by Doug Rosin

It was an early wake up; 3:00 am as I loaded my truck, topped off with gas and started my drive north. I had about a two and half hour drive to meet up with my friend, Josh Heitman of Maverick Outfitters. Josh and I had planned on meeting at a local grocery store about 20 minutes away from his hunting property.

I met up with Josh at about 5:30 am and we made the quick drive over to his property. At the time, it was lightly raining and about 50 degrees. Once there we got our equipment in order and started out in the morning rain. The rain was predicted to be off and on all day with less as the day went on. Not ideal by any means to chase hogs that will primarily be found in the nastiest brush around except when heading to water or during the night.

At this time of the year, the property had water everywhere, so the hogs didn’t have to go far to get it. It seemed that just about every drainage had water running in it and all the reservoirs were topped off.

As dawn was arriving, we were serenaded by coyotes out on the property. It seemed they were howling from all directions early in the morning. We started off on a high point glassing many of the small drainages hoping to catch some hogs up high.

With no sightings we started moving around trying to locate them. It didn’t take long and we jumped a black-banded boar. We let him go over a ridge and then started our pursuit. As I came in from a different side of the ridge, I expected to see the boar settling down, but he was nowhere to be found. As I continued to look for him, Josh spotted another boar strolling down below us about 200 yards.

We made a quick plan to go after this hog. I made my way down to an area in front of where the hog was heading, but I never located him. As I was making my way to where we spotted him I met up with Josh. He had seen the first black banded hog and pointed out where he had seen him dump into the creek bed. I slowly made my way down into this area. It was wet, dark and had the odor of pigs. I was no more than about ten feet into the area, when a small pig bolted out of its bed about 20 feet from me. With the dense creek bottom, I had no chance of pursuing them.

We made our way back to the top and were off to another location again. We saw plenty of fresh rooting and pig sign all over the property. We continually jumped pigs, but with them knowing our presence and on alert, there was no chance on many of them with my bow in hand.

It was getting around 11 am and we had come across about 20 hogs so far. Several of them being good boars with pearly white teeth showing. We stopped and were glassing an area where Josh had seen hogs in the past. Since we had seen several hogs in the morning sporting white and tan markings on them, Josh noticed a big tan spot out of place. After further inspection, it was three hogs, sleeping in some thick brush.

Checking the wind, I made a plan. Even with a perfect a stalk, I still may not be able to see the hogs through the brush. I started out and was about two minutes into my stalk and I heard some hogs out in front of me. I started looking through the brush and there were about 10 more hogs down in the creek bottom. As I started making my way to them, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a boar, about 65 yards to my right and across the creek. I took note of the trail and figured where he would come out. A quick range showed 42 yards. As the hog started down the trail, I drew back. The hog sensed some thing, took a quick left turn onto another trail. It was still OK, as he had to cross the bottom to get to his friends. I continued to hold and figured about 10 more yards further to his crossing and I would have him. As the hog continued on, he never stopped, went right through the opening, but never had a good shot at him. This hog met up with the other feeding hogs and were off over the ridge. I later learned that there had been about 20 plus hogs in that group.

So, now it was back to the bedded hogs. My route was originally planned to come at them side hill due to the thick brush. As I was making my way over to them, I quickly changed plans as the wind was not right. I made my way above the hogs. As I continued on, I finally spotted them at about ten yards. I could see the tan hog and several piglets, along with the two other hogs. They had me pinned down and then took off up the creek bed never to be seen by me again.

We had a few more encounters that day, and overall it was exciting. We saw about 40 hogs and 15 coyotes running the hills. I had four decent opportunities to close the deal and just didn’t get it done.

The next morning came and it was a little colder, but no rain in sight. As dawn broke, the property looked totally different with the sunrise on the grassy hillsides. Truly an amazing piece of land here in Northern California.

We started out the same way, glassing for hogs up high and down low. Again we had no luck spotting hogs. Since yesterday, most of the hogs were down in the thick creek bottoms, Josh brought out his two dogs, Buddy and Bandit.

Every now and then we would let the two dogs go into some thick creek bottoms and they would run around trying to stir up some pigs. On one of the occasions you could certainly tell they were on hogs, but they had run them off of the property and out of our reach. So we collected the dogs and moved on. As the day wore on, the hogs were doing a better job hiding from us than we were of finding them. We were still seeing plenty of coyotes, but no pigs were located.

At about noon, we sent the two dogs down drainage to try and stir some hogs up. As Josh and I were standing there, I motioned to him to check out that trail leading down into the creek. It was a freshly torn up pig trail. As the dogs ran around, they eventually noticed the trail and started up into the drainage. It didn’t take long and we could tell they were stirring up the bedded pigs.

We made our way down to the trail, thinking the hogs were heading our way. As hunting sometimes goes, they were not. It sounded like they were heading farther away from us, so we started running their direction slipping and sliding in the mud all the way. As we were slowing, we saw a nice boar running back in our direction. We figured this boar must have slipped away from the dogs as they were stilling chasing other pigs. We ran around some trees and then back the way we came trying to get a shot at the boar.

The boar tried going up a very steep side of the creek bottom out in the open. I ranged him at 36 yards. I pulled back and the boar started further up. He stopped to catch his wind about ten yards further. I held for about 45 yards and released. The boar was quartering away from me and the shot looked good, entering just in front of the ham on my side and exiting just in front of the off side shoulder at the crease of the front leg. If anything it may have been a touch low, but I thought dead pig for sure. The pig slowly made its way up to the ridge about ten yards farther and crested the ridge. I thought we would find him dead just on the other side.

Josh rounded up his two dogs and we made our way to where I shot the pig. I found the front half of my arrow with my broad head, but very little blood. I know hogs are tough, but they still have to bleed. The blood was gone in about 20 yards. Just as we lost the blood trail, we could hear the hog below us. Then shortly there after, we could see the hog laboring to get up the other side of the drainage. I went after the hog and Josh went in another direction to try and cut it off.

I followed the hog and crested another ridge. Thinking I could catch up to him and put another arrow in him to put him down. As I got on top, I couldn’t see the hog anymore. I started my way down into the drainage and could hear the hog hit the water below me. Still about a 100 yards ahead. Once in the bottom, it was choked with brush again.

As Josh met up with me, we decided to cut his dogs loose on the track to try and slow the boar down so I could finish him off. Within minutes, they had his trail. We followed up and over one more drainage and I could see the boar laboring to walk away from us. We quickly ran down and in front of him. I could see the two dogs through the brush, but not the boar. I crawled down in there and could see the hog about 10 yards from me. I slipped another arrow into him and that got the job done. This finished the chase and my first archery taken hog was down.

I knew hogs were tough from the couple that I had previously shot with a rifle, but this hog was impressively tough. We spent the next couple of hours getting the hog back to our trucks, cleaning, skinning and taking care of him.

Overall, what a great weekend hunting. I saw over 40 hogs and dozens of coyotes in the day and half I was out there. Josh is great to hunt with and I have to say thanks to Buddy and Bandit, as without them my hog would have probably gotten away.

If your interested in a quality hog hunt with Josh Heitman of Maverick Outfitters you can contact him through their website at www.maverickoutfitter.com.

I also want to say thanks to Mike and the crew at Wilderness Archery in Rocklin, California for supporting a local bowhunter.