Don't judge me: I prefer to hunt for meat in the field rather than in the deli case at the supermarket. And as it happens, wild pigs – either feral or Russian boar – could be just about the perfect game animal. Think about it: hardly anyone thinks they are cute or cuddly, they are non-native, destructive, invasive species in the Americas, they are always in season even in California, which is saying a lot, they will never become endangered because they are smart, resourceful, omnivorous, have excellent natural defenses in their senses of smell and hearing, have tusks and a very thick hide to ward off attackers, possess great strength and astonishing speed and agility. They also are aggressive and potentially dangerous… and did I mention they taste good, too? Honestly, if you set out to create the perfect game animal, what would you add, other than perhaps some naturally-occurring mustard flavor?
I took up bow hunting last year to extend my deer season and as a way to challenge myself with new tactics and techniques for other hunts as well. With ongoing, absolutely mind-blowing support and guidance from Bruce, Jim, Nick, Dave and Jeff at the Bow N Arrow shop in Lakeside, I've been able to make enough progress that Neil Ray of Giant Sequoia Guide Service (GSGS) felt I was ready for a big game hunt exclusively with the bow.
Neil has become a good friend over the past couple of years, and I knew he planned to take the month of July off as his wife Ashley was to deliver their third child in July. But he knows I've been itching to get out with him and his buddy Casey for an archery pig hunt. So when he got back home after the annual SCH banquet and saw several monsters on his game cameras, he wasted no time. I was headed to work one morning when my cell rang. "When can you come up?" he asked. Mind you, my job doesn't give me a lot of short-notice flexibility, but I was not about to decline an invitation like that. As luck would have it, I was able to swing a couple days off this past week without affecting the office schedule too much.
So after working Tuesday morning, off I went to Springville in time for the first evening of a two-day hunt. I met up with him, got my stuff situated and gear ready, and we picked up Casey before heading out. The plan was for me to hunt beside Neil, and Casey would film if possible. He took a lot of video which will be posted after editing down to the essentials.
We hunted one of the numerous ranches to which Neil has access, not far from Springville. It's a huge ranch where we've hunted several times together. It has lots of varied open terrain and mixed woodlands, and currently there is plenty of water, though the daytime heat has driven the pigs mostly nocturnal. As we drove through the pastures, cresting a hill we spotted a good size hog at a pond less than 50 yards away. Unfortunately he saw us too, and took off up the draw before I could get around to the left side of the truck. As we watched him retreat, we saw two other adult pigs and 4 piglets come over a ridge a couple hundred yards away. The wind favored us, giving Neil time to get the dogs out of their kennels for a little practice. Bolt, his Jagd Terrier, is a little over a year old now. Neil also has a 5 month old Patterdale Terrier now too, named Ace, who is still learning the ropes. If you watch any of GSGS’s FB videos and see a dog getting knocked around by an angry pig that would be Ace. Bolt is way too focused and quick to be caught unless he has is penned in by brush or some other edge feature.
As the pigs descended to the pond still unaware of our presence, Neil released the dogs and gave the command. They took off after the pigs. Down at the pond Ace took his eye off the more aggressive sow. She delivered an uppercut with her snout that sent him flying head over heels. To his credit he only retreated up the hill for a minute before re-entering the fray. Bolt on the other hand was very much in his element, darting in and out and bringing the pigs to bay. There was only one point, when he ran between the aggressive sow and the pond, when she was able to corner him enough to throw him into the water. But he swam to the far side and took up with them without giving it any thought. After a bit, Neil called them back, put them in their kennels, and we headed off in search of boars.
Not far ahead, we crested another ridge and spotted a huge black boar off in the distance above us to our left, making his way down to a pond and a stand of oaks below us and to our right on the other side of the dirt road. He would have to cross over the road to get to his destination. Neil and I dismounted and descended the hill together, as Casey followed with the video camera. As we got out of the truck, we saw another smaller boar that had been out of sight down by the water. But he had seen us and already had crossed the fence line onto the neighbor's (inaccessible) land, so we turned our attention back to the monster coming down the draw from our left. We found a good spot where we could observe him work his way down toward us.
The bottom of the draw narrowed to only a few yards, then opened up before it reached the road. We had expected the boar to head straight for the water, but as he emerged, but he was hugging the far side of the draw heading for the stand of oaks just beyond it. It was a good quartering away shot, but the range was changing too rapidly as he headed for the trees. The breeze remained favorable, but he must have been hungry for some acorns because he was definitely on a mission. He paused at the edge of the trees, broadside to us at 57 yards. I had been drawn and anchored since he had emerged from the draw, waiting for a shot. We had agreed ahead of time that I was very comfortable with anything up to 50 yards, but Bruce Marshall and I had made some second-plane adjustments to my sight recently, and my 60 yard pin still was not adjusted fully. I eased off. The pig disappeared among the trees, making a racket as he shook the branches and collected his yield of acorns each time. We got up and quietly made our way closer to the oaks. Suddenly the noise stopped. At that moment I realized the wind had shifted and was now coming from behind my left shoulder, blowing straight at the pig. After a few moments, the pig appeared on the path on the far side of the oaks, walking away and looking at us over his shoulder. Busted!
We headed out for a quick dinner as daylight waned. The moon was bright, but we all needed some rest in preparation for what was to come Wednesday morning. Neil came by to pick me up at 4am and we swung by to get Casey. We headed back to the same property, where reports said a good size boar and some sows had been rooting up the rancher’s alfalfa.
We arrived before first light, and got a little shut eye in the truck till it was light enough to hunt. Then we headed off into the pastures. After a time we spotted three big sows with piglets at some distance away, making their way through stands of oaks at the rim of the basin where the hills start to rise up out of the bottom. Driving further beyond that, we saw three large pigs, at least two of them boars, at a distance of over 600 yards. They were walking up the ridge on the far side of a draw, seemingly headed to bed in some large rocks that we could see above them. The wind was right to left and the sun was getting high enough to warm the valley; we didn’t have much time for a stalk and it would have been hard to approach them without them seeing, hearing or smelling us. Neil decided to pass. We headed back to the ranch house to try our luck finding the local pests.
We parked the truck and Neil went ahead with the dogs.
Now it was Bolt’s time to show his tracking skills. I watched him trot around loosening up after being cooped up in his kennel. He was very casually following Neil, who was heading into a draw up ahead of us. Then suddenly Bolt’s nose went to the ground and he was all business. He went right past Neil, then turned straight up the draw. In retrospect, we should have gone ahead and followed a little way behind them because it was clear Bolt was onto something. That would have saved us a quarter-mile uphill run that came a little while later. Neil’s voice came over the radio just as we heard Bolt barking. They had a large boar holed up for the moment, so we had to hurry. I’m in pretty good shape for an old guy, and I train regularly. On the other hand, a quarter-mile uphill trot is a workout whether you are carrying gear or not. I did my best to keep up with Casey as he ran ahead of me. As I caught up with him, we were on the left side of a gulch that was about 10 feet deep, with water in the bottom and thick undergrowth vegetation giving it a roof, almost enclosing it to form a sort of grotto. Neil and the dogs were on the opposite rim. We could make out a large boar, probably 225-250lbs, at the foot of the cut just below where Neil was standing. The pig was standing broadside to us facing uphill, to our left. Crouching, I was able to find a gap in the brush that offered a clear shot just behind his left shoulder. I drew, anchored and let it fly home with a tell-tale THWACK. It didn’t pass through him, but I could see that it was deep inside his chest with only about half the shaft showing.
We sat down to wait. Assuming he was too hurt to go up hill, the only way out was downhill toward the mouth. But we didn’t think he was going to run. Neil left us with the dogs and went to try to bring the truck close enough to make the drag out easier. The pig stood for a long while, long enough for us to wonder how much the arrow had done, and long enough, in retrospect, for me to have put at least one more arrow in him while I had a broadside shot and good visibility. After all, that’s what we do with a rifle, right? Keep following up till they are down. But anyway after a while he lay down of his own accord.
His breathing seemed to be getting more labored but it was steady. I left Casey in order to lead Neil in with the truck. As we got the truck into position, Casey called over to say the pig was up again and moving. He’d moved down the gulch nearly to its mouth. Neil and I came around from above, trying to get a sight line for a second shot. The pig was backed in under a big rock and some deadfall. We could see his head and the faint outline of his body. Neil thought if I could thread a shot under his right ear, it might reach the base of his neck. Now, a shot at any animal that is quartering toward you in shadows is tricky, but trying to get past that boar’s head, which was shaped like a back hoe and big enough to require an operator’s permit in some states, was harder than you might think. Even in full sunlight it’s hard to see a pig’s anatomical landmarks; for this dark pig hunkered down in the shadows, the best I could do was aim under his right ear. I released, and again watched an arrow strike its mark. But this time the beast got up and charged, breaking off the shaft of one of the arrows as he came. I didn’t see which arrow broke or where it went, and truthfully at that moment I wasn’t paying attention. Neil and I ducked behind some boulders but fortunately for me the boar turned and went back into cover. He moved to the top of the gulch, where a 5-foot cliff cut off the upper end and allowed us nearly to walk right up to him. But the angle was steep. He was standing broad side and if I’d had a pike I could almost have reached out and touched him. Now, I’ve practiced ranges down to 5 yards and I know the holdover for my bow for every short range shot from there up, but I never thought I’d be shooting at distances less than that. Shooting from a steep angle above him at a range of 3 yards, I held too high. The arrow struck him in his left backstrap, glanced off his spine and lodged across his back halfway through, leaving the fixed broadhead blade exposed.
Neil is a firm believer in fixed-blade broadheads for pigs, having seen mechanicals fail, and having encountered remnants while skinning pigs. On his instructions and after reading several threads on the SCH forum about fixed vs mechanical broadheads, I had visited the Bow N Arrow Shop. In preparation for this hunt I had bought, and trained with, 125gr 1” Slick Trick broadheads. Those three broadheads were now in or on the animal in one way or another and he, though mortally wounded, was still on his feet. I had three 2” Rage Hypodermics down at the truck and I just needed to change out three small game tips for them. Casey went down to the truck and got them for me. I noticed he also brought his side arm. As I was changing out the tips, Casey and Neil called out that the beast was out of the gulch and moving up hill! They momentarily lost sight of the pig before Neil and Bolt found him in some thick cover about 100 yards up the gulch, lying down. Bolt couldn’t get near him safely in those close quarters, but he was lying down.
I had a shot through the branches at its left chest; Neil called the dogs off and I released the arrow. As it struck home, Neil released Bolt again. The hog got up and charged out of the thicket, but as Bolt crossed in front of him he turned and went back under cover. Bolt is absolutely fearless and his harrying runs were greatly appreciated as Casey and I dived for cover. The pig now lay in the same position as before, and I hit him with a 5th arrow. Neil released Bolt again and the process repeated, complete with Bolt’s welcome distracting tactics, but this time the hog didn’t reach the edge of the thicket. A short while later he was dead.
As Neil and Casey roped him up for the drag out, I went about locating and inspecting my arrows. The two Rages had entered his left chest to a depth of about 5 inches, but the blades had inverted and they had backed out as he moved. Neither had penetrated his ribs. Those two arrows, with the Rage broadheads intact, were on the ground in the thicket, along with only a trace of blood.
I walked down to the first gulch and located the back half of my first arrow; it had broken off at the skin leaving the broadhead and 15” of shaft inside. We later saw that it had entered under his sixth rib and lodged against the ribs on the far side, taking out both lungs but missing his heart and large vessels. I found the third arrow on the ground near upper end of the gulch. Apparently the exposed broadhead had caught on the brush and pulled through, removing the fletching and nock. My second arrow, which I had aimed to strike below his right ear, was nowhere to be found. And we didn’t see an entry wound on the right side as Neil caped it and as we quartered the meat. The chest was full of blood, even though crawling around both hiding spots I hardly found more than a few drops on the ground. Classic pig hide: seals up like nothing else.
The next day as I was cutting and preparing the meat for freezing, I found a stellate entry wound in the right shoulder that I had not appreciated the day before. Exploring the tract carefully with my finger, I could feel a shaft of the arrow. The broadhead was lodged in something and as I boned out the humerus, I found the arrow had split the ball and socket joint in two and lodged itself fully in his humerus bone.
Well, that is the tale of the pig that would not die. Of course shot placement is everything, and I could have told you that before. But even though I’ve hunted pigs and know how hard it is to make them bleed and how hard it is to see the vital landmarks in bright sunshine, when it’s crouched in shadows a pig is a hard thing to kill.
Again, more pics and videos may be available through the GSGS FB page, and if so I’ll post the link(s) to the thread Neil started. My hat is off to Neil and Casey for another great hunt. They put tremendous effort and care into making sure their clients have a rewarding experience, and that is why I love to hunt with them. Bolt is a joy to watch, and that is a credit to Neil as well. I’m also grateful to SCH for all the insights and tips I pick up every day reading about gear, tactics and techniques.
I took up bow hunting last year to extend my deer season and as a way to challenge myself with new tactics and techniques for other hunts as well. With ongoing, absolutely mind-blowing support and guidance from Bruce, Jim, Nick, Dave and Jeff at the Bow N Arrow shop in Lakeside, I've been able to make enough progress that Neil Ray of Giant Sequoia Guide Service (GSGS) felt I was ready for a big game hunt exclusively with the bow.
Neil has become a good friend over the past couple of years, and I knew he planned to take the month of July off as his wife Ashley was to deliver their third child in July. But he knows I've been itching to get out with him and his buddy Casey for an archery pig hunt. So when he got back home after the annual SCH banquet and saw several monsters on his game cameras, he wasted no time. I was headed to work one morning when my cell rang. "When can you come up?" he asked. Mind you, my job doesn't give me a lot of short-notice flexibility, but I was not about to decline an invitation like that. As luck would have it, I was able to swing a couple days off this past week without affecting the office schedule too much.
So after working Tuesday morning, off I went to Springville in time for the first evening of a two-day hunt. I met up with him, got my stuff situated and gear ready, and we picked up Casey before heading out. The plan was for me to hunt beside Neil, and Casey would film if possible. He took a lot of video which will be posted after editing down to the essentials.
We hunted one of the numerous ranches to which Neil has access, not far from Springville. It's a huge ranch where we've hunted several times together. It has lots of varied open terrain and mixed woodlands, and currently there is plenty of water, though the daytime heat has driven the pigs mostly nocturnal. As we drove through the pastures, cresting a hill we spotted a good size hog at a pond less than 50 yards away. Unfortunately he saw us too, and took off up the draw before I could get around to the left side of the truck. As we watched him retreat, we saw two other adult pigs and 4 piglets come over a ridge a couple hundred yards away. The wind favored us, giving Neil time to get the dogs out of their kennels for a little practice. Bolt, his Jagd Terrier, is a little over a year old now. Neil also has a 5 month old Patterdale Terrier now too, named Ace, who is still learning the ropes. If you watch any of GSGS’s FB videos and see a dog getting knocked around by an angry pig that would be Ace. Bolt is way too focused and quick to be caught unless he has is penned in by brush or some other edge feature.
As the pigs descended to the pond still unaware of our presence, Neil released the dogs and gave the command. They took off after the pigs. Down at the pond Ace took his eye off the more aggressive sow. She delivered an uppercut with her snout that sent him flying head over heels. To his credit he only retreated up the hill for a minute before re-entering the fray. Bolt on the other hand was very much in his element, darting in and out and bringing the pigs to bay. There was only one point, when he ran between the aggressive sow and the pond, when she was able to corner him enough to throw him into the water. But he swam to the far side and took up with them without giving it any thought. After a bit, Neil called them back, put them in their kennels, and we headed off in search of boars.
Not far ahead, we crested another ridge and spotted a huge black boar off in the distance above us to our left, making his way down to a pond and a stand of oaks below us and to our right on the other side of the dirt road. He would have to cross over the road to get to his destination. Neil and I dismounted and descended the hill together, as Casey followed with the video camera. As we got out of the truck, we saw another smaller boar that had been out of sight down by the water. But he had seen us and already had crossed the fence line onto the neighbor's (inaccessible) land, so we turned our attention back to the monster coming down the draw from our left. We found a good spot where we could observe him work his way down toward us.
The bottom of the draw narrowed to only a few yards, then opened up before it reached the road. We had expected the boar to head straight for the water, but as he emerged, but he was hugging the far side of the draw heading for the stand of oaks just beyond it. It was a good quartering away shot, but the range was changing too rapidly as he headed for the trees. The breeze remained favorable, but he must have been hungry for some acorns because he was definitely on a mission. He paused at the edge of the trees, broadside to us at 57 yards. I had been drawn and anchored since he had emerged from the draw, waiting for a shot. We had agreed ahead of time that I was very comfortable with anything up to 50 yards, but Bruce Marshall and I had made some second-plane adjustments to my sight recently, and my 60 yard pin still was not adjusted fully. I eased off. The pig disappeared among the trees, making a racket as he shook the branches and collected his yield of acorns each time. We got up and quietly made our way closer to the oaks. Suddenly the noise stopped. At that moment I realized the wind had shifted and was now coming from behind my left shoulder, blowing straight at the pig. After a few moments, the pig appeared on the path on the far side of the oaks, walking away and looking at us over his shoulder. Busted!
We headed out for a quick dinner as daylight waned. The moon was bright, but we all needed some rest in preparation for what was to come Wednesday morning. Neil came by to pick me up at 4am and we swung by to get Casey. We headed back to the same property, where reports said a good size boar and some sows had been rooting up the rancher’s alfalfa.
We arrived before first light, and got a little shut eye in the truck till it was light enough to hunt. Then we headed off into the pastures. After a time we spotted three big sows with piglets at some distance away, making their way through stands of oaks at the rim of the basin where the hills start to rise up out of the bottom. Driving further beyond that, we saw three large pigs, at least two of them boars, at a distance of over 600 yards. They were walking up the ridge on the far side of a draw, seemingly headed to bed in some large rocks that we could see above them. The wind was right to left and the sun was getting high enough to warm the valley; we didn’t have much time for a stalk and it would have been hard to approach them without them seeing, hearing or smelling us. Neil decided to pass. We headed back to the ranch house to try our luck finding the local pests.
We parked the truck and Neil went ahead with the dogs.
Now it was Bolt’s time to show his tracking skills. I watched him trot around loosening up after being cooped up in his kennel. He was very casually following Neil, who was heading into a draw up ahead of us. Then suddenly Bolt’s nose went to the ground and he was all business. He went right past Neil, then turned straight up the draw. In retrospect, we should have gone ahead and followed a little way behind them because it was clear Bolt was onto something. That would have saved us a quarter-mile uphill run that came a little while later. Neil’s voice came over the radio just as we heard Bolt barking. They had a large boar holed up for the moment, so we had to hurry. I’m in pretty good shape for an old guy, and I train regularly. On the other hand, a quarter-mile uphill trot is a workout whether you are carrying gear or not. I did my best to keep up with Casey as he ran ahead of me. As I caught up with him, we were on the left side of a gulch that was about 10 feet deep, with water in the bottom and thick undergrowth vegetation giving it a roof, almost enclosing it to form a sort of grotto. Neil and the dogs were on the opposite rim. We could make out a large boar, probably 225-250lbs, at the foot of the cut just below where Neil was standing. The pig was standing broadside to us facing uphill, to our left. Crouching, I was able to find a gap in the brush that offered a clear shot just behind his left shoulder. I drew, anchored and let it fly home with a tell-tale THWACK. It didn’t pass through him, but I could see that it was deep inside his chest with only about half the shaft showing.
We sat down to wait. Assuming he was too hurt to go up hill, the only way out was downhill toward the mouth. But we didn’t think he was going to run. Neil left us with the dogs and went to try to bring the truck close enough to make the drag out easier. The pig stood for a long while, long enough for us to wonder how much the arrow had done, and long enough, in retrospect, for me to have put at least one more arrow in him while I had a broadside shot and good visibility. After all, that’s what we do with a rifle, right? Keep following up till they are down. But anyway after a while he lay down of his own accord.
His breathing seemed to be getting more labored but it was steady. I left Casey in order to lead Neil in with the truck. As we got the truck into position, Casey called over to say the pig was up again and moving. He’d moved down the gulch nearly to its mouth. Neil and I came around from above, trying to get a sight line for a second shot. The pig was backed in under a big rock and some deadfall. We could see his head and the faint outline of his body. Neil thought if I could thread a shot under his right ear, it might reach the base of his neck. Now, a shot at any animal that is quartering toward you in shadows is tricky, but trying to get past that boar’s head, which was shaped like a back hoe and big enough to require an operator’s permit in some states, was harder than you might think. Even in full sunlight it’s hard to see a pig’s anatomical landmarks; for this dark pig hunkered down in the shadows, the best I could do was aim under his right ear. I released, and again watched an arrow strike its mark. But this time the beast got up and charged, breaking off the shaft of one of the arrows as he came. I didn’t see which arrow broke or where it went, and truthfully at that moment I wasn’t paying attention. Neil and I ducked behind some boulders but fortunately for me the boar turned and went back into cover. He moved to the top of the gulch, where a 5-foot cliff cut off the upper end and allowed us nearly to walk right up to him. But the angle was steep. He was standing broad side and if I’d had a pike I could almost have reached out and touched him. Now, I’ve practiced ranges down to 5 yards and I know the holdover for my bow for every short range shot from there up, but I never thought I’d be shooting at distances less than that. Shooting from a steep angle above him at a range of 3 yards, I held too high. The arrow struck him in his left backstrap, glanced off his spine and lodged across his back halfway through, leaving the fixed broadhead blade exposed.
Neil is a firm believer in fixed-blade broadheads for pigs, having seen mechanicals fail, and having encountered remnants while skinning pigs. On his instructions and after reading several threads on the SCH forum about fixed vs mechanical broadheads, I had visited the Bow N Arrow Shop. In preparation for this hunt I had bought, and trained with, 125gr 1” Slick Trick broadheads. Those three broadheads were now in or on the animal in one way or another and he, though mortally wounded, was still on his feet. I had three 2” Rage Hypodermics down at the truck and I just needed to change out three small game tips for them. Casey went down to the truck and got them for me. I noticed he also brought his side arm. As I was changing out the tips, Casey and Neil called out that the beast was out of the gulch and moving up hill! They momentarily lost sight of the pig before Neil and Bolt found him in some thick cover about 100 yards up the gulch, lying down. Bolt couldn’t get near him safely in those close quarters, but he was lying down.
I had a shot through the branches at its left chest; Neil called the dogs off and I released the arrow. As it struck home, Neil released Bolt again. The hog got up and charged out of the thicket, but as Bolt crossed in front of him he turned and went back under cover. Bolt is absolutely fearless and his harrying runs were greatly appreciated as Casey and I dived for cover. The pig now lay in the same position as before, and I hit him with a 5th arrow. Neil released Bolt again and the process repeated, complete with Bolt’s welcome distracting tactics, but this time the hog didn’t reach the edge of the thicket. A short while later he was dead.
As Neil and Casey roped him up for the drag out, I went about locating and inspecting my arrows. The two Rages had entered his left chest to a depth of about 5 inches, but the blades had inverted and they had backed out as he moved. Neither had penetrated his ribs. Those two arrows, with the Rage broadheads intact, were on the ground in the thicket, along with only a trace of blood.
I walked down to the first gulch and located the back half of my first arrow; it had broken off at the skin leaving the broadhead and 15” of shaft inside. We later saw that it had entered under his sixth rib and lodged against the ribs on the far side, taking out both lungs but missing his heart and large vessels. I found the third arrow on the ground near upper end of the gulch. Apparently the exposed broadhead had caught on the brush and pulled through, removing the fletching and nock. My second arrow, which I had aimed to strike below his right ear, was nowhere to be found. And we didn’t see an entry wound on the right side as Neil caped it and as we quartered the meat. The chest was full of blood, even though crawling around both hiding spots I hardly found more than a few drops on the ground. Classic pig hide: seals up like nothing else.
The next day as I was cutting and preparing the meat for freezing, I found a stellate entry wound in the right shoulder that I had not appreciated the day before. Exploring the tract carefully with my finger, I could feel a shaft of the arrow. The broadhead was lodged in something and as I boned out the humerus, I found the arrow had split the ball and socket joint in two and lodged itself fully in his humerus bone.
Well, that is the tale of the pig that would not die. Of course shot placement is everything, and I could have told you that before. But even though I’ve hunted pigs and know how hard it is to make them bleed and how hard it is to see the vital landmarks in bright sunshine, when it’s crouched in shadows a pig is a hard thing to kill.
Again, more pics and videos may be available through the GSGS FB page, and if so I’ll post the link(s) to the thread Neil started. My hat is off to Neil and Casey for another great hunt. They put tremendous effort and care into making sure their clients have a rewarding experience, and that is why I love to hunt with them. Bolt is a joy to watch, and that is a credit to Neil as well. I’m also grateful to SCH for all the insights and tips I pick up every day reading about gear, tactics and techniques.
