The Wedding Pig - Part III

The three of us came back together for a late lunch at the cabin on the ranch. Barry and Jerry had spotted a pig during their morning hunt, but were too far away to get a shot at it and as they were trying to stalk in closer, the pig crossed a stream and moved up a hillside into what was likely its daytime napping location.

I related the story of my morning’s hunt and we worked up a plan for the evenings hunt.

The cabin sat directly next to the stream that flowed through the property year round, the same stream that Barry and Jerry had watched a pig cross some mile or so downstream from the cabin site.  The stream flowed away from the cabin site about a third of a mile, then swung to the left through a full 90 degrees and continued on. 

As it happened, the pig I had scouted was uphill from that bend in the creek, the pig that Barry and Jerry had seen was downstream from there by a quarter mile or so.

We decided that the evening’s hunt plan would be to watch the water, one or both of those pigs would have to be coming down to water after a long hot day.   I stationed myself near a game crossing of the creek between the cabin and the bend.  Barry settled in just around the bend where he could glass the entire stream from bend downstream for a good half mile, and Jerry moved downstream a bit over a quarter mile and settled in where he could watch the main stream, and an empty stream bed that cut through a meadow.

I had slipped down into the stream bed which cut down about 8 feet from the valley floor.  There, with my back to the cut bank, Snugged up leaning next to a Live Oak tree, I settled in for the evening.  I pulled a bit of camouflage net out of my pack and hung it from the drooping oak branches in front of me.  The netting helped to mask my feet and legs, which I often shift for comfort while sitting on hunts.  Directly across from my hide was a narrow flat area along the stream covered in green grass and then a rising hillside.

Settled in and waiting quietly, as the temperatures began to drop out of triple digits the land around me began to stir.  Sparrows and blue jays cruised through the skies, often dropping onto a rock in the creek to stop and drink, then back on the wing.  A couple of ground squirrels began a sweep of the bank on the opposite side of the creek, nuzzling here and there among the dry grasses and dead tree limbs seeking their evening meal.

I had been in place about 30 minutes when the same cow elk I had seen earlier in the day stepped up to the edge of the cut bank about 30 feet to my left.  She stood for a minute, scanning the stream bed and the air currents for any signs of danger.  She slowly walked down the trail and forward until her front hooves just slipped into the edge of the stream itself.  There again, she stood still, nose flaring, right eye roving, searching the area around her.

After assuring herself all was safe, she “mewed” and the calf I had seen earlier came tripping over the cut bank and down into the stream bed.

For 20 minutes I was able to sit quietly and watch the cow and her calf drink, then wade the stream, browse the grasses on the far side, drink again, and then move off up the game trail on the far side of the stream from me.  All in all, she and her calf had passed within 30 feet of my hide, and then spent 20 minutes drinking and eating ranging from 30 to 75 feet away from me.  A treasured memory I will hold all my days.

After the elk left, the evening continued to drift towards dark.  Little was happening in front of me until about 20 minutes after the elk had moved on when I heard a single rifle shot from down around the bend.

It turns out, that at about the time that the cow was gathering up her calf and moving up the trail opposite me, the pig that Barry and Jerry had seen earlier in the day was drifting down off of the hillside down towards water.

Barry had spotted the pig coming down off of the slope opposite and downstream of him roughly half way between his position and Jerry’s position.  Knowing that pigs have fairly poor long distance eyesight, and having the wind in his favor, Barry predicted where the pig was going to cross the stream and began to move down to be in position for a close up shot.  His plan was to let the pig cross the creek, climb the near side bank, and shoot it just as it stepped onto the dirt road, thus making game recovery a simple matter of driving up to the downed pig and lifting it into the pickup.

Barry successfully slipped down the road, positioned himself behind a large oak tree, and settled in to watch the pig that has moved by now down to the water’s edge and is drinking.

Jerry noticed the pig just as it reached the far bank and began to drink.

Jerry knew the importance of harvesting that pig, and was excited that the hunt was going to be successful.  He was hunting with my 7mm Mauser and lined the cross hairs up on the pig’s side, right where the heart should be. Just as he was taking up pressure on the trigger, he remembered that the Mauser was sighted high at the range the pig was, dropped the cross hairs 4” and promptly put a round right through the pigs heart.

The pig dropped instantly, falling directly into the stream just off of the far bank.

By the time I walked back to the cabin and drove the truck down, Barry had stripped down to his shorts, wadded the stream, tied on the pig, and he and Jerry had hauled the pig across to the near bank.  We carried the pig up to the road, into the truck, and back to the cabin for skinning.

That was the most pleasant skinning job I have ever done.  There is nothing quite so nice as skinning a clean pig that all the fleas, ticks, and other vermin have abandoned while it was being drug through a cold water bath.

 

Copyright © 2013 Marty Vandermolen