DEATH CHARGE
Up until this point, it has been my experience, that when given the opportunity for a dignified retreat, a hog will take it. With the exception of jumping a grumpy old boar out of his wallow or a bayed up hog with few options most hogs will retreat to the nearest cover once the shot has been made. Many hunters mistakenly take the confusion and disarray of a running hog that has just been shot as an actual charge. In reality, most of these hogs are instinctively running for cover, and in there state of confusion, can sometimes run right past the shooter, clueless as to where the shot ever came from. This however, is not the case when a mortally wounded hog, who knows exactly where the shot came from, decides to perform what has become known as “the death charge”. An unmistakable charge, usually made by dominant boars when the inevitability of death triggers the “going for broke” mentality! This is the story of one such charge.
It was one of those few cold days that we get down here in Florida. The high was only going to be in the fifties, with the lows dipping down into the high thirties. I know all the northern hunters reading this are saying “COLD… 50’s is a heat wave”, but when you are used to hunting hogs in 90 plus degrees, with 90% humidity, 50 degrees is a welcomed cold front. The hogs seem to move a lot more during these colder days too, so we were looking forward to a good day. Once again we were devising our plan of attack based on a combination of eyewitness reports and fresh sign. A big boar had been repeatedly spotted by the local workers who tend to this particular piece of property. Since he was continuing to show up in the same spot we had seen plenty of sign in the last time out, we figured this should be our targeted area for the day. It began to look a lot more promising as we began to pass by one pine sapling after another that was literally oozing in pine tar. This will occur when big boars cut marks into saplings with their tusks as a sign of dominance. Not only does this notify any other boars in the area that the boss is in town, it also acts as a way of getting the pine tar out of the sapling for later use. Once enough sap has bled out of the tree, the boar will return and rub it on his shoulder plate to reinforce his battle armor. At this point I decided it was time to pull out the old “drag rag” and run a sow in heat line all the way to the stand. Unlike a deer, a boar is ready to breed anytime he smells a girlfriend in town, so I figured this might just do the trick. We had gotten in a little late and by this time it was almost 2:30 pm, so we didn’t have the whole day to be waiting around for him. I was hoping the sow in heat spray might just speed things along, so after a few sprays on the rag I handed the bottle to my fiancée Nikki and told her to spray the palmettos every 20 yards on the way to the stand. If this guy was close, I was hoping he might just write us off as a few of his girlfriends trekking through the palmettos. As we proceeded to the stand Nikki’s brother Rich headed off to a near by ground blind to sit out the afternoon and Nikki and I climbed up. During the spring and summer in Florida, you can barely hear yourself think in the stand it is so loud with bug noise, but this time of year, you can hear a pin drop. After almost two hours of almost dead silence and not much going on in the neighborhood, I noticed a squirrel on an Oak tree about 50 yards out. He was obviously not too happy and was barking his head off while looking straight down into the palmettos. I have come to learn, that here in Florida, squirrels tend to tolerate moving deer a lot more than they do elsewhere, so when you see a squirrel acting like this one, you can almost bet you have a hog or a bobcat close by. Since I had drag ragged pretty close to that spot on the way in with the sow in heat, I was putting my money on the hog. After barking for about 20 minutes into the same spot, the squirrel finally stopped. It didn’t sound like anything was coming any closer and we only had about 30 minutes of light left. At this point I decided that we should get down and begin back tracking the same line of scent we made on the way in. It’s usually against my better judgment to get down out of the stand at prime time, but if this old boar was taking his time coming down the scent trail, he may not show up until after dark and we needed to close the time gap. I called Rich on the radio and let him know the plan. After a brief meeting at the bottom of the stand we headed out. We didn’t get too far before I started to hear something in the palmettos to my left. After sitting tight for a couple of minutes it seemed to be nothing, so we continued down the trail. We only got about ten yards further before I heard the sound of trotting feet and crashing palmettos. Unlike a deer that blows out of cover with that initial crashing sound, you can sometimes hear a hog trot away from you with a thump, thump, thump sound made by his feet. I knew what we were into now and of course the daylight conditions were diminishing with every heartbeat. After a few more minutes of sitting tight and the realizing that we only had about 15 minutes of shooting light left, it was time to make a move. I told Rich to come up front with me and told Nikki to hang back and record with the camera from a safe distance. As we started to move towards the crashing and grunting, I happened to notice that we were only about 10 yards from that Oak that I had seen that squirrel in earlier. The intensity of the situation is now beginning to escalate. We were continuing to move towards the sounds he was making in the palmettos, but with cover this thick and losing light by the second, we can’t get a visual on him. With my adrenaline glands about to blow out of my body, I decide that the only way to get this old boar is to advance towards the sound with weapons shouldered and hope he exposes himself for a shot. It only took a few more steps and out from behind the palmetto came a huge black mass of head and shoulders. Instantly I heard a shot go off! He stepped right into the crosshairs of Rich’s shotgun. I instinctively let the slack out of my trigger when Rich’s shot went off and hit the boar with an almost instantaneous follow up shot. After being hit with a combination of over 4,000 ft. / lbs. of energy at 7 yards from two different magnum slugs, he didn’t even flinch. He did a 180 back into the palmettos and had come flying out the other side of them, right at us, “full charge”. This was no hog headed for cover, he was coming OUT OF COVER in a full on “death charge”. We were so close when we took the shot, he knew right where we were and with 2 shots coming from the same direction, he had an even better lock on us. As I tried to reload and break left, I saw Rich start to break right. All I could see was 4 feet of black hide barreling towards us. I yelled out to Rich and he spun around half way and let one more loose in the boars direction. It didn’t actually hit him, but it did shatter an old log in front of him and that was enough to break the charge. He then made an immediate 90 degree turn and crashed into some more palmettos. I heard the crash come to an abrupt stop and I assumed he was down, but we weren’t taking any chances with a hog like this. We made a big circle around the palmettos and approached him through an opening. We never took a bead off him at any time during the approach. By the time we got to him he had finally expired. Nikki, who was behind us filming had lost sight of us in the low light and heavy cover and could only hear the yelling and shooting. Although I would have liked to have gotten it all on film, given the current state of affairs, it was probably best that she stayed at a safe distance.
Now came the hard part. We were in complete darkness and now had to drag over 250 pounds of pork a ½ of mile back out to the buggy. After some quick pictures and a compass heading, we started back. We can only get so far into the woods with the buggy given the deep mud and water, so we had a long way to go. Once we get within 100 yards or so I can send Nikki to drive it back to us, but we had two swampy areas to cross before that. Once we got to those swampy areas, we began to sink deep down into the mud and water. The amount of force that we had to exert with our legs to pull him along was sinking us into the mud making it extremely difficult to gain any ground. After taking a rest for the 20th time I started to realize that we were now soaking wet in perspiration and our legs dripping in mud. It is now in the upper 40’s and the temperature is falling fast. Under these conditions things can get dangerous in a hurry. Although we were exhausted from pulling the beast over logs, saw grass, and mud, we had to maintain a good pace and get back to the buggy as fast as we could. It had been 2 hours since we shot him and we were finally within the distance where Nikki could drive the buggy to us. Since we always park it in an open field, it’s not too difficult to find if you just head towards the sky line. Rich and I sat down with the Boss and waited for the extraction. Within a few minutes I saw the headlights come on and Nikki started driving towards us. We were pretty easy to find since I had cracked one of my glow sticks I carry in my pack and we still had plenty of life left in the flashlights. I usually keep the glow sticks for emergencies, but it worked like a charm in this situation. Besides, given the combination of wet clothes and dropping temperatures I considered this to be somewhat of an emergency use. After trying to find one more burst of energy to get him on the back of the buggy, we eventually got him in and headed out. Cold and wet and a little weak, but excited none the less.
There is a certain satisfaction that comes from being out with the team, putting together all the pieces of the puzzle, overcoming the elements, and enjoying success. This success can even taste a little sweeter when you have beaten the beast at his own game and avoided the infamous “Death Charge”!
