npaden
Well-known member
We met 2 of my nephews at our hunting land on Friday night, one is 30 and the other is 15 and neither had ever been hunting before. I feel a little bad for not taking them out ever before, but they do live 300+ miles away and hadn’t ever really expressed an interest before.
My son and I pulled our travel trailer down there for us to stay in and got it parked just before dark. It was cold for Texas and when I went to start the heater it wouldn’t come on and I went up front and checked the propane tanks and found out I should have checked the propane. I knocked on the tanks and they both sounded empty.
I checked out blanket inventory and called my nephews who were still on their way and between what they were bringing and what we had in the trailer I figured we were good if we slept in our clothes. The weather was up to a 100% chance of snow on Sunday morning so this was going to end up being a one day hunt because I had no desire to pull the trailer home in the snow.
My nephews finally got there a little after 9 and we talked though the morning plans and bundled up and went to bed.
After a pretty awful night of sleep with phones going off, blankets being rearranged, and sharing a bed with my 14 year old son who does a good bit of tossing and turning during the night the alarm went off at 6:15 and we started getting ready. I had everything pretty organized and went ahead and loaded up the RZR with guns, breakfast, and other odds and ends for a morning in the box blind. The boys were pretty good at getting up and getting going when I woke them up a few minutes later and the 36 degree temperature inside the trailer helped get them moving.
The older nephew had his right leg removed at the hip when he was 14 to remove a cancer so I took him to the blind in the RZR. I could have shuttled everyone back and forth but it is only about a 1/4 mile walk and so my son and the younger nephew walked. The older nephew could have walked too, he does amazing on his crutches since he has been on crutches longer than he has been without them but he didn’t turn down the ride either.
We got up on the hill next to the blind and started loading stuff in. I built the blind with the plan of making it big enough to fit several people but small enough to hunt by yourself but 4 people is pushing its limits. By the time we got all the guns and everyone’s packs and stuff in there it was pretty tight. We took a while to get chairs arranged and I was able to get the little buddy heater working in there and by the time we were all setup it was almost shooting light.
It couldn’t have been 5 minutes into shooting light and my older nephew spots movement heading toward the feeder. Sure enough it is a lone pig coming in. It gets to the feeder and it looks like a medium sized boar. I had the younger nephew using our AR-15 and got him setup on it. I had my older nephew setup on my old 7mm Rem Mag and he was backing him up. The pig was broadside and I told them to take him when ready. The AR-15 barks and I hear it hit the pig. It trots for just a couple yards and then slowly walks into some brush. My younger nephew has lost it for a follow up shot but my older nephew has it in his sights and when it comes out of the brush and stops he takes any doubt of it getting away out of the equation with a head shot.
It was around 32 degrees outside and it was still very early so after the excitement wore off we decided to go ahead and leave it lay there and see if anything else showed up.
We ate some bagels and waited and spotted a couple young whitetail bucks come onto the property from about 600 yards off and mozey their way around the property. They made a full loop around the blind but never did go to a feeder. Deer season ended the weekend before so they weren’t on the agenda, but it was nice to see them. We saw 6 more deer just on the other side of our property line as well but that was it for the morning.
Still pretty happy to have a pig down and we talked how they could both say they shot their first pig, it just happened to be the same one!
We got the pig taken care of using the gutless method. The first shot was a gut shot and the second was a frontal head shot that ruined some neck meat but not too bad. I did a full dissection for them and we took the ribs and found that the Nosler partition out of the 7mm Mag had got through the head, drove through the spine and hit the heart. That part of the pig was a mess and I spent some time fishing around in there looking for the bullet but with the bits of broken bone I wasn’t able to find it.
I showed them the heart, cut a lung off and blew it up for them, showed them the liver and they were very observant and acted interested anyway.
We ended up with about 40 pounds of meat and we got our gear together and headed back to the trailer.
I decided we had some time to kill and we found out that my protein pellet feeder was empty that morning so I was going to run into town to buy some propane for the trailer and some protein pellets. As I’m taking off the first propane tank I realize that it wasn’t completely empty. I knock around on it and there is propane in it so I hooked it back up and tried the heater again. It didn’t start but whatever the problem it wasn’t lack of propane.
They all decide to ride to town with me to warm up in the truck and we get everything bought, get back to the trailer and get lunch, get the truck hooked back to the trailer and get everything ready to go when we finished hunting that evening. Of course after trying the heater a few more times it fired up and started working still hooked up to the same propane tank that it had been hooked up to the whole time. Oh well, chalk the cold night up to teaching them to deal with a little adversity!
We pulled the cards on a couple trail cameras I had out, filled the protein feeder back up and were back in the blind around 1:30. We prepared for a long sit but with it being cold and overcast with the weather coming in I thought there was a chance to see some daytime action.
Around 3:00 I saw a lone coyote moving through about 250 yards off to the west. I thought it might catch the scent of the pig carcass from that morning, but evil it didn’t and it moved on off. Some more quality time in the blind and I looked though some of the trail camera pictures and saw that a group of pigs had been through 2 days earlier around 6:00 pm so I showed them some of the pictures and we continued to pass the time.
Around 5 I saw some movement about 1/2 mile off to the west off our property and saw a deer, then another and another. Got the spotting scope on them and one was a the wide buck we had trail camera pictures of. He looked even better in person.
The deer were moving around and I was having a hard time following them. We had the windows on the blind closed due to cold and wind so I wasn’t able to get any good pictures through the spotting scope.
While still watching the deer I end up catching a glimpse of a pig heading our way, then another, and another and then it is a group of at least a dozen. I point out where they are and no one else can see them as they are in some thick brush and I’m only seeing parts and pieces of them.
Then the deer all bust out heading our way on the run. I lose track of the pigs and then lose track of the deer in the brush. I’m able to pick up the pigs again about 400 yards out and still coming our way. This time the boys can spot them and you can hear the excitement growing in their voices as pig after pigs comes through the tree line.
We start trying to get setup for an artillery barrage and end up with all 3 boys with guns out the front of the blind. I got setup out the side of the blind on a angle and still had a decent sight window.
My son and I pulled our travel trailer down there for us to stay in and got it parked just before dark. It was cold for Texas and when I went to start the heater it wouldn’t come on and I went up front and checked the propane tanks and found out I should have checked the propane. I knocked on the tanks and they both sounded empty.
I checked out blanket inventory and called my nephews who were still on their way and between what they were bringing and what we had in the trailer I figured we were good if we slept in our clothes. The weather was up to a 100% chance of snow on Sunday morning so this was going to end up being a one day hunt because I had no desire to pull the trailer home in the snow.
My nephews finally got there a little after 9 and we talked though the morning plans and bundled up and went to bed.
After a pretty awful night of sleep with phones going off, blankets being rearranged, and sharing a bed with my 14 year old son who does a good bit of tossing and turning during the night the alarm went off at 6:15 and we started getting ready. I had everything pretty organized and went ahead and loaded up the RZR with guns, breakfast, and other odds and ends for a morning in the box blind. The boys were pretty good at getting up and getting going when I woke them up a few minutes later and the 36 degree temperature inside the trailer helped get them moving.
The older nephew had his right leg removed at the hip when he was 14 to remove a cancer so I took him to the blind in the RZR. I could have shuttled everyone back and forth but it is only about a 1/4 mile walk and so my son and the younger nephew walked. The older nephew could have walked too, he does amazing on his crutches since he has been on crutches longer than he has been without them but he didn’t turn down the ride either.
We got up on the hill next to the blind and started loading stuff in. I built the blind with the plan of making it big enough to fit several people but small enough to hunt by yourself but 4 people is pushing its limits. By the time we got all the guns and everyone’s packs and stuff in there it was pretty tight. We took a while to get chairs arranged and I was able to get the little buddy heater working in there and by the time we were all setup it was almost shooting light.
It couldn’t have been 5 minutes into shooting light and my older nephew spots movement heading toward the feeder. Sure enough it is a lone pig coming in. It gets to the feeder and it looks like a medium sized boar. I had the younger nephew using our AR-15 and got him setup on it. I had my older nephew setup on my old 7mm Rem Mag and he was backing him up. The pig was broadside and I told them to take him when ready. The AR-15 barks and I hear it hit the pig. It trots for just a couple yards and then slowly walks into some brush. My younger nephew has lost it for a follow up shot but my older nephew has it in his sights and when it comes out of the brush and stops he takes any doubt of it getting away out of the equation with a head shot.
It was around 32 degrees outside and it was still very early so after the excitement wore off we decided to go ahead and leave it lay there and see if anything else showed up.
We ate some bagels and waited and spotted a couple young whitetail bucks come onto the property from about 600 yards off and mozey their way around the property. They made a full loop around the blind but never did go to a feeder. Deer season ended the weekend before so they weren’t on the agenda, but it was nice to see them. We saw 6 more deer just on the other side of our property line as well but that was it for the morning.
Still pretty happy to have a pig down and we talked how they could both say they shot their first pig, it just happened to be the same one!
We got the pig taken care of using the gutless method. The first shot was a gut shot and the second was a frontal head shot that ruined some neck meat but not too bad. I did a full dissection for them and we took the ribs and found that the Nosler partition out of the 7mm Mag had got through the head, drove through the spine and hit the heart. That part of the pig was a mess and I spent some time fishing around in there looking for the bullet but with the bits of broken bone I wasn’t able to find it.
I showed them the heart, cut a lung off and blew it up for them, showed them the liver and they were very observant and acted interested anyway.
We ended up with about 40 pounds of meat and we got our gear together and headed back to the trailer.
I decided we had some time to kill and we found out that my protein pellet feeder was empty that morning so I was going to run into town to buy some propane for the trailer and some protein pellets. As I’m taking off the first propane tank I realize that it wasn’t completely empty. I knock around on it and there is propane in it so I hooked it back up and tried the heater again. It didn’t start but whatever the problem it wasn’t lack of propane.
They all decide to ride to town with me to warm up in the truck and we get everything bought, get back to the trailer and get lunch, get the truck hooked back to the trailer and get everything ready to go when we finished hunting that evening. Of course after trying the heater a few more times it fired up and started working still hooked up to the same propane tank that it had been hooked up to the whole time. Oh well, chalk the cold night up to teaching them to deal with a little adversity!
We pulled the cards on a couple trail cameras I had out, filled the protein feeder back up and were back in the blind around 1:30. We prepared for a long sit but with it being cold and overcast with the weather coming in I thought there was a chance to see some daytime action.
Around 3:00 I saw a lone coyote moving through about 250 yards off to the west. I thought it might catch the scent of the pig carcass from that morning, but evil it didn’t and it moved on off. Some more quality time in the blind and I looked though some of the trail camera pictures and saw that a group of pigs had been through 2 days earlier around 6:00 pm so I showed them some of the pictures and we continued to pass the time.
Around 5 I saw some movement about 1/2 mile off to the west off our property and saw a deer, then another and another. Got the spotting scope on them and one was a the wide buck we had trail camera pictures of. He looked even better in person.
The deer were moving around and I was having a hard time following them. We had the windows on the blind closed due to cold and wind so I wasn’t able to get any good pictures through the spotting scope.
While still watching the deer I end up catching a glimpse of a pig heading our way, then another, and another and then it is a group of at least a dozen. I point out where they are and no one else can see them as they are in some thick brush and I’m only seeing parts and pieces of them.
Then the deer all bust out heading our way on the run. I lose track of the pigs and then lose track of the deer in the brush. I’m able to pick up the pigs again about 400 yards out and still coming our way. This time the boys can spot them and you can hear the excitement growing in their voices as pig after pigs comes through the tree line.
We start trying to get setup for an artillery barrage and end up with all 3 boys with guns out the front of the blind. I got setup out the side of the blind on a angle and still had a decent sight window.
