"After my first hunt with the boys in Savoy, I learned a few key things: I must get my hunting buddies down here to experience the thrill of hog hunting with dogs, and I gotta get a bigger knife!

So on this fateful morning, the hunting party consisted of a pack of hounds, 2 knife hunters, a bow hunter, a guide, and the armor wearing catch dog. First stop, Audey Nelm’s place, an estate of wheat fields, cedar groves, and creek beds. Our guide J.R. soon showed us the spoor of our intended big boar; paths through fences, mud rubbed on a telephone pole, wheat trampled, grain derived scat, large splayed hoof prints, and bristly black hog hairs. While we searched the field and high ground to determine direction of travel, the hounds were occupied with the thickets and trees.

Then the dogs began sounding off from the cedars where the swine are known to retire during the daylight hours. With the barks and bawls of the hounds, your heart immediately beats faster and adrenaline starts flowing! The chase now on, we run through the crop field, over the barb wire fences, through the cedar boughs, into the bumper crop of poison ivy and greenbriers. Continuing to the sound of the dogs bawling at the boar we descend into a creek bed. Did I just see a hog down there or was it just a dog? This is no time or place for contemplating a fleeting glimpse, the hunt is on! Our guide scales the sheer walls of Canyon Creek’s bank, and I assist our catch dog “Snatch” up and over. The group follows farther into the woods and dense foliage until we are within strike range. J.R. releases Snatch from his tether and in the dog charges. My eyes strain into the vegetation, unable to see the beast at bay. A flurry of activity, then a yelp, the boar busts through a barb wire fence, and the hounds are all off trailing again. Our catch dog isn’t anywhere to be seen and the hounds are moving fast. We give chase on foot for a time, and soon it becomes obvious the quarry and dogs are covering a lot of territory. We head back to our pickup.

The next leg of the hunt starts at the Starky Ranch. We meet up with ranch operator Gary Whitlock, who sped us via a Kawasaki Mule over slick sloping askew access roads towards the yowling hounds. Approaching the timber as close as possible with the vehicle we bail out and cross the next barbwire fence. With the wind in our favor we advance to the sounds of the hunt. By now I’ve been briefed by my guide that I’ll need to use his .45 long colt single action revolver on the hog due to the unknown whereabouts of our catch dog. We’re all wondering what type of shape Snatch is in, dazed or mortally wounded by thrashing tusks? Cresting a few hills we get into range, dogs coming into view, the 6-man party creeps ahead. But, the fickle finger of fate turns the wind against us. The boar possibly unable to see us (I’m still unaware of his mass due to the thick vegetation) catches our scent wafting his way. And as you may have guessed the boar bolted for the horizon yet again!  Our cameraman reported to me the back seemed about waist high to a man, and these things bust through the brush with no mind to thorns or barbed wire, reaching speeds up to around 25 mph.

We give chase on foot again, once again getting outpaced by the quadrupeds. We then return to the Mule and reassess where they headed off too. With the assistance of the tracking collars we traverse the muddy roads to our next point. J.R. limits the next expedition to himself, our cameraman, and myself, we were the least foul smelling of the six, so it was a logical choice, or at least half the odor! Through upland timber of cedars and deciduous trees we advance with great speed to the all-familiar sounds of dogs baying the boar. Our guide hands me the stainless revolver, packed with hot hand loads. Descending into the creek bed once again I finally gain a clear view of the behemoth. From previous hunts I can readily establish is that it’s well over 250 lbs. The old boy has found favorable ground in a wallow with a sheer cliff to his back and limited accesses to his front and sides. With this position he makes repeated charges at the hounds forcing them to back up with each lunge. J.R. leads the way to a small clearing 15 steps from the depths of the wallow; with the dogs all around we wait for the opportunity to squeeze one off. NOW! With the iron sight lined up on the center of his mass, my eyes rapidly scan, verifying the dogs are in the clear, I squeeze the steel trigger. After the report and recoil I watch the pig fall sideways and begin bleeding from a shoulder hit. Thrashing about in the wallow the dogs go in to grab hold of ears, hide, anything. With dogs all over the creature we enter the pit with the pig.

My knife now unsheathed finally looks like the right tool for the job. With stag handled 18 inch bowie in hand, I position myself perpendicular to the kicking thrashing boar, finding the zone behind the front leg I position the tip and lay my all into the rancid creature. With a small amount of resistance the "Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works" 12 inch long carbon blade finds home as a deluge of blood exits the gash. I continue working the knife up and down in the massive puncture wound until the armed head of the prey is at rest below water and the wallow becomes still.

Having heard the shot, the remaining 3 of our group rush to the scene. Taking in the size of the pig Whitlock declares it’s the biggest one he’s ever seen taken off the property. J.R. comments it’s the biggest he’s scene live or dead in the flesh. Still reeling with adrenaline, all I know is that it certainly is the trophy I wanted to take, having taken two sows previously. The true sized dawned on me when J.R. and I tried to pull it out of the wallow to get some photos and cape it out, we couldn’t budge it. With effort 4 of us tugged the black bristled, pig-louse infested, boar 10 feet to dry land. With the boar’s scent all around, we inspected the tusks. My apprehension about dispensing cash to get it stuffed soon disappeared. Only a wetter remained on the right side of his skull growing unchecked from lack of a bottom tusk. And a cutter growing unchecked, yet broken and jagged, on the left jaw. Also giving character to his mug are the hairy ears with old healed cuts running lengthwise. Having been a mature boar, he also had severely scarred up shoulders from fighting comparable males for breeding privileges. Caping out the trophy revealed a 3 inch thick cartilage like shield that reached back almost half his length. The chore became a 3 man job, tugging the hide for cutting, and rolling the beast over when necessary.

All said and done the consensus was between 450 and 500 lbs. The hunt and work now done, the only remaining hassle is the wait for the taxidermist to finish the mount. I simply cannot endorse Affordable Hog Hunts enough. These are simply the most exciting hunts you are going to find anywhere!"