A friend of mine invited me on a group hunt with some of his friends for the gun opener in Area 2. Public land in north Louisiana, and this weekend would just be 3 of us hunting. Immediately after the invite I looked at OnX for a place to hunt and within a few minutes it was obvious where to go. A large section of land isolated by private land and a bayou. The gun season was Saturday and Sunday. I was able to take a vacation day Friday and scout it out and maybe kill a pig. On most Louisiana public lands you can kill pigs incidental with whatever season is in progress. In this case it's archery deer or small game. I brought my shotgun with BBB heavy shot shells.
Friday morning I got to my destination and began scouting. To get across the bayou I dragged my priogue 300yds from the truck to the bayou. I decided to use the pirogue to just cross the bayou and depending on what I saw from scouting I'd use it to float down the bayou later. About two hours of scouting and found a well used trail coming from a ticket towards an open bottom where a lot of oaks were dropping. I followed the trail through the thicket until it reached the open woods and dispersed. I was stopped and standing there looking at the map when 3 pigs were on a trot coming my way on the other side of a dry slough. Quickly I moved to head them off before they got past me and the lead pig noticed me and stopped. The other two stopped when the reached the first one, but paid no attention to me. The trio began to slowly meander and cross the slough towards me. Normally I try to wait for a broadside ear shot on a pig with a shotgun, but when one was within 10yds I took a head on shot to the forehead and dropped him. The other two ran off without a chance for a follow up shot. I quartered the pig, packed him back to the ice chest in my truck, and resumed scouting.
Scouting the rest of the evening I didn't find a lot of concentrated sign or anymore deer or pigs, but was able to put a plan together of where I expected the deer to be bedding and planed for a morning hunt. Making a float hunt with the pirogue wasn't practical since it has multiple log jams and drop off banks making it easy to flip the priogue trying to get in and out. So I settled for using it to cross the bayou where a slough spurred from it at both sides. While scouting I did find a very unique shed, and a large hog wallow.
Friday morning I got to my destination and began scouting. To get across the bayou I dragged my priogue 300yds from the truck to the bayou. I decided to use the pirogue to just cross the bayou and depending on what I saw from scouting I'd use it to float down the bayou later. About two hours of scouting and found a well used trail coming from a ticket towards an open bottom where a lot of oaks were dropping. I followed the trail through the thicket until it reached the open woods and dispersed. I was stopped and standing there looking at the map when 3 pigs were on a trot coming my way on the other side of a dry slough. Quickly I moved to head them off before they got past me and the lead pig noticed me and stopped. The other two stopped when the reached the first one, but paid no attention to me. The trio began to slowly meander and cross the slough towards me. Normally I try to wait for a broadside ear shot on a pig with a shotgun, but when one was within 10yds I took a head on shot to the forehead and dropped him. The other two ran off without a chance for a follow up shot. I quartered the pig, packed him back to the ice chest in my truck, and resumed scouting.
Scouting the rest of the evening I didn't find a lot of concentrated sign or anymore deer or pigs, but was able to put a plan together of where I expected the deer to be bedding and planed for a morning hunt. Making a float hunt with the pirogue wasn't practical since it has multiple log jams and drop off banks making it easy to flip the priogue trying to get in and out. So I settled for using it to cross the bayou where a slough spurred from it at both sides. While scouting I did find a very unique shed, and a large hog wallow.
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