Fl Hog Hunting

Hunter or Hunted?

When I was about 12 years old my brother and I found out firsthand about the hidden dangers of hunting, wild hogs and raw fear. We grew up hunting and fishing and lived about 100 yards from a railroad track that we would walk for about two miles north until we reached the first of four stands of woods. At that time in our lives we were only allowed to hunt with our Benjamin Pellet guns. That is because we had not graduated to a rifle or shotgun yet. Little did we know that we would absolutely need them later in the day. As we got to the first stand of woods we went about our day of hunting shooting squirrels and dove. We got a few squirrels in the bag and decided we would go to the second stand which was about a mile or so from where we were and on the other side of a corn field. So we made the track over. We did not know what was about to happen and that it would change the way we thought about hunting forever. Just as we could see the woods and just beyond the corn field we he heard a lot of loud grunting and snorting. All the sudden it sounded like a train coming through the field. We could see corn stalks bending and breaking about forty or so yards from us. As the crazy sounding noises got closer they got louder and louder. When the noises broke through the corn field we could see a bunch of blood thirsty hogs barreling down on us. We turned back into the woods and my older brother Bobby yelled out at me to climb up the closest tree as fast as I could. I did not hesitate to do so. All the sudden we found ourselves up a tree and surrounded by a bunch of Boars, Sows and Piglets. They were clawing, scratching, grunting, snorting and looking at us up in the trees like we were going to be their next meal. So we started popping them with pellets. That just made them madder. We really thought we were doomed. The pellet guns had little or no effect even with us trying to get eye shots at them. They stayed there under us for several hours. By now it was starting to get dark and we really did not know what to do at this point. Then out of the blue I guess they got distracted by something or just gave up on and left. We got the heck out of Dodge and scooted back to house as fast as we could. After that incident we had a new found respect for hogs. When we got home at dark our parents were pissed until we explained what had taken place. Our dad went and got us both 410 shotguns and taught us how you properly use them. We never hunted those woods again without a shotgun.