THE JOY OF HUNTING WITH ROOKIES
by Eric Carver
It was about mid January last year when me and some of my friends decided to take a break from deer hunting in our lease and try some hogs at the local management area. Well it all started out as usual riding around looking for a track and finally we found one that looked to be about a hundred and fifty pounder so we decided to try him. I proceeded to put a collar on my trail dog and send him on the track.
Well he went off about fifteen yards and opened with an ol pullin cold trail bark and I began to put collars on a few bay dogs to send to him, but about the time I pulled the first dog out the box ol JB cut loose with four or five chops and went silent so I knew he was bayed. I know what you're thinking and just so you know JB is a deer dog not a hog dog, but if you put him on a hog he will trail jump and run it but won't bay. Anyways, he had bayed in a cypress pond about 200 yards off the road so I went ahead and collared up three more bay dogs and let my friend Jason walk them out to the pond. Well before they got there the hog broke and ran a few hundred yards and bayed again but this time JB had some help and I knew if the hog had any plans on keeping his manhood intact he wouldn't break again so I collared up my two catch dogs and me and my friend Clint headed in for the kill.
First of all let give a little back story on Clint. He's about 5'8 and might weigh a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet with his boots on but he's a gamer and is always up for anything and he had been hog hunting a few times before but had never caught a real bad hog or been in a bad pond. Well the hog had bayed this time in probly one of the worst ty ty ponds in Florida so when we got to the edge of the pond I listened and heard the dogs and they probly weren't more than sixty yards from us so I cut Booger and Clyde loose and started crawling our way to the bay.
Like I said they weren't but about sixty yards from us but It took every bit of fifteen minutes to get to them and when we did get to them they had him caught but it wasn't no hundred and fifty pounder it was Ol Smokey Jo Mossy balls himself and he was wearing Clyde and Booger like a little pair of earrings so I told Clint that next time he turned away from us we had to get in there and catch him before he killed my dogs. Clint agreed and the hog turned and I started to him but about the time I started crawling Clint grabbed me by the belt and said "whoa...whoa...just hang on a second I..........I just don't think I can go in there with that thing."
So I explained to him that we had to and that it would be alright just come in there and grab the dogs and tie them to something after I caught the hog. So I crawled in and grabbed Ol Smokey Jo, got up on my knees and tried with all my might to throw him but couldn't and I'm not the littlest of people I'm 6', 230 and in decent shape. So I told Clint to come on in and get the dogs out the way and we'd just stick em where he stood so Clint come on in shaken like a dog poopin peach seeds and started catching dogs and then he grabbed Booger by the collar and broke him off and started for a bush to tie him to, but Booger had other plans and made a lunge for the hog and jerked Clint off his feet and right down on top of the hog and boy let me tell you he wasn't happy about that.
He didn't even hit the ground good before he was up headed the other way. He didn't know where he was going but he did know wherever it was, it wouldn't be face to face with Ol Joe. Now by this time I was getting pretty tired and was laughing so hard I was about to throw up and didn't think I would be able to melt Clint down and pour him close to Jo but I finally sweet talked him into getting Booger off with a few choice words where I could shoot Ol Jo and be done with it and he did. After it was all said and done it was probly one of the funniest things I've ever seen while hog hunting.........well thanks for reading.