Man, the rains have been playing havoc with my hunts. Even when I can hunt, conditions are not good for thermal, everything is muddy, I am not a fan of my rubber boots, I make squish and splash noises while making my stalks, and the animals don't seem inhibited by the mess at all. So the hunting is good, just not ideal, LOL.
Thursday night, I was hunting between rain bands, in the mist at times. Three times I stopped for a while and sat in my truck and let showers pass before continuing my search. Things didn't look good until I spied a coyote. That coyote eventually turned into 4. While dealing with the last one, it started to rain and I headed home, only then to finally see some hogs in one of my fields. The rain had slackened and I thought I would hop out and go shoot some of them, only to have the bottoms drop out of the clouds about half way through my stalk. I got close enough, capped one that went right down, capped it again to be sure it stayed down, and then scooted back to the truck as quickly as possible. I found the hog the next day where I had dropped it.
Friday, I found the downed hog and then had dinner with friends before starting my rounds again. Rain had stopped about 6:00-6:15 in the evening and so I was hoping for a dry hunt. I spied hogs in one of my fields and started my stalk, sloshing and splashing my way to the hogs. The field was just that saturated. It was on a slope and water was still flowing over the surface despite the rains having ended hours before.
For reasons unknown, maybe bad luck, maybe they heard me, the hogs turned and slowly started to walk away. I heard no alarm grunt. None were not running. They were just leaving at a mannerly pace. I popped a trailing sow a couple of times and found her a short distance later.
Heading out of the field, encountered another hog and managed to get him dropped.
The mud made dragging the hogs a little easier (less friction), but was plenty messy for me as the dragger. At that, I called it a night...
Thursday night, I was hunting between rain bands, in the mist at times. Three times I stopped for a while and sat in my truck and let showers pass before continuing my search. Things didn't look good until I spied a coyote. That coyote eventually turned into 4. While dealing with the last one, it started to rain and I headed home, only then to finally see some hogs in one of my fields. The rain had slackened and I thought I would hop out and go shoot some of them, only to have the bottoms drop out of the clouds about half way through my stalk. I got close enough, capped one that went right down, capped it again to be sure it stayed down, and then scooted back to the truck as quickly as possible. I found the hog the next day where I had dropped it.
Friday, I found the downed hog and then had dinner with friends before starting my rounds again. Rain had stopped about 6:00-6:15 in the evening and so I was hoping for a dry hunt. I spied hogs in one of my fields and started my stalk, sloshing and splashing my way to the hogs. The field was just that saturated. It was on a slope and water was still flowing over the surface despite the rains having ended hours before.
For reasons unknown, maybe bad luck, maybe they heard me, the hogs turned and slowly started to walk away. I heard no alarm grunt. None were not running. They were just leaving at a mannerly pace. I popped a trailing sow a couple of times and found her a short distance later.
Heading out of the field, encountered another hog and managed to get him dropped.
The mud made dragging the hogs a little easier (less friction), but was plenty messy for me as the dragger. At that, I called it a night...