Hog Hunting in Arkansas
05-04-2005, 10:43 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Owensville, Missouri USA
Posts: 38
Hog Hunting in Arkansas
Been back about a month already, but meant to get to this sooner.
We left on Friday afternoon, drove about 5 hours down to Natural Dam Arkansas. Got to the farm at about 7 friday night. Had time before dark to take a look at the area we'd be hunting, but that was about it before we headed back to the cabins. We went out to eat Friday, a place in town, good food. Got back to the cabins around 9, sat around the campfire for an hour or two, then hit the sack. Little note here, know whether or not the people you are bunking with snore, if they do, try to get to bed before them.
So, got up Saturday around 6 am. Cooked a good breakfast, bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy. Made it to the hunting ground around 7. At first look in the area, looks pretty nice, big open bowl in the center, woods all around. The woods were decieving as the ground started dropping almost instantly. Made it all the way to the bottom at around 8:00 when my bro-in-law and I took up postions behind a couple of big rocks. He got the first hog when three of em came walking by about ten minutes after we got there. Amazing shot, perfectly just behind the shoulder, it dropped in it's tracks. I started stalking the other two as he radioed in the position of his kill. I stalked them for about two hundred yards when I came over the top of a hill and saw about 60 hogs gathered together. I had to just sit back and watch as the young boars tried to mount the older sows and the sows were having none of it. Finally I started sneaking up on a couple again but got spotted and watched the entire herd run up the hill. I basically spent the rest of the morning familiarizing myself with the property, just walking around.
Finally around noon it happened, I had just gotten a call from one of the other guys that he had a hog shot and needed help tracking it. So I started heading up to where he was when I came across a sow that was wallowing in a mudhole. She was snorting and grunting and I was able to walk up to about 20 yards away. I nocked an arrow and drew, lined up on her shoulder and let go. Perfect hit, she got up and started walking, made it about 10 yards and dropped, breaking my first arrow of the weekend, but easily bled out and stayed put. I radioed in to have it picked up and found out my buddy had recovered his as well. Then most of us headed back to the cabin for lunch. Sat around the cabins for a couple hours and watched the owner and his bow skin and quarter the hogs we had gotten so far. By noon there were 6 hogs down, biggest weighing in at 220, smallest at 140. All pretty respectable hogs. Went back out at around 2, spent most of the afternoon helping to run hogs to the people that hadn't gotten one yet, including my father-in-law, who isn't handicapped, but can't handle the rocky steep terrain like some of us, so we pushed a few up to the stand he was in and he got one around 4, nice sow, right around 200. Finally around 6:30 that evening we were on our way out for the night when I spotted a good size sow walking up on the left. As I watched her I noticed she was limping, but no obvious sign of blood or a wound. I made up my mind pretty quick that I was going to take her down. Got up to within 10 yards this time and she just stood there looking at me. Drew back and released and had another good shot, but again, she rolled over on my arrow and broke it. That was number 2, and that was my limit for the weekend. We got her on a four wheeler and headed back to camp. Back at camp we had gotten a total of 14 hogs that day, with 10 guys hunting.
Now we got the disturbing news. One of the guys had stuck two hogs and hadn't found either one of them yet. First thing I did was checked over that last sow I got to make sure there wasn't a wound on her, but the only thing I found was that she had apparently split open one of her hind legs, probably on one of the sharp rocks on that hillside. So mine wasn't one of the two. We all agreed first thing the next morning we would start seaching for stuck pigs. Sat around the campfire most of the evening, drank a few beers, had hot dogs, steak sandwiches, and lots of chips and tater salad.
The next morning we got out to the hunting area around 6:30. Started circling the fence, looking in any little overhang or brush for these stuck hogs. Found one of them in the pond on the property, seemed to be ok, as it had gotten down to 35 during the night and the pond made a pretty good refrigerator. Spotted the other stuck hog around 10 am, finally got it cornered and taken down at about 4 in the afternoon. Only the guy that had shot had already left. Yep, left. So, we had a great time, I got the brats back just this weekend, and they're wonderful, besides the other pork in my freezer now, but we learned a few good lessons too. First of all, the one that stuck the two and left won't be going with us again, second, before we take anyone else we don't know with us, we will be making sure they understand our rules and they will follow them or get beaten. Luckily the owner of the property wasn't upset about the hogs, but he knew there were four of us ready to pound the little twerp flinging arrows too.
Oh, some pics here.
http://www.fidnet.com/~calspach/hoghunt.html
We left on Friday afternoon, drove about 5 hours down to Natural Dam Arkansas. Got to the farm at about 7 friday night. Had time before dark to take a look at the area we'd be hunting, but that was about it before we headed back to the cabins. We went out to eat Friday, a place in town, good food. Got back to the cabins around 9, sat around the campfire for an hour or two, then hit the sack. Little note here, know whether or not the people you are bunking with snore, if they do, try to get to bed before them.
So, got up Saturday around 6 am. Cooked a good breakfast, bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy. Made it to the hunting ground around 7. At first look in the area, looks pretty nice, big open bowl in the center, woods all around. The woods were decieving as the ground started dropping almost instantly. Made it all the way to the bottom at around 8:00 when my bro-in-law and I took up postions behind a couple of big rocks. He got the first hog when three of em came walking by about ten minutes after we got there. Amazing shot, perfectly just behind the shoulder, it dropped in it's tracks. I started stalking the other two as he radioed in the position of his kill. I stalked them for about two hundred yards when I came over the top of a hill and saw about 60 hogs gathered together. I had to just sit back and watch as the young boars tried to mount the older sows and the sows were having none of it. Finally I started sneaking up on a couple again but got spotted and watched the entire herd run up the hill. I basically spent the rest of the morning familiarizing myself with the property, just walking around.
Finally around noon it happened, I had just gotten a call from one of the other guys that he had a hog shot and needed help tracking it. So I started heading up to where he was when I came across a sow that was wallowing in a mudhole. She was snorting and grunting and I was able to walk up to about 20 yards away. I nocked an arrow and drew, lined up on her shoulder and let go. Perfect hit, she got up and started walking, made it about 10 yards and dropped, breaking my first arrow of the weekend, but easily bled out and stayed put. I radioed in to have it picked up and found out my buddy had recovered his as well. Then most of us headed back to the cabin for lunch. Sat around the cabins for a couple hours and watched the owner and his bow skin and quarter the hogs we had gotten so far. By noon there were 6 hogs down, biggest weighing in at 220, smallest at 140. All pretty respectable hogs. Went back out at around 2, spent most of the afternoon helping to run hogs to the people that hadn't gotten one yet, including my father-in-law, who isn't handicapped, but can't handle the rocky steep terrain like some of us, so we pushed a few up to the stand he was in and he got one around 4, nice sow, right around 200. Finally around 6:30 that evening we were on our way out for the night when I spotted a good size sow walking up on the left. As I watched her I noticed she was limping, but no obvious sign of blood or a wound. I made up my mind pretty quick that I was going to take her down. Got up to within 10 yards this time and she just stood there looking at me. Drew back and released and had another good shot, but again, she rolled over on my arrow and broke it. That was number 2, and that was my limit for the weekend. We got her on a four wheeler and headed back to camp. Back at camp we had gotten a total of 14 hogs that day, with 10 guys hunting.
Now we got the disturbing news. One of the guys had stuck two hogs and hadn't found either one of them yet. First thing I did was checked over that last sow I got to make sure there wasn't a wound on her, but the only thing I found was that she had apparently split open one of her hind legs, probably on one of the sharp rocks on that hillside. So mine wasn't one of the two. We all agreed first thing the next morning we would start seaching for stuck pigs. Sat around the campfire most of the evening, drank a few beers, had hot dogs, steak sandwiches, and lots of chips and tater salad.
The next morning we got out to the hunting area around 6:30. Started circling the fence, looking in any little overhang or brush for these stuck hogs. Found one of them in the pond on the property, seemed to be ok, as it had gotten down to 35 during the night and the pond made a pretty good refrigerator. Spotted the other stuck hog around 10 am, finally got it cornered and taken down at about 4 in the afternoon. Only the guy that had shot had already left. Yep, left. So, we had a great time, I got the brats back just this weekend, and they're wonderful, besides the other pork in my freezer now, but we learned a few good lessons too. First of all, the one that stuck the two and left won't be going with us again, second, before we take anyone else we don't know with us, we will be making sure they understand our rules and they will follow them or get beaten. Luckily the owner of the property wasn't upset about the hogs, but he knew there were four of us ready to pound the little twerp flinging arrows too.
Oh, some pics here.
http://www.fidnet.com/~calspach/hoghunt.html
05-04-2005, 01:57 PM
#4
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Owensville, Missouri USA
Posts: 38
RE: Hog Hunting in Arkansas
It was a high fence ranch, just over 150 acres inside, if I recall correctly.
That was another interesting part of the hunt. The place used to be a whitetail ranch, but the state of Arkansas made some law that required a whitetail ranch to be at least 300 acres, so they turned it into a hog ranch. There are still five whitetails in there, however. Five whitetails that have figured out over the past few years that we can't shoot them. Five whitetails that you can walk up to within 15-20 yards easily. Man that was tempting. [
]
That was another interesting part of the hunt. The place used to be a whitetail ranch, but the state of Arkansas made some law that required a whitetail ranch to be at least 300 acres, so they turned it into a hog ranch. There are still five whitetails in there, however. Five whitetails that have figured out over the past few years that we can't shoot them. Five whitetails that you can walk up to within 15-20 yards easily. Man that was tempting. [
]
