no doubt.

The Boneheaded Bowhunter

Bowhunting and I have had a stormy relationship over the last decade. There’s been name-calling and threats and throwing things. Abandonment on both sides. Even today, it knows I’d leave it in a second for Full Season Rifle Hunting, and there has been casual to serious flirting with purchasing a crossbow as that season expands. We don’t have the most stable foundation.

Still, bow season is a great time to be in the woods, and I need that companionship. Things have settled down to a degree where we’ve learned to work together, but, man, I just couldn’t help but rehash the old days as we sat in the stand a couple weeks ago and whittled the hours thinking through the What-Could-Have-Beens.

I thought of the Top Five moments in my bowhunting career that have been soul-crushing and painful…

1. In 1999, I perched in a lock-on in Manatee County on a rather coolish October morning. I was fresh to this archery game, but the rubs and nice weather had me jacked up. About an hour into the sit, I pulled out my grunt call and gave it a few notes. From the swamp bottom, a six-point came rushing up to the stand and stood broadside 25 yards away.

Now, this was a young deer, but I was a young hunter. His close proximity and 30 inches of antler disturbed the Shakes within. Still, I rose carefully and clipped the release onto the string, ready to send my first broadhead into a buck.

This release was one of those palm deals that would be totally suitable for a bow that shoots arrows with plastic suction cups but not ideal for the real thing. Despite the fact it had performed flawlessly through hours of practice, as I came to half-draw the 65 pound pull caused the mechanism in the release to fail. The string snapped forward limply flying the arrow about as far as a three year old can toss a baseball, and my hand flew back into my lips, instantly fattening them.

If only deer could laugh. But as I said, this was a young deer, and I was a young hunter. The buck paced in a circle and again stood broadside. I re-nocked another arrow thinking, "There’s no way this would happen twice."

Angelina Jolie does not have as pouty lips as I did after that morning.

2. A couple years later I sat in an old wooden ladder stand guarding a corn feeder and watched a hive of yellow jackets fly in and out of a palmetto clump, no doubt plotting a vicious attack on some poor creature. A doe slipped out of the gallberries behind me and fed in front of my stand. I had no bowhunting mentor and had to learn by trial and error and error. I shifted in the seat ever so slowly and drew back on the doe.

When I hit the release, the arrow tumbled through the air not unlike Darth Vader’s ship at the end of the original Star Wars. The doe hauled tail as I wondered what the hell had happened. Then I noticed my string had come completely off the wheel and cam. When I shot, the bottom limb had been resting against the wooden rail. The force of the shot unspooled and snapped the bowstring.

I know not to let that happen again. To make matters worse, as I sat there with no functioning weapon, a herd of meat hogs arrived at the feeder.

3. Speaking of hogs. I had fashioned a ground blind out of palmettos and old logs in a scrub hammock. I grunted in a nice 8pt my first sit. As they tend to do, this buck showed up on the one weak side in my concealment and busted me immediately. Hoping for redemption, I patched the problem and returned that night, but as we all know, Second Chances are few and far between.

As dark came to the hammock, I elected to slip out to a feeder on the edge of a large palmetto flat hoping to stick a hog. When I arrived at the feeder, no hogs were to be seen, and I desperately needed to answer the Call of Number 1.

So I sat the bow down and unzipped because, you know, peeing where you are trying to attract game is always a professional idea. I had gotten down to the last drop when I heard an oink behind me. All of a sudden I had a herd of 30-60 pound porkers literally feeding within a few feet.

There I stood exposed, bow on the ground, The Great White Hunter. When I stooped to reach my bow, they alerted and slowly trotted back to the palmetto flat. I zipped up and hurried to catch them. When I hit a fire trail that circled the hammock, a large boar was wandering his way to the feeder.

He turned broadside, just inviting that perfect shot. I sailed the arrow a foot over his back and cursed my way back to the truck debating whether I should tell others about this story.

4. I had this buck dead to rights. He had just enormous rubs near my stand. I was cautious about entering this area on anything less than the right moment. But, I did hang a film canister filled with cotton on a small pine tree that I’d occasionally touch up with store-bought doe urine.

I’ve never been struck with a ton of patience, but finally the evening had arrived. The wind was agreeable and the air was cool. The rut was just about to spill out all over the place. I should have stood when the doe came trotting by. I should have stood when I heard him grunt.

You know it’s a nice buck when the first thing you notice is the horns. Dark chocolate, like so many swamp bucks in the area. Nine points outside the ears. He had followed the doe's trail right in front of my stand, and when he walked behind a palmetto patch, I drew.

The buck stopped to sniff my film canister. A lot of things went wrong. One, my bow at that time – which came across on the Mayflower – had no let-off and my arms were fatiguing. Two, I never stood to get a solid anchor point and my body was torqued. Three, I didn’t follow through on the shot, lifting my head to see the arrow fly high and right into the meaty part of his neck. I should have just lowered the bow.

The buck bounded away, and I waited an hour before getting down. I found the broken aluminum shaft a few yards into the woods where he ran, no more than 3 inches severed from the broadhead. I located the blood trail and realized if I didn’t find him fast, I wouldn’t. A shot like that either hits blood or air. Anything else is about a lost cause.

My tracking job ended well past dark, caught in a tangle of thick swamp vegetation with no more blood to find, and what sounded like a pretty riled up pack of hogs that would be at eye-level as I crawled through that mess.

I was so sick and disappointed in myself. I came close to killing my bowhunting relationship for good that evening. The experience still haunts me every time I pick up archery tackle.

5. There stood the biggest buck I had laid eyes on in the woods, up to that point. He slithered out of the pines behind me. This was a truly large Florida buck, golden antlers from rubbing pines, ten points, at least 17 inches wide, massive - every bit a wallhanger. You’d have to be a much more dedicated hunter than I to let this guy walk.

He appeared ragged and tired from a night of chasing does and was in no big rush. A friend had invited me to his family’s ranch and strict rules were in place about the size of bucks one could take. This guy met the standards, for sure.

The buck turned away from me to cross a small creek and walk out towards an open wet-weather pond. I took the opportunity to stand and get ready. But, he only offered me the rump shot until he meandered to a myrtle bush and stood broadside, surveying his land.

The shot might have been 50 yards; it may have been 35, but I never drew the bow. Two weeks prior I had sent that arrow into the neck of the aforementioned buck, and I just could not harness the confidence. I know they say you have to Cowboy Up and get back on the horse when the iron is hot and the tough get going, but I watched that trophy buck stand there for an interminable length of time until he moseyed into the swamp and out of my life forever.

I can’t say if I did the right thing or not. Hopefully a deserving hunter did finally tag him. I never heard.

Like all relationships, one must learn from their mistakes, how to compromise, and how to move past it all to become better.

As rocky as my relationship with bowhunting has been, it has made me a more complete hunter.