Loggy, as you requested here's the original post and to think it was you who originally requested that I confess all and post it! :lol:
OK, OK, Loggy here?s the whole story on my very first Pig hunt during the first White Supporter?s Hunt. It was very hard for me to write this, but I feel a lot better now that I got it off my chest. Kinda like going to confession!
Before the hunt I made plans with this woman taxidermist in my area that is known for her taxidermist skills. She agreed she would mount my head which was still a couple of months away.
Anyway the day came for the hunt and everybody showed up on time but Randy due to last minute things he had to take care of, plus it was raining extremely hard while Randy was driving. Yet where we were it was nice and sunny. I wasn?t going to go out the first day as I had plans to tag along the first afternoon and see the lay of the land and Randy said he would video tape my hunt.
So I decided to stay behind and talk to Doc while the others went out. Doc was busy getting his gear in order and making up some quick loads when he asked aren?t you going hunting. I said Ill go tomorrow. He suggested that I go today as it is suppose to rain very hard all day Saturday and if I didn?t go it wouldn?t give me much time to hunt on Sunday. Especially being I would have to leave early as I had a 10hr car ride home and I had to get to work the next day.
Well after hearing what Doc said about the weather I decided to get dressed and get my gear. Doc waited for me and we hunted together. We walked about 15 minutes and I spotted a nice hog. While we were looking it over it sensed something and trotted away. Doc suggested we stalk it as he felt it just went around the bend a little ways. So we walked about 100 yds and came over the crest of the hill and the hog was there looking right at us. We decided to back off and try to get around to the side of him. We went another 75 yds or so and as we were coming over the top of the hill I heard a bunch of hogs a short distance away. I instructed Doc to get ready and take the shot but he would have nothing of it and told me it was my hog. Well as it turned out we ran into another bunch of hogs and it had a real big boy with them. As I crouched and got ready, they started working their way to me. The big pig started walking and weaving amongst the other pigs and I couldn?t get a clear shot. Well when he did present me a shot he was about 15-20 yds away and I was a little nervous about taking the shot as I didn?t know what to expect as I never hunted hogs before. Besides that he looked pretty big and mean and there were NO TREES around to climb
Well I heard so much about the armor plates on the pigs and how tough there were and how you had to aim behind the shoulder etc. So I aimed behind the shoulder and probably aimed a little too far back especially after seeing the diagram that I believe Loggy posted on another forum. At the shot the pig was knocked off its feet and laid there for a second or two and then got up and ran off for a few yds. And fell down. Meanwhile I could hear Doc behind me saying reload, reload. It only too me about 30 seconds to reload, but it felt more like an hour. As the pig laid there I started to walk up to it when it got up faced me and started snapping or grinding its teeth. I immediately raised my rifle and as I did so the pig started to trot away when I sent another 45cal 475gr Whitworth conical on its way anchoring the pig for keeps.
To say my heart was beating fast and I was pumped is an understatement. While I was excited to have harvested such a nice big hog, I was a little disappointed as my hunt was over in 45 minutes. But I felt honored to have Doc hunting beside me. I don?t know how many of you have actually met or personally talked to Doc, but the man is one hell of a sweet gentle guy, he?s a real gentlemen.
So after some picture taking and congratulations my hunt was over. I wished Randy was there as we originally planned on him filming my hunt. It would have made a great video for sure.
Not to go into the whole hunt but as you all know we all harvested our hogs.
When it came time to go home, I went to where they kept the hogs to find out my hog had a couple of hogs on top of him. At first I didn?t think much of it. They loaded the hog in back of my van and I drove a couple of miles to the local gas station where they sold Ice and I bough 4 bags and stuffed the chest cavity and between the legs with two of them. The other two I laid on top of the pig?s chest cavity and rump and covered him up with the plastic tarps.
I stopped on my 10 hr trip home a couple of times to make sure the Ice was still positioned where I wanted them to be and found that they were. The next day I took my pig to my butcher where the butcher?s assistant hung the pig and put him in their cooler.
The following day I got the phone call from the butcher and received the bad news. First off, the pig was shot a long time ago with an arrow, plus it looked like someone shot the pig with either buckshot or a small caliber rifle a few times, not to mention the scars he had from fighting with other boars and to top it all off, the front half of the hog was spoiled as it wasn?t hung and cooled properly. Then I thought back as they had to remove a couple of pigs off my hog and I guess their body temperature caused my pig to spoil . So to make a long story short, I lost half of my meat.
I thought of complaining, but I felt it was my word against his and he would probably say keeping the pig in the car for the 10 hr drive home is what caused the pig to go bad even though I had ice on top as well as inside the chest cavity.
Anyway, I said OK at least the cape is still good; let me bring it over to the taxidermist. When I got there she informed me she wouldn?t do it even though she said she would, as she has become very busy with Caribou heads that people have brought to her, and she really doesn?t like doing pigs as they are greasy and dirty.
So I took the pig home and wrapped it up and placed it in my freezer that I have in my basement. It took me awhile to find another taxidermist but eventually I did. Unfortunately he died while deer hunting on opening day shortly after I gave it to him. So I had to wait awhile as I didn?t want to bother his wife right away to get my pigs head back. After a few more months I found another taxidermist who was glad to do the job. Right now I expect to get my mount back in a couple more months.
You would have thought the story would end here, but it doesn?t. While at this new taxidermist I mentioned that I wanted to do a European mount done on the pigs hunt. He mentioned it would cost me $150 for him to do it, but said if I didn?t mind a little mess, I could do it myself and to come back next week to pick up the skull and he would give me the chemicals to do it. So being the type of guy who likes to save some money, I said sure!!
Well I took the frozen head home and placed it in the shed. It was wrapped in plastic bags and I left it out there to defrost and figured I would get to it the next day or two. Well as it turned out, I couldn?t get to it until the following WEEKEND. The head was definitely defrosted by then and to say it was RIPE is an understatement. GOD was it RIPE!!! Thank god I don?t have much sense of smell, but when I opened the door a bird was passing by over head and died in mid air.
I put on some rubber gloves, setup a work table in the backyard as there was no way my wife was going to let me do this in the house. Now mind you the skin was already off. All I had to do was to remove as much meat as possible including the tongue. Everything was going fine until the knife started to get dull. Being I was almost done, I was too lazy to stop and go sharpen the knife. So as I?m having difficulty in trimming the last few pieces of meat off, the tip of the knife poke the side of my thumb. It didn?t feel like it broke skin, so I continued for another half hour to finish the job.
When the job was done, I place the head in the pot of boiling water that was boiling on my Coleman Camp Stove and then started cleaning up. When I got done I removed my gloves and noticed my thumb was covered in blood and was only then I realized the tip of the knife actually broke skin. I immediately washed my hands with soap and water and dipped my thumb in peroxide, dried it and covered it up with a band-aid. I said to myself OK, so you cut yourself no big deal, you?ve cut yourself before, but this time you actually washed your hands and used Peroxide so you should be OK. Right!! Wrong!! That night my thumb started to swell a little and I said no big deal, must be a little infection, it?ll be better in the morning. I mean we?ve all had cuts that got a little infected right, so why should this one be any different. Well the next day I went to work and my thumb started to turn a little red. I said to myself hmmm the infection got a little worse, oh well it?ll get better. That night when I got home the red was getting darker and I showed it to my wife and mentioned do you think we should go to the emergency room. She looked at it and said no, but I would call the doctor in the morning. When I got to work the next day I immediately called the doctor as the thumb was now starting to turn black. He told me he would squeeze me in at the end of the day. Well when I got there he took one look and immediately called his friend who was a surgeon to meet me right away in the hospital which was only across the street. The surgeon took one look at it and asked if I saw any puss. I said no and then he rolled up my sleeve to see if there were any red lines up my arm. He said I was lucky and the infection is contained in my thumb. I asked him how bad was it, he said, well son we?ll know by tomorrow if we are going to amputate your thumb. Well to say the least you could have knocked me over with a feather. I was in shock. I couldn?t believe my ears that I could loose my thumb over a little cut.
Well like I said they gave me some kind of Super Antibiotics and by the next day you could see a slight improvement in my thumb. WHEW!! I saw the doctor the next day and he gave me some more antibiotics to take and mentioned that I was an extremely lucky fellow and had I waited one more day, he would have been amputating my thumb for sure.
Well after my Insurance company paid for the medical expenses, my total outlay for medical treatment was $250. And to think I did this to save $150.
So here we are a year later, my thumb has recovered, and it is slightly enlarged where the cut is. I?m told its from some form of scar tissue but its hardly noticeable until you were to hold the two up side by side and I?m still waiting on my boars head.
Like I said I expect to get it in a couple of months, but with my luck I?ll probably get a call from the taxidermist saying his shop burnt down and he was able to save all of the heads inside but mine!!
Hey, they don?t call me ?Lucky Eddie for Nothing?!!
Stayed Tuned for the next chapter "IT ONLY GETS BETTER"!!
Well the couple of months took a couple of years almost to the day, but I think it was worth the wait. I think??
