Hunting in the Pineywoods Thicket

by Greg Cheney

First let me begin by thanking you for the oppurtunity you give us hog hunters to send in stories about our past hunts. I really enjoy reading about other's experiences as well as sharing my own. My name is Greg Cheney. I am a 20 year old student at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. I stay in an apartment but Im from a small town in East Texas. I have been hog hunting with my dad and cousins since I was 13. There's nothing in the world that I enjoy more than taking our dogs out and baying a wild boar and then catching him. Most of the time we hunt in our hunting lease which has about 10,000 acres of land. And everyone knows about the thickets of East Texas. One Saturday morning, 7 of us set out on four-wheelers into the woods. Myself, my dad, my cousins Jason, Glen, and Earl, and our friends Russell and Jim. Everyone wanted to bring their dogs so of course we had more than plenty. We were going to make a day out of it so we decided to split the dogs up into groups and take them seperately. We put 3 dogs on the ground to go with Clyde, my dad's pride and joy, and left the remaining 4 behind with my cousin Jason's pride and joy, Jake. We had 5 bulldogs but we decided to take 3 for the first round. Clyde hunted hard for about an hour and a half when he came limping up to my dad. His foot was a bloody mess. We figured he must have hung it on something so we went back to the trucks and got ol' Jake. Clyde may have been hurt but he sure hated having to stay in the truck. It was a cold day so we built a small fire on the pipeline and ate a snack. We messed around for an hour or so and then decided to try the other side of the pipeline. We went ahead and let Clyde on the ground so we were taking off with Clyde, Jake, and 4 other dogs. We sent the dogs down an old trail that led to a beaver pond where we had seen some good signs.Now my cousin Glen had hurt his back at work a few days prior to the hunt so he decided that since he couldnt help out a whole lot, he would bring a video camera to get the action on tape. Well we rode down the trail for a while and finally pulled up to the old duck pond. There were several sets of tracks and a couple of them were pretty big. The dogs didnt stay around very long. Clyde and Jake headed deeper into the woods and the younger dogs were right behind. We sat there waiting and listening for what seemed like a year. Out of nowhere, we heard Jake's and then Clyde's loud bawl, followed by several sharp barks, and then the rest of the dogs joined in. Son, we were pumped. We went straight to what we thought was a big hog. We crossed the creek by foot and since we brought all 5 catch dogs just in case we tied 2 to the 4 wheelers and took the other 3 to the action. We ran to the dogs, and straight into the thickest thicket I believe I've ever been in. We literally had to crawl to get to where they were bayed. We got to the dogs and boy were we surprised. It wasnt 1 or 2 big hogs in there. The dogs had nine hogs bayed in a little open spot and these were no small hogs. It sounded like a herd of buffalo running around. I honestly felt the ground shaking underneath me. My cousin Glen went around the backside to see if he could find a tree to get in to film the dogs working. We ran around with him and seen 3 of the biggest boar hogs we had ever seen. The dogs were doing circles around them baying up a storm. These big nine hogs weren't bothered a bit by our barking friends. They were bowed up ready to destroy. It didnt take but a minutes for someone to go get the other 2 catch dogs. Might I add that one of these 2 dogs was new at catching hogs and it would soon be pretty obvious. Glen taped the hogs and dogs for I'll say about 15 minutes. We lined the 5 bulldogs up side by side. My dad went to one side and Russell went to the other ready to go in. Now I will admit and Im sure the others will too that these 9 monsters were nothing to be taken lightly and I was a tad nervous. But I trusted our dogs so I was ready. Jason started counting to three....but at the sound of "2" the hogs busted out of there like a bull out of a chute. We cut em' loose anyways. Eight hogs hit the creek while one ol sow stayed put. All five dogs headed for the ol girl. My dad caught one of the dogs, 2 bulldogs caught the sow, and Jim's dog caught Jasons dog. lol Well it wasnt funny then but I cant help but laugh when I think about it. Well of course the cur dogs followed the other hogs and we went straight to Clyde and Jake who happened to be on the same hog. The biggest hog of the bunch, a big spotted boar. Me and Earl had went up the pipeline listening for dogs and we had 2 of the catch dogs. We heard Jake and Clyde as well and we went to 'em. By the time we got there, the big boar had done broke again and Jason was mad. The hog didnt break until after they let 2 of the bulldogs loose and they were gone too. My dad walked out onto the pipeline about 30 minutes later with the 2 bulldogs. We took a sigh of relief. Glen and Russell came out further down the pipeline waving us to come on. The younger dogs had one of the smaller boars bayed and we went and caught him pretty easily. While we were loading him up on the 4 wheeler the dogs sounded off again and we caught a sow and a shoat. We were worried about Clyde and Jake because we knew they were on the " big boy" and knew they would follow him wherever he went. We had no idea which way they went so all we could do was drive and listen. We looked for 2 hours or so and started calling them from the trucks and honking the horns. My dad and Jason went looking and listening for them in my dad's truck. They came back about 45 minutes later with Clyde and Jake, and told us that they seen them crossing a dirt road, heads in the air. Both dogs know to listen to my dad and jason so they abandoned the chase. We didnt catch the one we wanted but we did leave with 4 hogs. Things can get a little crazy during a hunt as all hog hunters know. But he's still out there and we still have Clyde and Jake. We'll see him again.