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Ellie Willingham |
The Hatch Bend hog
I saw the hog on the last evening of a three-day hunt — my first hunt, to be exact. I was with a group from Women in the Outdoors.
I became interested in hunting through my work in taxidermy and figured the September hunt in Hatch Bend, Fla., would be a good introduction for me.
There were 10 women participating in the event. To get to our hunting blinds and tree stands, we had to take a harrowing ride in the back of a pickup truck deep into the heart of Florida’s backwoods. Now and then someone would call out, “Tree!” We would duck to avoid being swatted across the head by a low hanging branch. One by one the hunters were dropped off at their specified spots.
The first couple days of the trip, I hunted with a guide in a blind in a muddy swamp. There were signs of hogs everywhere, yet we saw none. Toward dusk we saw the most wildlife; raccoons, meadow voles and bright red cardinals congregated in front of the blind.
One memorable evening, after the sun had just disappeared over the tree line, a pack of coyotes broke the silence with beautiful, haunting sounds. They went on for about a minute before their primal song died away and silence gave way to the other wild sounds of the Florida night. Crickets and frogs chanted from the standing water on our left. A single hound dog bayed in the distance, and a barred owl hooted from a nearby cypress.
On the last night of the hunt, my guide and I were dropped off at the last hunting spot on the route. There were low palmettos, dog fennel and bright green pine and oak saplings stretching across the vast extent of previously burned woodland. Blackened tree snags towered over the newly grown underbrush like twisted skeletal arms.
We walked down the path, noting the degree of rooting activity that had gone on. Entire bushes were turned over, and muddy wallows were on either side of us. Huge boar tracks were pressed deep into the path. Another hunter killed a large boar from the same blind on the first night of the trip. We settled ourselves in and hoped for the best.
As the evening grew darker, a peculiar smell came through the breeze. I couldn’t place it right away, but I knew I had smelled it before … the pungent, musky, urine-like scent of a hog! I smelled it when I helped skin a boar taken by one of the other hunters.
The guide was facing the opposite direction, watching the side of the trail that led to the road. I quietly looked
around, hoping to get a glimpse of the animal so I wouldn’t make a fool of myself by alerting her to a hog that may not be there.
A large, black head rose silently out of the bushes to my right, less than 50 yards away. The boar appeared to have sensed us. He held his ears forward and stood motionless, staring at me as I stared at him. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my body. I could only stare.
Finally, I came to my senses and remembered I had a gun.
“A hog!” I whispered to the guide. She calmly whispered me through shouldering the gun and aiming, but before I could put my eye to the scope, the hog vanished as silently as he appeared.
I lowered the gun and looked at the bushes where he’d been. Even his musky scent had faded away. I found it strange how he made no noise. I was told that I would hear hogs coming before I saw them, that I would hear them crashing and grunting through the brush. But this hog was like a ghost. Had it not been for his scent I might have missed him altogether.
We sat motionless, hoping for another opportunity. But it was clear the old boar had outwitted us. Judging by his size, he had probably outwitted many a hunter before us as well.
Soon the headlights of a truck appeared, ready to take us back to camp for the night. I was somewhat disappointed, but that brief moment of just seeing the hog was a thrill unlike anything I’d experienced before.
The following day, everyone went for one last morning hunt before heading home. My guide and I went back to the same blind. There was fresh sign everywhere. I was hopeful. It was my last chance.
We arrived at the blind around 5 a.m. and remained there until about 10. The hours yielded nothing but morning songbirds; the hog never showed himself again.
I suppose that boar might still be out there. If he keeps on moving so silently and disappearing in his ghostly way, he might just make it through another season. Whoever ends up taking him will have a freezer full of meat and a trophy head for the wall.
No matter what happens, he will live on in my memories as the first hog I never shot! — Ellie Willingham
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