The Wedding Pig – Part II

Day two found us spreading out to try and locate fresh track of a wild pig.  My brother and his friend Jerry were working the north east section of the 2800 acre ranch, while I was stalking the southern hillsides.

July 1^st was warm and dry.  The hills were hard, the grass was brown, and the accumulated dust sifted out of the scrub pine and oak whenever a gust of breeze played across the hillside.

I had been working up a ridgeline when I spotted a cow elk some 250 yards off on the opposite side of a deep cut.  She was busy quietly browsing with a glance now and then downhill to her left.  She caught my movement and so I stood as still as possible while she considered the situation. 

I don’t know if she decided that I was too far away to be dangerous, or if she never really identified me, but after a bit, she went back to grazing.  I decided that this was a good chance to watch and learn, so I slowly settled down into the 18” high grass, slipped out of my hunt pack and pulled out my binoculars.

As she grazed, she continues to glance to her left now and again.  With the magnification of the binoculars I watched how she moved, and counted time.  I noted how long her head would stay down, how long it would stay up, how often she moved, and how often she glanced around.  After some 15 minutes or so, I realized that there was some movement off to her left.   Focusing in that area, I soon spotted a small calf browsing around in the edges of the brush and trees.  After a bit the calf danced out on twiggy legs into the field and approached the cow in order to nurse.

Completely caught up in the cow and calf, I was slow to realize that something was coming up out of the draw on my left hand side.  Turning to the noise, I was just in time saw a pair of ears stick up over the downward edge.  A doe slipped up out of the cut and onto the same meadow I was sitting down in the middle of.

I was in full camouflage, and had a camouflage hunt pack leaned up against my side masking my shape I suppose.  She looked around carefully then walked out into the field and started grazing, beginning about 50 feet from me.  A second doe crested the rise directly behind her and as she was stepping forward, apparently heard something down in the cut below as she froze and peered intently downward.

The first doe continued to graze and work closer to me until her path lead her downwind of me about 35 feet away.  She froze on scenting me and spent a good two minutes searching the area, trying to find exactly where I was.  Apparently uncomfortable, but unable to definitively identify me, she turned and carefully stepped away, sliding into the brush some 60 feet off.  The second doe followed her.

I was curious as to what had caught the second doe’s attention, so I stood up and slung my pack and headed over to the crest to see what I could find.  When I got close to the edge, and worked a little higher up the cut, I could hear a pig down in the brush, rooting around a bit.  The brush was dense and so, though I picked up some motion now and then, I never had a clear identifiable shot.

As the pig moved farther up the cut, I continued to track it off of the sound until all of a sudden a helicopter flew into the valley.  Now, I have hunted for a lot of years, and I know that many people find the idea uncomfortable, so I long since learned to stay out of sight whenever possible.  Hearing the helicopter, I stepped away from the cut and over next to the trunk of a big old live oak and leaned against the trunk to blend in.

The helicopter made six full laps of the valley, each time buzzing loudly over my head before flying off through another notch in the hills. 

During that time, the pig had continued to move and although I spent a good 45 minutes after the helicopter left scanning the cut, moving uphill and down, the pig was nowhere to be found.

 

 

Copyright © 2013 Marty Vandermolen

 

The Wedding Pig – Part I

I reacted. 

Long before I thought, I reacted. 

By the time my mind caught up with my body, I was down; right knee shoved into the shale, left foot out, rifle up, safety off, leaning forward.  I was down low, were I could see under most of the manzanita and buck brush that completely blocked my vision when I was standing.

I was focused; focused on a direction, a sound.  Searching for the rushing paws, hooves, body, or whatever had to be following up the sound that triggered my response.  It was loud; it was threatening; not a cough, not a snort, nor a roar or gnash of teeth, but a blend of all of them.  Unquestionably it was a challenge.  One that I thought I was going to have to meet head on.

I heard the rattle and rush of something coming to its feet or hooves, or paws; I could smell the bitter dust in the stifling hot afternoon air, and the musk of something wild.

 

Allison was due to be married in a month and a few days.  She had asked if I could hunt down a wild pig for an in-ground BBQ as part of the wedding feast.  I had asked my brother Barry if he could help, and he had further drafted a friend, Jerry.

We were hunting on a private ranch in central California, the owner generously gave me permission; with the warning that no one had seen any pigs on the ranch in most of a year.

I assured him, if two Vandermolens and a friend were going into the woods, something was going to die.  This wasn’t a hunting trip, this was a planned assassination.  After all, Allison is my only daughter and the plan was that this would be the only time I would be able to supply the wedding pig.  And thus it was written, a pig was to be hung in the locker before the trip was done.

On this our first afternoon of the hunt, we had been stalking the northern reaches of the ranch, working our way uphill.  Barry was slipping through the mixed pine, oak, and brush some hundred yards to my right, Jerry was walking the dirt road also to the right about 50 yards, and I was slipping along weaving and winding my way through the manzanita  poison oak, and buck brush on my side of the road.

We were in effect sweeping a wide path, working our way uphill towards a spring I knew was on the hillside.

And now here I was, hunkered in, waiting for the chance to identify and defend myself from some unseen attacker.

The rush never came.  Easing upright, I worked my way around a number of heavy growths and found a large scree covered area that had been recently disturbed.  Rocks flung in every direction.  Search as I did, I couldn’t find any hair, or identifiable print in any direction. 

I went back to working my way uphill slow and careful.  Wondering which way whatever it was had gone and after a while almost wondering if I had dreamt the whole thing.  About 125 yards further on, I stepped out onto the dirt road that had curved around in front of me just as Jerry came around a corner. 

All he said to me was; “What the heck, you step on Sasquatch’s tail in there a while back?”

I have hunted a lot of years.  Jerry has hunted a lot more than I.

I have never heard anything like that before, neither had he.

I have no idea what it was.

I just know I never want to meet up with it unarmed.

 

Copyright © 2013 Marty Vandermolen