Are you ready for deer/hog hunting this year?

[M118LR]

Any new equipment trying out?

Switching from a semi automatic 7.62 x39mm 16 inch carbine to a 20 inch barrel Bolt Action 30-06.

Now about that Hog Hunting?

Once upon a time I hunted Hogs with a Dog & a Knife. But dang if that Dog didn't get Old.

Now deer on the other hand can still be taken with a knife, but Y'all have really got to practice those stalking skills. JMHO.

But which of US still have that much time to devote afield?

 

[IronBeard]

How old is your son? If you're in Navarre you have nearby access to the Eglin Range which is a nice place to hunt, there's lots of deer, turkey and boar! I hunt mostly in MS but still get my FL hunting license and my Eglin range hunting permit so I can do some walk about hunting until I find a nice spot to hang my climber!

He's 17 and I'm honestly not sure whether he really wants to hunt or just make dad happy; but I'm good with it. Don't care if we even fire a shot as long as we're out. Yep, it'll be Eglin for us. I used to hunt the area Sawman mentions when we lived in Cestview, but north of Holley is now closer and more practical for us.

 

[FLT]

As long ago as it was, I remember being 17 . I like hunting with my rifle but hunting with my GUN seemed more important on occasion.

 

[SAWMAN]

Back in the day I used this to kill a couple nice boar hogs. One dropped from a ladder stand over a hog trail off of Gonzalez Lake (Esc Rvr WMA). The other on the ground just outside of Cedar Key,Fla.,in a salt marsh.
Both were without the used of dogs or pens.
The boar that was killed from the ground managed to cut me AFTER he was already dead.
Lesson learned - -> NEVER attempt to drag a hog by the ear that has big cutters. NEVER !! --- SAWMAN

 

[M118LR]

Back in the day I used this to kill a couple nice boar hogs. One dropped from a ladder stand over a hog trail off of Gonzalez Lake (Esc Rvr WMA). The other on the ground just outside of Cedar Key,Fla.,in a salt marsh.
Both were without the used of dogs or pens.
The boar that was killed from the ground managed to cut me AFTER he was already dead.
Lesson learned - -> NEVER attempt to drag a hog by the ear that has big cutters. NEVER !! --- SAWMAN View attachment 96219 View attachment 96220

Is this still viable?
Do you believe/think you could still harvest with this weapon today?
Would you be able to harvest with something closer like a knife or whip?

 

[M118LR]

Florida Hogs are still much smarter than Florida Deer. JMHO.
Time to head to Liberty County.

 

[Rebel_Rider1969]

Wife painted it up. Going to mount about 10 feet uo. Avocado green stain and accents painted on. Windows, insulation, heater etc. Lol

 

[SAWMAN]

Just suggestions James - - -> put that on 6X6's in Quik-Crete if you have sandy soil.
It only needs to be up 6' so you can store your feed bbls under it.
Enclose the bottom with three walls.
I had two huge houses on my club for years. My wife and I got many hours of enjoyable hunting from them.
Stay there all day starting about the second week of Jan. (Rut) --- SAWMAN

 

[OldMan]

Back in the day I used this to kill a couple nice boar hogs. One dropped from a ladder stand over a hog trail off of Gonzalez Lake (Esc Rvr WMA). The other on the ground just outside of Cedar Key,Fla.,in a salt marsh.
Both were without the used of dogs or pens.
The boar that was killed from the ground managed to cut me AFTER he was already dead.
Lesson learned - -> NEVER attempt to drag a hog by the ear that has big cutters. NEVER !! --- SAWMAN View attachment 96219 View attachment 96220

WOW.. hunted ,caught and killed with a knife..but had SEVERAL BAD AZZ HOG DOGS HELPING.. Can't imagine hunting hogs without backup..aka DOGS.

 

[Jerry]

James, that shoot-a-minimum shooting house looks great!

 

[SAWMAN]

Tons of scouting is the key for the hog with spear thing.
Several points/thoughts - - - ->
* off or on the ground,you MUST stick the first hog that comes by,no matter the sex OR size.
* you MUST limit your movement during the spears thrust. You must be square to the hogs path. Your feet MUST be planted firmly. Your clothing must be chosen for looseness and range of motion. You MUST wear good fitting,tight gloves. You MUST get ready to thrust without "cocking" your arms,shoulders,or hips and legs
* on the ground . . . you MUST make the decission to release the spear or hold it to control the hog and keep him off of you. Remember,the first hog to come by might just be a 250lb boar with huge cutters. Think about it !!
* a spear like a knife or broadhead has no shock. Penetration,yes,but unlike a bullet,almost no energy dump. The stuck hog must have time to bleed out. A wide blade is a MUST. A blade with a penetration stop,like mine pictured,is a MUST.
* never try for a CNS stick. Double lung is best. High enough NOT to hit the heart. Let it pump the blood out. As the hog struggles the blade will do it's job. Just like a broadhead on a arrow. If he runs,it will be some of the easiest tracking you have ever expieranced. And with zero BP,the distance will be short.
* the spear MUST BE SUPER SHARP. Mine is as sharp as a broadhead. It does not need to be serrated.
You want a challenge. Forget the dogs,grab a spear. Mine is a Cold Steel that I have had for 17 years. --- SAWMAN

 

[Deersniper270]

I am ready! I hunt public so not much to do. I got some cams up in some new spots this year. Just ran out before work this morning and checked them. One had a good buck on it that will definitely take a trip if he walks out. He was kicking another buck butt for some reason lol

 

[SAWMAN]

If that is NW Fla management,those are some great deer.
Lat/Lon please ?? --- SAWMAN

 

[Deersniper270]

Blackwater State Forest! I can’t tell how big the one is because my camera is up about 10ft so it doesn’t bother them and decreases theft. He looks like he will be a heavy drag though lol

 

[SAWMAN]

Game cart . . . if the underbrush is not too thick.
I have had one for years. Used it for deer,hogs,two coyotes at the same time,even just to haul gear. --- SAWMAN

 

[FLT]

Back in the day I used this to kill a couple nice boar hogs. One dropped from a ladder stand over a hog trail off of Gonzalez Lake (Esc Rvr WMA). The other on the ground just outside of Cedar Key,Fla.,in a salt marsh.
Both were without the used of dogs or pens.
The boar that was killed from the ground managed to cut me AFTER he was already dead.
Lesson learned - -> NEVER attempt to drag a hog by the ear that has big cutters. NEVER !! --- SAWMAN View attachment 96219 View attachment 96220

That’s a pretty bad ass way to kill a hog ! I was a pretty tough man in my early years , not afraid of much of anything. But I’m not at all sure I’d have tried killing a big boar hog like that. my hats off to you sir.

 

[SAWMAN]

This was approx. 14-16 years ago now. Was much younger and in much better shape.
The motivation was a friend that told me that it was "impossible". Then talked to a guy in South Frorida that gave me great instruction on tactics,equipment,and training. You actually train like a bow hunter. He shoots a lot of arrows . . . I made a lot of thrusts with a "practice" spear. From different stances,at different angles. (I tend to overthink stuff (?).
I sent a pic of my biggest kill to Lynn Tompson of Cold Steel and he sent me a free spear head. I attached the shaft. Made from White Ash from Maine. --- SAWMAN

 

[M118LR]

This was approx. 14-16 years ago now. Was much younger and in much better shape.
The motivation was a friend that told me that it was "impossible". Then talked to a guy in South Frorida that gave me great instruction on tactics,equipment,and training. You actually train like a bow hunter. He shoots a lot of arrows . . . I made a lot of thrusts with a "practice" spear. From different stances,at different angles. (I tend to overthink stuff (?).
I sent a pic of my biggest kill to Lynn Tompson of Cold Steel and he sent me a free spear head. I attached the shaft. Made from White Ash from Maine. --- SAWMAN

When 14-16 years turns into 23-25 years ago Folk's ain't going to question how much younger and in much better shape you used to be. But they shall question the Physical things you actually accomplished when you are much younger. Every Generation gets so much further away from physical activity afield to Dinner Plate. The folks on the keyboard that respond to you today probably can't go from cellophane packaging to on the Dinner Plate. So what makes you think that they can go afield, process the game afield, and still turnout something edible on the Dinner Plate? Lost art?

 

[MauserLarry]

A bit off topic but this article popped up on Firefox. I had no idea hog hunting went so far back in history. Some of Sawman's relatives in the first picture.

Ubiquitous Medieval Pigs | Jamie Kreiner

On the singular beasts of the Middle Ages.

www.laphamsquarterly.org

 

[fl57caveman]

DEER HUNTERS.
(A letter from someone who wants to remain anonymous, who farms, writes well and actually tried this)
I had this idea that I could rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie it and transport it home.
I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope. The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back. They were not having any of it. After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up-- 3 of them. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would have a good hold.
The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation. I took a step towards it, it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope, and then received an education. The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to action when you start pulling on that rope.
That deer EXPLODED. The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I could fight down with a rope and with some dignity. A deer-- no Chance. That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined. The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many other animals.
A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil creature off the end of that rope.
I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck, it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere. At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the feeling was mutual. Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had cleverly arrested the deer's momentum by bracing my head against various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in. I didn't want the deer to have to suffer a slow death, so I managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder - a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my rope back.
Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when ..... I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where they just bite you and slide off to then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its head--almost like a big dog. They bite HARD and it hurts.
The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective.
It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several minutes, but it was likely only several seconds. I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that claim by now), tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the tendons out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope loose.
That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for the day.
Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and their hooves are surprisingly sharp... I learned a long time ago that, when an animal -like a horse --strikes at you with their hooves and you can't get away easily, the best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a bit so you can escape.
This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will hit you in the back of the head. Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.
Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.
I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with a scope......to sort of even the odds!!
All these events are true so help me God...An Educated Farmer