I have been on a vacation with my family. We wanted to go to Redding, CA for two month and spend a lot of time with good friends and enjoy the incredible nature in Northern California. While we were there I went to Texas for a wild boar hunt.
I was flying out from Redding airport at 05.45 am and it was a beautiful day. Take off was just before sunrise and I enjoyed to see the sun take over the early dawn light.
I had to change plane in San Francisco and my, flight change time was a little to tight. And of course the gate I had to go to, was in the other end of the airport terminals. I made it just in time to hear that the flight was delayed.
The flight across the States was incredible beautiful. I must say that I was in awe off how beautiful this country is and how kreative God have been in the making off this country. The landscape changed constantly and the view became more and more spectacular with many different drawings of mountains in many shapes and rivers and creeks making its way through.
My original plan was to arrive at the lodge around 05.00 pm so I was ready for an evening outing. But many things worked against it. The plane had 35 minutes delay, my baggage was late, my car rental took very long time, buying a hunting license in Wallmart as a nonresident hunter looked impossible (until the nice old lady finally took her glasses on and found the little click choice). All that took 4 hours.
I made it to my hunting lodge around 07.30 pm and the manager and I, was driving around the place for a couple of hours and we was seeing elk, stag, axis, fallow, whitetail, oryx, black buck. It was too late to go hunting tonight.
The second day on the trip, but first hunting day was very pretty. I was out in a ground blind at 05.00 am. I had a small doe with fawns as close as 5 yards and a little young promising buck at shooting range around 30 yards. A beautiful morning but no pigs. I could hear the pigs to my left In some brush between 05.30-06.00 am. I spend some time with the farm manager today and did some hard working stuff with the Vet gun (with medicine against flies and other insects) so now I can say that I have shot a bison 😉
This is my first hunt in very high temperatures (100-115fh) and very high humidity. i quickly found out that my Sitka Gear Ascent pants was my favorit. I also found out that when you are sitting in a (warm) breeze it is more comfortable with the Sitka Gear Core lightweight with the midweight over it. I didn\’t sweat as much even though I had two layers on. Amazing fabric.
At 06.30 pm I went to a new area with at shooting tower overlooking a huge top of a mountain whit a beautiful view. In this area there was a lot of Aoudads – that is a beautiful and majestic animal. Just before sundown a huge boar came out to the feder and I had good time to turn on the camera and take the shot. The shot felt a little high, so I shot a second shot in it while it was running away. It kept running full speed straight ahead as nothing hit it. I looked at the video and it was high. The second shot was right outside of the picture on the video, so I couldn\’t see where or if I hit it. I had a pretty good feeling whit the second shot. It went dark before the game manager came and we tried to find the blod trail. The bullet was a Cal. 270 Federal 130gr ballistic tip so it would probably not get through the boar. We found no blod at all, so we decided to back out and search in the morning light again. I had a lot of emotions running through my head during that night and I didn\’t sleep very well. I kept rethinking the shooting sequens all night and morning. I didn\’t bring my own rifle and borrowed one from the farm. I dont think I will do that again without having the opportunity to shoot it several times before hunting, to be psykological ready to what situation I could be in when hunting.
Se the video with the shot and after shot emotions here:
Wednesday I went to the same spot as yesterday morning before we would go looking after the boar. This time there was a lot Axis playing around and a few black bucks and some very big and nice looking whitetail bucks. Suddenly the brushes to my right (20 yards) was cracking and moving and a huge stag came out wondering around the blind. That was very impressive and beautiful to have it that close. (That is one of the good things about hunting in a fenced area)
The manager picked me up and we went to look for the boar, but still no blod trail at all. We didn\’t search long before we found it right where we backed out last night. Bought shot was hit high and no blod at all was coming out – only from it´s nose because of lungs was hit. The manager was guessing the boar to be over 300lb and very old. The teeth was worn down to the gums (sadly enough). I was happy to find the boar and had all the overwhelming feelings running through my head and body.
I went to the shooting tower again at the night because I felt like the pigs was moving more in that area. Right at sunset an older very nice aoudad came out to the feeder. It is a very beautiful animal with that lang brown hair hanging from underneath its neck and the back curved horns.
Thursday morning I was in the shooting tower again and there was very little movement. During the day I was thinking about all the coyotes the managers was telling about earlier. It would be very funny to shoot a coyote but I didn\’t have a call. I got the idea to download an app with animal distress sounds and I did. I must admit that I didn\’t believe very much in it because the sound from an Iphone speaker doesn\’t sound very realistic. When I came to the stand this afternoon I gave it at try and made 3 sequences in about 30 seconds every 2 min for about 10 min. After about 15 minutes a coyote came running in from the right and stopped on a high rock to look where the distress was coming from. The first shot was right over it and I quickly took another shot at it running and it fell to the ground. That was so fun and I was totally amazed that it did work. I found the coyote dead right at its track and took it back to the stand. The rest of the evening there was only a whitetail doe and a group of young aoudads. It was time to go home and I picked the coyote up with my left hand and a few seconds after I had thousands of fire ants on my left arm and it was burning so bad when I tried to brush them off. I totally forgot to move away from the dead fire ant infested coyote and seconds after they was up on my legs as well…. av av av!!!!! that was so painfull and it took several days to go away again.
During this hunt I have enjoyed to use my Vortex Razor 12×50 binocular. It have been a pleasure to observe so majestic animals at so close range and crystal clear image. It is a pleasure to operate and the ergonomic grib on it makes it easy to hold it still – awesome product. At night I could see better with the binocular than my eyes and the focus was still sharp and easy to find.
Friday morning was my last hunt and I enjoyed al the same senaries as the other mornings. It was a fun and interesting first hunt in Texas and I will be back for sure. Next time I will bring my own bow and rifle and a coyote call.
Thank you to Bluecollaradventures and Hideaway ranch to make this hunt a memorable hunt.
Used products on the hunt: Vortex Ranger 1000 rangefinder, Vortex Razor 12×50 binocular, Sitka Gear mountain pants and ascent pants, Sitka Gear core midweight zip-t, Sitka Gear Core lightweight crew, Sitka Gear traverse glove,
#Vortex #Sitkagear #RugerM77 #Thermacell