A Hunt

by Clint Threadgill

I'm from a small south Texas town called Sinton. I play football at the University of Houston so I really don't get to get out of the city as much as i would like to. But when I do get to come home I love to spend the weekends hog hunting with my pops. I recently went guide hunting with my dad and his hunting partner. Trey Threadgill and Sam Lankford. We were taking about 13 hunters hunting on the King Ranch. Our goal was let each of the hunters stab their first hog.

We got out to the ranch at about 2:30 and corned some of the roads that we were allowed to hunt on. We had been given an area of about 16,000 acres to hunt. Seeing how we were on the King Ranch we knew it wouldn't be hard to get on some hogs really fast. After we corned, we went back to the lodge and picked up the hunters, it was about 3:30. We ended up gettin about seven hogs in the first two hours or so. We just got off a hog and were loading the dogs up to water them when one of the hands yelled that he saw a big boar up the road. I took three start dawgs up ahead and stayed in the brush so the hog couldn't see us.

When I got about 100 yards from the pig I showed the dogs where he was and then turned them loose and took off running after them. When I got there this boar about 250 lbs with about 1 inch cutters was fighting the dogs off left and right. The catch dogs had not gotten there yet so I was worried that our dogs might get torn up pretty bad so I knew I was going to have to get without the catch dogs. In the middle of a cactus patch I waited for the dogs to get a pretty good lock on the boar and when they did I lept for his leg. When I was about to grab he spun on me and shook the dogs loose and started after me. All I could do was back pedal for about 5 yards before the pig got to me. I tripped over a piece of brush and fell, but no sooner than I hit the ground the pig caught me with one of his cutters in my groin area and chunked me into some cactus.

I knew I couldn't sit there and that I had to get up and when I did thank God I saw my dad with the bulldogs. He said just to wait till they caught. When he turned them loose, our big american bulldog "Rowdy" hit the pig like a freight train. The catcus didn't phase him at all. He and Brutis, the other bulldog, took him straight to the ground. Then I jumped on him and waited til one of hunters got there to stab him. He was kind of timid walking up there but he finally got the job done.

When we finally got out of the brush I started pulling thorns out of myself and it was only then that I realized my leg was bleeding. I stripped down and saw that the pig had left me about a 2 and half inch cut. I wish yall could've seen the look on some of the hunters faces. They thought that I was crazy for getting in there to do that. We went on and killed our 13 hogs and got three worth mounting. We were asked to stay for dinner but we were all pretty roughed up and decided to get home. Besides my leg was hurting pretty bad. When I got home I dressed it all up and went to sleep.

I guess the lesson is, even though the dogs may be getting wooped, make sure that the dogs got it under control before you go barreling in there because even though the dogs are there them pigs are still very much dangerous. Even though that happened, I had the best time of my life.