Hog Hunting

[Macduff]

I and a friend want to go hog hunting somewhere in the south over spring break. If anyone has land open and would be open to the idea we'd be willing to pay a reasonable amount for the privilege. We're both college students but not total idiots, we won't be taking pot shots or abusing your land. If you need a reference, I can provide the contact info for one of my Cadre in ROTC. Thank you.

Jeb

ETA: If someone was interested in Deer hunting Eastern Kentucky, I'd be willing to trade that too.

[Buffalobob]

Most likely I am going to go and hunt public land in March or May but if there was a reasonable cost for private land that would be fine with me.

If you find a place in SC and they want more money for the lease than you can afford then let me know. I might be persuaded to help you out. I would think a one month lease would be enough time for you and your buddy to hunt and then for me to get down there and hunt afterward.

[Penn]

BB, I would love to hunt with you some time...almost anywhere. I can get lose several times a year. What I bring to the table: I'm great with a knife, can expertly carve and breakdown any game properly..from birds to elk.
I can cook whatever is shot perfectly over any type of heat source and I understand the word quite....
I guess what I'm saying is; I'll earn my keep to see and learn from you.
I would love to shoot wild pigs, or go west for antlope, but I don't think I'm qualified to put a bead on them...

[Buffalobob]

I can teach you how to shoot long range. That stuff I know very well. I do not have any of the black guns that are so popular on this forum but I have stuff to kill pigs. Although a black gun would be just a lot of fun for close range pig shooting.

I have already invited a ex-SF guy from Ft Meade to shoot F-class with me if the snow ever melts, but if he cancels out, then you can drive down and I will teach you a how to kill animals at 1K yards. It is much like jumping out of an airplane, once you are confident and have the right equipment it is easy.

Lets see if we can find a place to hunt . I will try to go down to SC in March and if I find some pigs then we can hunt in again in May.

Jim

[Macduff]

Most likely I am going to go and hunt public land in March or May but if there was a reasonable cost for private land that would be fine with me.

If you find a place in SC and they want more money for the lease than you can afford then let me know. I might be persuaded to help you out. I would think a one month lease would be enough time for you and your buddy to hunt and then for me to get down there and hunt afterward.

That's a great offer and I appreciate it. I'll be looking and PM you in a couple days.

Jeb

[Penn]

I can also bring this to the table:

Remington 700 in .308. As close as you can get to reproducing the M-24 sniper system….Leupold Mark 4 3.5-10x40mm mil dot reticle. It is zo'ed @ 100. I consistently shoot 2” groups of 5. Have about 500 rounds through it, as I am working on my second case of BH 175 gr, match

[Buffalobob]

Your images won't expand but based upon what I can see the rifle is fine. My son uses a 308 with 175s to shoot pigs and deer.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/auodad2.jpg

Now we need to find some pigs!!!!

I normally camp out and these are some pictures of my camps. The blue sunshade contraption is the mess tent. It takes me about two hours to set up and then more if firewood is to be cut. For only two or three day hunts staying in a cheap flea bag hotel also works.



http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/snowatcamp.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202009/bigsnow1.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202009/lakeforkcamp2.jpg

[Penn]

Done, love the outdoors. While living at the shore, I've spent many a night sleeping on the beach, so camping is fine with me, I always sleep better under the stars.

[mark46th]

Penn- Too bad you aren't out here on the left coast- My son and I have booked a pig hunt for April 3 & 4 in King City Ca. We both used Remmie .308's with Barnes 168gr X bullets, last year. This year he is going to use a Winchester Model 70 in .300 win mag with the same Barnes bullet. I will be using my Model 70 in .270 win. with 130gr Corelokt. I posted pictures in a thread in July 09 in a gun pic thread.

[Penn]

M, thats a nice invite..Salanis Cali, in the spring no less! SFO, just south of Napa, shooting pigs, drinking good wine...Mmmmmmmm

[Buffalobob]

I am heading down to Palachucola WMA on the South Carolina and Georgia line to see if there are actually pigs there. Its about a 10 hour drive and the season is only Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The best I can say is that it is better than sitting around home waiting for turkey season.

All the gear has been sorted out and the truck is ready to roll. My hope is that I will find some good places and then when the season opens up for three more days in May that I will have enough knowledge of the area to actually kill something.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/piggear1.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/loaded1.jpg

[craigepo]

BuffaloBob:
Those photos remind me of how my rucksack used to explode every time I got into the damned thing.

The hog hunting deal is new to me. In Missouri, someone released hogs approximately 10 years ago in the Mark Twain Forest near my AO. They have bred and grown like crazy. The Department of Conservation is begging people to kill them, and there are essentially no rules. Bait, spotlight, nobody cares, just as long as they get killed.

Friends now have dogs for hunting the hogs, complete with kevlar vests to protect the dogs from the hogs' tusks when the dogs finally catch 'em. Takes a bunch of dog to kill a 300-lb. boar.

Good luck

[caveman]

I am heading down to Palachucola WMA on the South Carolina and Georgia line to see if there are actually pigs there. Its about a 10 hour drive and the season is only Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The best I can say is that it is better than sitting around home waiting for turkey season.

I'd recommend that you keep on driving till you get to Ft. Stewart.

http://www.stewart.army.mil/dpw/wildlife/default.htm (http://www.stewart.army.mil/dpw/wildlife/default.htm)

Check out the link for "Game Harvest Photos".

[head]

Hog hunting during Spring Break? Too easy. Come out to Arizona - it's open season up in Lake Havasu. ;)

[jbour13]

Hog hunting during Spring Break? Too easy. Come out to Arizona - it's open season up in Lake Havasu. ;)

You can bet your ass if I drive to ANCOC, I will drop the 7mm RemMag at the house and we will shoot us some dinner. :D

[head]

You can bet your ass if I drive to ANCOC, I will drop the 7mm RemMag at the house and we will shoot us some dinner. :D

Sounds good - just remember our hogs are tiny compared to the ones in central NC!

[mark46th]

They can get big here in California. The biggest I have seen was about 350 pounds, by the guide's estimate. My hunting buddy, who has been hunting them longer than I, was run over by a 450 pounder he shot running directly at him. He killed it with one shot but its momentum carried it right over him. Knocked him flat, that's for sure...That was in Mendocino, I believe...

[Buffalobob]

Hog hunting at the South Carolina Wildlife management areas was an educational experience. In terms of learning processes it ranks right up there with sticking your hand in the fire to see if it is hot or hitting your thumb with a hammer. Painfully informative.

What follows is a semi humorous castigation of SC DNR and the story of an unsuccessful hunt. Usually if one of my hunts is unsuccessful I can blame it on myself for being too lazy to hunt hard. This story is not worth reading unless you actually are thinking about hunting in SC or else have totally nothing else to do for the next 20 minutes.

First of all one should realize that there is something in the water in SC and one should not drink any of it while there. Whatever the substance is in the water that caused the SC governor to fly to South America to see the senorita also afflicts most of SC Department of Natural Resources. There seems to be a consistent pattern of loony behavior that they view as normal behavior. My first clue that something was amiss in their intellectual process was when I down loaded the form to mail in for a licenses and sent it in. I had carefully filled in every blank on the form and double checked it and enclosed the check of the correct amount. So a few days before leaving an envelope arrives from SCDNR which I believe contains my license. I open it to find my application form, my check and a form from them with the box checked that I ahd not included my Social Security number on my application form. I looked over the form twice and could not find any blank spaces for the SSN but I did note that I had included my telephone number and they could have called me to obtain my SSN instead of returning my application. I immediately sent them and email stating that he SC hunting season was ten months along and only two months left and that surely they knew they had a defective form on their website. They responded that yes they know and were trying to fix it. I did not bother to ask how many months they thought it would take to fix it.
I arrived in Ridgeland SC about 2 PM on Tuesday and went to the local hunting shop to buy a license. Much like SC DNR Ii was unable to buy a license because the only guy who knew how to run the computer was not there. I was sent across the road to the local Feed and Seed. I parked and walked toward the store entrance and a guy asked me if he could help me so I told him I needed a hunting license. He said he couldn’t do that but go inside and someone would help me. So I went inside and immediately another guy asked if he could help me. I told him I needed a hunting license and he said he did not do that but to wait and the owner would be around in a minute. So I stood there and waited and a woman asked me if she could help me so I told her I wanted a hunting license and she said she didn’t do that but that the owner would be around in a minute. Sure enough in a few minutes a guy came around to the counter with a customer he was helping. Out of four people the only guy who was actually working was the only guy who knew what to do. Finally this guy is free and begins to help me with a hunting license. He asked to see my drivers license and noticed it was a District of Columbia drivers license. Even though my address is clearly printed on it he asked me where in Maryland I lived. I told him that contrary to popular belief that there are actually regular types of [people who have homes and live inside Washington DC. This was news to him. He was a nice guy and I shouldn’t make fun of him but it is such a common reaction by people when they see my plates or drivers license. So anyway I paid my $70 for a WMA permit and $40 for a 3 day small game license which is how pigs are classified in SC.

I then drove down to the WMAs which are all adjacent to each Palachucola, Webb, and Hamilton Ridge. It is unclear to me why they have three names for what is essentially one continuous unit. Webb has a lodge which was not open and the other two have camping areas, hog cleaning facilities and walk in coolers. Of course at Hamilton Ridge there were human feces on the floor of the check in house and all over the insides of the two portta potties. Apparently the hound hunters drink a lot of water and couldn’t figure out what the hole was for in the portta pottie and if they were occupied then they just acted like they were at home and took a crap in the middle of the floor of the hog processing building. The fact that there were water faucets and hoses available did not induce the SC DNR employees to make any attempt to clean up the facilities before we arrived to hunt.

So I drove around the dirt roads and scouted for fresh hog sign and found none at Palalchucola which was a shame being as it had a nice campsite and clean facilities which should have a been a clue. I found a few places on Webb where there had been a few pigs recently and marked those on my map. At Hamilton Ridge I found good bit of sign and one place where there had been a good sized herd of hogs within the last 24 hours. So I set up my tent at the Hamilton Ridge campground despite the general lack of sanitation. The use of the word campground is used loosely as it is simply a large mowed area with two signs. One says “Camping Area” and the other is on a water faucet that says “Danger non Potable Water Do Not Drink”. The second sign was unnecessary as I had no intention of drinking the water.

Thursday morning was the first day of hunting and I got up early and fixed my coffee and cream of wheat and headed out to the field with the fresh hog sign. AS soon as it got light enough to shoot I eased into the field and began slowly moving along the field with my 460 S&W ready. After about 20 minutes I was about half way through the field and I heard two boars fighting about 200 yards away down in the palmetto swamp. I didn’t think there was much likelihood that I could move quietly enough in the swamp to get within visual range of the pigs and decided it would be better to not risk spooking them and just leave them in peace and they would come back out into the field in the evening. My mistake, the pigs had not been drinking the water and were nowhere near to being loony. I waited on those pigs for three mornings and two evenings and they never ever came out into the open during shooting hours. The only pigs killed by anyone were the four killed on the first day. One guy got one and two guys hunting together got three out of a herd they saw. So for maybe 200 hunter days of effort 4 pigs were killed over three days.

Noon on Saturday the SC DNR LE set up a hunter checking station and began giving out tickets for guns uncased and guns loaded and no hunting licenses. They did a good job of trying to fill the SC state coffers. Fortunately my pistol was down on the floor board of the passenger seat and out of sight and the rifle which was never ever uncased was obvious to the LE. The LE had never ever seen a hunter from DC before and decided to tell me how sad that I had come all this way to hunt. He said the two previous weekends the area had been open for hunting hogs with hounds and the there had been at least forty packs of hounds running for each of the three days of the two hunts. They had reported 89 hogs killed and there were probably at least as many killed by dogs in the swamps that were never recovered. He said every pig had been chased off and only a few had moved back in since the hound hunters had left.

Under the category of the grass is always greener elsewhere I met a guy who claimed to be a retired ranger. He said I should have driven on down to Ft Stewart that there were lots of pigs and the season was always open and no dogs were allowed. To his credit he pulled out topo maps and showed me which areas had the most pigs. I refrained from asking him why he had driven up to SC and bought an expensive nonresident license when he could have hunted from home at Ft Stewart. I just figured he had been drinking the water.

I met a second guy who said the best place to hunt pigs was down the road at the Savannah Wild Life Refuge. He said it was free and had a really nice campground and no dogs were allowed. And best of all there were lots of pigs there. He even gave me a brochure for registering to hunt there. I once again refrained from asking him why he was at Hamilton Ridge when he could have been down at Savannah killing pigs.

CONTINUED >>>>>>>>

[Buffalobob]

I have used the term WMA several times and in most states is means Wildlife Management Area however once you cross into South Carolina it means Tree Farm. Apparently, there is some kind of animosity by DNR toward oak trees and acorns and every time they find one growing on their land they cut it down and replace it with rows and rows of pine trees. This appears to be a method of reducing the amount of wildlife by reducing their food sources and then the hunters do not have to works so hard to reduce the animals populations because DNR has already done that by staving them to death. Any animals that are left are then burned to death every two or three years by the SC DNR controlled burns.

I might go back down again in May for the next three day hunt. There will be no more hound dog hunts before then and maybe there will be some pigs to hunt. I suspect I will also run on down to Savannah Wildlife Refuge and give it a try and maybe go on over to Ft Stewart. It all depends on how much time I have on my hands. I might try Ft Stewart in July being as I will be down in that general area then anyway.

After having run a state agency for fish and environmental quality for a quarter of a century and having hunted many different states, I can only say that SC DNR is simply not anywhere near the top of my list of DNRs.
A word about gun selection. The average range of a shot will be about 50 yards or less and there will be a serious issue if the animal does not fall quickly. Tracking through pine straw or wet swamp will not be very easy. Large caliber, short barrel, low magnification seems to be called for. Perhaps the best choice might be a 20 ga auto with a red dot sight. I hunted with the 460 S&W with open sights zeroed at 100 yards.

Here are some pictures of my tent and the campground and pig cleaning building.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/SCwma8.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/SCwma.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/SCwma14.jpg

[Buffalobob]

This is an interesting picture of crows and buzzards roosting together. The natural black and gray format is really somber.



http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/SCwma9.jpg

Here is an example of the native oak trees in the midst of a pine farm.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/SCwma4.jpg

[LarryW]

Really unfortunate that you had a crappy experience with the SC DNR, esp WRT folks marking their tracks in the buildings!

I'm no gun expert, but found this (see attached) on a hog-hunting website. Comments are by the author. Another fellow on the site ordered one with a .458 upper. The light is a feature common to Texas hog-hunters.

Thought it would be of interest, least it was to me.

15030

[mark46th]

One of the things I like about hunting in hogs in Central California is the terrain. It is rolling hills with oaks and chapparal. The cover is intermittant so we glass then stalk them. Most shots are about 200 yards. The closest pig I have taken was 100 yards. Dogs are used to run them out of the chapparal when the day starts to warm up. Ton's of fun and great eating...

[Richard]

Best hog hunting I ever experienced was tying an ear of fresh corn to a 10' length of suspension line which was tied to one of the belt loops of my jeans and walking through the NCO club - got me in a couple of good fights because a few guys thought I was personally insulting their dates. :rolleyes:

And so it went...

Richard

[greenberetTFS]

Best hog hunting I ever experienced was tying an ear of fresh corn to a 10' length of suspension line which was tied to one of the belt loops of my jeans and walking through the NCO club - got me in a couple of good fights because a few guys thought I was personally insulting their dates.

And so it went...

Richard

Richard,

Now that really surprises me,I always thought you were a lover and not a fighter!!!!!! :rolleyes::eek:;)

Big Teddy :munchin

[head]

Best hog hunting I ever experienced was tying an ear of fresh corn to a 10' length of suspension line which was tied to one of the belt loops of my jeans and walking through the NCO club - got me in a couple of good fights because a few guys thought I was personally insulting their dates. :rolleyes:

And so it went...

Richard

My hat's off. :D Classic. If a guy feels offended, that's saying a lot!

[Penn]

BB, if you go in May, what are the dates?

This may represent graphically, the inability of the SC F & G office to communicate effectively.

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/regs/pdf/HogHunting.pdf

[Buffalobob]

If I go in May, it will be the Hamilton Ridge WMA on May 13-15. Alternatively, I might decide to go to Savannah Wildlife refuge on a different date or go to both for longer.

I am going to get a cap for the truck before then so there will be extra room for gear although there is not much need for more gear.

[mark46th]

You guys should have come out here to hunt pigs! These are the two my son and I took last Saturday, 3 April. They each weighed about 200 pounds. Lots of Russian Boar blood in them, long snouts with straight tails...We got them out of King City, California, about 10 miles from Camp Hunter Liggett... We both used Model 70's. Mine is in .270 win (130gr Barnes X bullet), his is in .300 Win Mag(180gr Barnes X bullets)...

15159

[Buffalobob]

Go ahead and rub it in. You'll be sorry when California falls off into the ocean. Just one or two more quakes and you'll be floating around as an island in the Pacific.

Did you take them home to eat?

I guess you are in the lead free zone. Not a big deal being as Barnes makes some nice bullets.

[mark46th]

You are correct- a couple of more shakers like the one Sunday and we will be adrift. As a matter of fact we hunted right on the San Andreas Fault! You are also correct about a lead free zone. The effing Califonia Condors are in the area so lead free ammo is the rule. I was talking with the guide about copper bullets and he didn't like them. He said if the copper bullets don't hit bone, they just punch holes. This was true with our two shots. Fortunately, both shots were well placed so the pigs dropped right away...

And yes, we will be eating them. The pigs in this area eat acorns and barley grown in the area. I keep the ribs, loins and back straps, the rest I de-bone and grind up into sausage. I mix the wild pork 50-50 with store bought pork. The wild pork has great flavor but is very lean so I use the store bought pork to increase the fat content.

[The Reaper]

Someone please tell me where lead comes from again?

Is it shipped in as HAZMAT from off-planet by NASA?

TR

[mark46th]

According to the Green Idiots out here, it falls from the sky. In the old leaded gas days, the lead would go out the exhaust pipes of cars, float up in the air then sink to the ground.

If I owned property and found an endangered specie on it, I would quietly remove it from the property. If the EPA discovers you have something on the Endangered Species List on your property, you are screwed... You are no longer allowed to decide what you want to do with your property without first consulting someone...

[caveman]

BB, I really really really think you should drive the couple extra hours to Ft. Stewart. Bring your fishing tackle too, the bass have been biting.

http://www.stewart.army.mil/dpw/wildlife/default.htm

[Buffalobob]

BB, I really really really think you should drive the couple extra hours to Ft. Stewart.

Being as I have a SC license more or less I am going to try Hamilton Ridge and Suwanee in May (depending on whether I have access to my truck which I am allowed to pay for but not always allowed to drive). Then in July I have a trip to Alabama and I think I will try stopping off at Ft Stewart on my way back.

[Penn]

BB, if you are still up for it, I'm GTG in May btw 8th and the 19th; must be on a plane the 21st.

[Buffalobob]

If I have access to my truck then we will go and give it another try.

[Penn]

BB, PM sent

[Buffalobob]

The second three day season for hogs at Hamilton Ridge was once again Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; so I loaded up the truck with less gear than the first trip and made the nine hour drive down. I leave about 5:00 in the morning in order to avoid the rat migration into their places of business. That is one of the great joys of no longer being in the daily rat race. Early afternoon sees me in Hamilton Ridge and there are only two camps set up so I have my pick of places and set up about the same as last time. After camp is set up I go over and inspect the general sanitation of the place. All of the portipotties are clean and have paper in them. The building itself is in better shape. Moral of that story is that the turkey hunters left the place in much better shape than the hound hunters. In fact, the company came and cleaned them again on Thursday.

Wednesday evening, I went out scouting for fresh sign and low and behold there is fresh dirt in exactly the same field I had hunted last time. I decided that would be a good place to try and didn’t bother to scout much more. By dark two more camps had been put up so now there were about five groups and maybe 15 people as opposed to the early spring hunt when there were maybe 20-30 camps and perhaps 75-100 hunters each day.

Early opening morning I ease into the field and wait and watch but there are no hogs. So I get to investigating the fresh dirt and begin to see a pattern. It is all just small diggings around in the already rooted out places. The more the day wears on the clearer the fresh dirt mystery becomes. The WMA is overrun with armadillos which root around just like miniature pigs. Live and learn!

The place is also overrun with small alligators. One evening I walked by a small pond and notice a yearling in the water so I thought it might be fun to catch it. I got me a stick about two feet long and sat on the bank and dabbled the stick in the water to make some small splashing sounds. Little two foot long alligators came swimming from everywhere. They formed a semicircle about ten feet out in the water and tried to decide whether to come in a try to get a bite or not. I never did get one close enough to make a grab for so after a while I went back to pig hunting.

So Friday came and went and Saturday I decided to try a place I had hunted last time but with not much sign. After walking around there and checking a lot of places I did not find much evidence of any large amount of hogs. But I heard some hounds hunting on the private hunting club adjacent to the WMA and they seemed to be in the swamp that was the boundary line. Having no coherent plan of action at the moment I went to the truck and drove down to where the road crosses the swamp. So I am sitting there in the truck thinking about whether to get out and venture in the swamp or not when a black hog darts across the little dirt road. I ease the truck up to where it crossed and can still get glimpses of it going through the trees but there is no way to get a shot. I wander around there for a moment and do not hear the hounds running anymore so conclude that they have gone home. I am sitting in my truck debating whether I will back the truck up to a wide spot and park and go into the swamp after the hog or to go to camp and get lunch and come back after things have settled down a bit. About that time another hog runs across the road and it is black with a broad white band. So I park the truck and ease into the swamp with the S&W 460 and a bottle of mosquito repellent. I am navigating through the swamp very slowly going from dry hillock to dry hillock trying not to step on a water moccasin and not make any noise to scare the hogs. Suddenly I see a pure white hog trotting through the trees and I get the S&W lined up on it but it does not stop and then it turns and comes directly toward me and I recognize that it is a white hound running silent. It is illegal for the hound to be there so I briefly ponder ending its days but notice it has a radio collar so figure it has been called off by its owner and is now returning to the private land. Thinking that the pigs must have been run hard I figure where they will quit running and hole up and I go circle around the swamp to get ahead of them but they do not show up so after awhile the call of lunch wins out and I go to camp and get a bite to eat and then return to the ambush site. At this point the crucial decision of the trip is made. If I get the rifle out of the case then I know if a shot comes that I can make it. If I take the pistol then it will be a matter of much luck if I hit anything beyond 30-40 yards. In the end the lure of fun wins out over the lure of killing and I take the S&W. I sit in the swamp with the mosquitoes for about three hours and get bored from doing nothing and decide to head deeper into the swamp. I only go about 200 yards (but that takes nearly half an hour I am moving so slowly and carefully). Finally, I am rewarded for all of the hard days. About 60 yards away is a black shape moving in the trees. I have a shooting stick to rest the pistol on but it is hooked to my belt so it is going to be a freehand shot. Thoughts of the morning’s misadventure with the hound surface in my mind and I decide that I cannot shoot until I am 100 % positive that it is a pig. It turns away from me was goes about another ten yards then turns broadside and I am able to get a positive ID on it. But the head and part of the front shoulder is behind a tree so I have only a small target but nonetheless I either take the shot I have or risk no shot. I line up the sights as close to the shoulder and the tree as I reasonably believe I can based upon my ability with the pistol. As the trigger breaks I see full well that the front bead is now to the rear of the ribs and slightly high. Sure enough the pig rears up on its hind legs hit very hard but when it comes back down on its front legs it goes into high gear and is running hard. About this time massive chaos occurs and there are now about 20 hogs running all over the swamp just going everywhere, so I naturally manage to shoot an oak tree about 30 yards in front of me instead of one of the pigs. This irritates the living fool out of me so I pick another small pig and try to hit him. He is at a dead run through the trees at 70 yards and once again I miss by at least 3 feet. Then as quickly as it began it is all over.

I slogged through the swamp and searched for the hit pig but after about 5 minutes I hear two gunshots about 600 yards away in another arm of the swamp which was where the last pigs were headed. So it stands to reason that the hog was hit high in the intestinal cavity and was not going to stop moving for a while but was slowed enough that the other hunter got an easy shot. I searched around till about dark and found nothing where I was and counted myself lucky not to have gotten snake bit with all of the stuff I waded and stomped around in searching for the hog.
So that was how my hunt went. Very few other hunters around and two pigs killed for about a 10% success rate, much cleaner facilities and actually managed to finally figure out how to hunt the pigs. Did some shooting and had some fun. Down sides to the hunt were the fire ants bit me a lot and got into all of my food and the mosquitoes were really fierce in the swamps but not too bad at the campsite. I had a lot of fun playing with the alligators, and best of all, stopped at Ruby Tuesdays at Exit 49 on the way home Sunday and had lunch with my son. They had a jump earlier in the week with the MC6s and full gear and he had learned what we all learn- jumping with gear is not as much fun as without.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/goodjob.jpg


http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/alligator12.jpg

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/alligator11.jpg

A nice picture of a fawn I saw.

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n168/bufflerbob/year%202010/Fawn6.jpg

[mark46th]

That's hunting- Hours of tedium interrupted by moments of Chaos!!

[ZonieDiver]

Classy... uses a "Hilton Head" port-potty cleaning company! :D

[Sapper124]

Reviving this one. SC DNR is hit or miss BB, im lucky to have avoided most contact with them because I was hunting on private land at the time and they didnt like to venture deep into the swamps. If i still had the land avaliable to me (lost hunting privilege when the ex-gf and I broke up) I would tell you to come on over and take you on a good hunt. Hogs started moving onto the ex's farm a few at a time and in a matter of months there were a few packs that ran around on the land ranging from a single boar to groups of 15 or more. They would migrate over about 5 miles for food and had a hell of a time tracking them, but that made for some of the most exhilirating hunts. Here are a few pics of a couple hunts from 07-08, looking to get back into hunting so if you are thinking about another trip in SC or GA and you want some company BB i would love to tag along