The Afternoon Hunt
By Eric Blanco
It was 4:00 PM and I was at my bowhunting lease in southern Florida. I was out there with my cousin and my uncle. We were hunting for wild pigs, except for my uncle, he has a fetish with hunting raccoons. He says that killing raccoons is a way of increasing the turkey population. My cousin asks me where I am going to hunt this afternoon and I tell him that I am not sure, he was going to leave in a few minutes, he was off to his feeder to find a nice boar. I told him not to worry about me because by the time he go back from his hunt, I would have already found and taken back to camp the pig that I would kill. So he said okay. He took one of the two ATV's that my uncle had brought from his house. It was just me and my uncle and my uncle was also leaving soon to his feeder. He also asked me where I was going to hunt and I told him not to worry either, that I would have a pig waiting. He left to his feeder with the second ATV and I was left alone and with no transportation. I went to one of our friend's camp and I started to talk with them. I asked him where he was going to hunt and he told me he was going to hunt one of his three feeder. After about ten minutes of talking, he asked me if I would like to hunt one of his feeder, so I agreed and he lent an ATV to get to the feeder. I park the ATV about 150 yards away from the feeder. I get down and pick up my Horizon compound bow. I slowly walk to the stand and climb up the ladder to get in place. Once in place, I put my bow on my lap to wait for the pigs to come into the feeder. After about 30 minutes I hear footsteps at a distance, just deer, it is not deer season so I am not that excited to see deer. It is a group of nine deer, eight does and a small button buck. I watch them for a while and they leave because the feeder has not yet gone off. After about another 45 minutes the feeder goes off. The deer come racing in to eat the corn. They eat quickly because they know they will be drivin out when the pigs come in. After ten minutes the pigs finally come into the feeder. I am racing with excitement, I have waiting for this shot for a long time. They come in and I survey the six pigs. It was a nice group, there were four sows and two nice boars. I decided to take the largest of the two boars. I stand up and think of the shot. It is a pretty steep shot, about 25 feet in the air and 15 yards away from the pig. I knew I had a tough shot so I concentrated real hard. I watched the pigs for another 5 minutes and decide to take the shot. I wait for the hog to turn quartering-away and I pull back my bow. I aimed right behind the shoulder. It seemed so easy, I had the pin of my Tru-glo sight right on him and ready to let go. I release the trigger and the arrow flies. I hear the pig squeal and fall, it gets back up and as it is leaving I see the arrow sticking out of him, it was exactly where I wanted to shoot him. He circles around a tree and and comes back to where the feeder was. I was ecstatic, I had never had a pig die right under my stand. He fell and tried to get up for a couple of seconds and then expired. He was beautiful, he had a grayish-black color and a white stripe on his head. After about 10 minutes, I got down and looked at the pig, he was a nice 80 pound boar. I grabbed the pig by one of its legs and started to drag out the ATV, so I could get it to camp. I had never killed a pig where I found it and took it back to camp by myself. I get back to camp and place the hog on the trailer. I sit in a chair at camp and I wait for my uncle and cousin to get back. I grab a pepsi and think about the hunt. Finally, they get back and I tell them everything, they are very surprised that I did this, me being only 13 years old. They congratulate me on my accomplishment. Then, we hung up the pig and started to clean him up.