Runnin' the Dogs

by Travis Salinas

Saturday morning, my last morning in Texas for an unknown length of time found me around some of my most favorite running buddies and we were doing one of our favorite things, hog huntin'. As is customary with the stock show week in Hays County it rained holy buckets all week long. Saturday morning was the first dry day, but it was still a mucky mess out there. I was planning on runnin' the dogs with Chuy, John and G.A. and the night before at the party, I made Cody commit to running along. We got a bit of a late start because a couple of people had a good time the night before, but none the less, we made it out the Powers ranch around 10:15 a.m. and as soon as we hit the sendero it was on.

The trucks skidded and slid to a stop in the soupy mud and we could see a pack of hogs about 500 yards up the way. It was a good thing we suited the dogs up with their vests and cut collars before we entered the ranch, because I just dropped the tailgate and let the dogs out of the cage. Those pups knew what we were there to do and they quickly took the lead as we ran in the direction of the pack of hogs. The dogs still hadn't sighted the pack yet and the pack hung around till we were about 300 yards out and then the reentered the brush. The dogs had their noses to the ground and were serpentining all over the sendero. As we crossed the gate to where the hogs had entered the brush, a new pack of larger hogs came busting out of the brush in our direction. There was about three or four 200+ pounders running in all directions but still trying to get where the previous pack had gone. I could see the previous pack up the road in the next sendero gobbling up the corn at the feeder. All this was happening at a dead sprint and the hogs entered the brush with our pack of dogs in hot pursuit and the promptly had one bayed up.

The last time I went hunting with the boys, I took a mesquite thorn straight in the cornea and had to go Cyclops the rest of that hunt, but this time I came prepared. I donned my ski goggles as I hopped the barbed wire fence and started crashing through the mess of prickly pear, mesquite and tajarillo." jumping cactus" John was in the lead but he slipped in the mud on one of his turns and crashed into some brush, I hurtled him and kept bearing down on the brawl up ahead. Now I could smell the hog and as I came up to an embankment and saw the boil of pups and pig down below in the creek. I wasted no time and jumped down into the creek after with my 12 inch survival knife unsheathed and honed to pork. The dogs were concentrated on the sows head so I was trying to stick her as she stood right in the creek. We were in about knee deep water and it was just a wild mess. I couldn't get the blade of my Rambo knife past the shield of bone and grizzle despite my best efforts. I grabbed onto the hogs legs and was trying to throw her over so I could jab at the soft underside of the chest cavity. I could only get the pile of pig and dogs over about half way before they'd thrash again and flip down. I kept trying to get the knife up and under but to no avail. One of the dogs had the sow by the throat and she put all of her weight on the dog and was holding it under water, soon enough the dog had to let go or drown and with a burst of energy she shook all the dogs off and turned on me. I hopped like a flee out of harms way and got up on the embankment as the pig charged past.

They ran about 10 yards into a briar and resumed their quarrels with each other. Every had caught up to me by this point and G.A. and I broke down the black bark trees to get to the fight. It was like trying to run through a stand of bamboo, but we eventually made it into the mix again. The hog saw me and made a charged by. I perried her head away with my foot, as she turned out of the perry I made a stab with the Rambo knife and this time it went through the vitals like a hot butter knife into margarine. Blood was squirting out and the pig was screaming above the ruckus of our hounds, the big pig was growing faint so I stuck her again on the other side and pulled her to the ground. Boy was I fired up, that was the most intense and close quarters hunt I had ever experienced. I was soaked from the dose in the creek, had blood all over my arm and legs and was wearing ski goggles.

Everyone caught their breath and we drug the old sow out into the sendero. We guessed her to weigh around 225 pounds and for a sow she had unusually large tusks, enough to protrude from her ugly snout. After killing the pig, the dogs had dispersed to find more it took a few minutes for us to call them back. Blue however had disappeared so we split up to find him. He had gone back to G.A.'s truck where we left it in the sendero and we loaded him up and picked the walkers up. We started cruising down to another part of the ranch and after we crossed a rippling creek we cut a set of tracks that belonged to a pack of hog toting piglets. We dropped the dogs out and started through the brush after the tracks. About 5 minutes into the hunt we jumped a pack of 'em. We started running in their direction. Pigs aren't known for their keen eyesight, rather their sense of smell, but in moments of chaos, they throw that gift into the wind and run around in bewilderment. The dogs were in the middle of the back and they were break every which way, some right at us. We stayed on the chase for a minute and soon enough the dogs had a piglet caught. Chuy dispatched it with a quick slice but it was a resilient little snoot, so I pinned him to the ground with the Rambo knife so the dogs would see that he was dead and go help Blue, who had caught another piglet solo. We drug our prizes back and loaded up. We had got three hogs in about 45 minutes and now it was getting close to the time for me to get home and hop on the bird to Australia. We had a ton of fun that morning and I said adios to my good friends, even still I'm all excited about what a great morning we had. When I was in Fiji, I was telling people the stories about it and it got me so excited that I even dreamt hog hunts that night. What can I say, that's just what we do.