No hog recovery this time despite a goodly amount of blood. Shot the hog through the neck and while there was a stumble and spurting of blood after the shot went through (not spray from the shot itself), the hog took off. The second was where I aimed, but either the shot passed through with no result, or it passed behind the hog. It would not be unexpected for an abdomen 2nd impact to yield little immediate result, but the shot looked late. Shot three was a low miss.
During the run, two globs seem fall from the hog and do not appear to be excrement. Both seemed to dissipate when hitting the ground. Blood or body tissue? Stomach contents? Don't know. Did not see them at the time and never looked for a blood trail in the shooting area. Instead, picked up the the blood trail further up the path where the hog was last seen.
Despite a long blood trail, it started petering out among the briar and poison ivy as I was crawling on my hands and knees on varmint trails. Mr. TBR (landowner) had reached a stopping point and was providing a light for me to find my way back and when I reached the point where I could not make out his light anymore is when I finally gave up.
It was pretty interesting, inside of 30 minutes of being shot and laying down the blood trail, ants had found the blood. Often, finding the blood was a matter of finding the ants.
At this point, I am relying on the members of the Turkey Buzzard Preservation Society to locate the hog, though I doubt I could ever find it in the thickety.
And there you have it.
