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| I met up with Bill on the trail back to the Jeep and as we were eating a snackie lunch we shared notes. Apparently the area Bill went to had seen a lot of pressure since it was close to the road. He continued east into the pines and didn't see anything in the way of hog sign. I told him that I hadn't seen any sign until I was right at the river's edge and that we should probably concentrate on those areas. He agreed and after finishing up a little bit of rest time and lunch we headed off to the "South Point" which was marked on the map as area 5. We decided that he'd take the western side of the point working his way to the South Fork of the Hurricane Branch Creek which made up the southern boundary of the WMA. I would work the Great Pee Dee River side boundary and we'd meet up somewhere at the bottom. We headed off. Again, it was some distance away from the roads before I started seeing sign of any sort. The plus side of it was that I started seeing more hog sign than in area 2. Lots of swamp ground and mixed hardwoods comprised the area. I would move from swamp to swamp sitting for a while at each hoping to catch a hog moving. I had gone about 3/4 of a mile in to one swamp that had lots of sign and I decided I'd set up. I was there for about 20 minutes when I heard hogs! Sounded as though momma hog was squealing at her little ones. They sure were noisy so I tried to stalk up on them. I couldn't see very far which is typical of the area. In all but the swamps visibility was under 50 yards and sometimes less than 30 yards. All of which my 30-06 could cover with ease. I snuck up to where I heard the hogs and though found sign I didn't see any hogs they had simply vanished. For something so loud, it was pretty remarkable they could sneak out quietly. As I made my way to another swamp, I heard two shots in the distance. As it was nearing the time to start working my way back to Bill, I headed towards the trail that ran down the center of the point to try and raise him on the radio. We had pre-established a time that we'd try to contact one another with our walkie-talkies. At about 3:30 I tried and got a hold of him. "Hey Bill, can you hear me?" "Yeah I hear you Brad." "Was that you that shot?" "Yep" "Did you get anything?" "Yep" "What did you get?" "I got me a pig!" "That's great! How big?" "Oh, I don't know, maybe 100 pounds?" "That's great I'll try and make my way to you!" Well, that proved to be quite a challenge as I had only heard him shoot and my navigational skills were off a bit to where I thought he had shot. Long story short, we finally linked up near dark and I helped him drag the boar out. It was larger than Bill had given credit and I'd estimate the boar to be about 150-175 pounds and had 1 1/2 inch tusks. Anything over 1 inch is considered good and comparable to an 8 or 10 point buck in the trophy world! Great kill and one the 165 grain Sierra Hollowpoint running out of his Weaver 6X scoped Winchester Model 70 Westerner 30-06 made with ease at a distance of about 50-75 yards. Dragging that boar over a mile was a real gut check and when we finally did make it back to the jeep we snapped a few pictures before field skinning and quartering him. As we quartered the boar up, we laughed as it was well past dark. Though you had up till 2 hours past dark to leave the preserve, we wondered what the conservation officer of the area might say if he drove up on us! Though we were completely legal, it would look bad. After finally getting the boar skinned, quartered and placed in the cooler, we headed off to Hardees to get a bite to eat and then to the cabin for some much deserved rest! Second Day of Hunting We spent Thursday morning finishing up the processing of the boar and getting him on ice. We decided that of all the ground we had covered that the Southern Point was the place to be and would continue to hunt there for the remainder of our time. That evening we headed to a few swamps where Bill had seen sign but without any sightings. Weather was beautiful though and just being out hunting during part of the year when nothing else was in season was a real treat. Without any luck we headed out and got cleaned up at the campground. We then headed into a restaurant called Jumpin J's which I can only describe as a Bob Evans / Diner that had all sorts of southern coooking. Bill had the hamburger steak and I had grilled chicken livers. |
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