ATVs Make Great Hunters
Posted on May 13th 2015
My buddies and I are teachers, so we get the summers off. We are also all avid hunters. Hunting deer around Pennsylvania is okay, but you can only do it in Winter. We wanted to have a wild adventure in the hottest season of the year. We also wanted to put together a safari of sorts, hitting a lot of the places we had only dreamed about. Using an ATV in the woods is all right, but they tend to scare off the deer that are already scarce. We decided to go where we could drive in deep and park our buggies for a while.
Looking at the map, we decided that we would start off in wild boar country in Texas. We had heard about how many there were, and how you could bag as many as you want. With one adult boar weighing over 500 pounds, we decided that one would be enough. We looked up a reserve in the scrub country of Texas, and we were off. I made sure that they allowed ATVs. I told them that we were going to ride in and camp, and we needed something to carry our beast out with. The land owner said that all-terrain vehicles were fine by him.
So, we loaded up the truck with the trailer, and we hauled all four ATVs across country. It took a couple of days of driving, but we had a blast. Pulling up on the property, all we saw were bushes and dust for as far as the eye could see. The owner showed us the rooting signs of the boar, and pointed in a general direction. He told us to ride for at least an hour before we set up camp. I asked him if spotlighting at night was legal, and he just laughed. He said any way that you can kill a wild boar is all right by the State of Texas.
We watered up, loaded up, and set off. With our goggles and our bandanas to fight the sand, we looked like commandos on a raid. We pulled up before sunset and pitched our tents next to some high gorse. We were in hog heaven, literally. As the sun went down and the stars came out, we had to go without a fire for fear of scaring off our prey. We sat silently with our loaded guns and stared at one another listening for any sound at all. Hours passed.
Suddenly, we heard some weird snorting. I had looked up a video on Youtube, so I knew what to keep an ear out for. I signaled to my buddies, and we stood up slowly and quietly. We snuck around the bush where we had laid out apples for bait, and man, were we surprised. There was a pack of the biggest, furriest creatures that I had ever seen. They were bigger than black bears! I have to admit, I was a bit scared.
We had laid the food downwind from us, so the boars never heard us or smelled us. We carefully raised our rifles and took aim. We knew that three would be too many to field dress and bring back with us; but we weren’t going to all execute the same animal, either. So, on the silent count of three, we all pulled the trigger. It must have been about ten of them that took off faster than deer, leaving the dead ones behind. We counted the carcasses: Three big beauties. Elation soon turned to determination, as we set about the work cut out for us. Those were not easy pigs to dissect; but we did our best. We probably got about a hundred pounds of choice cuts, and left the rest. That’s all right. I hear that they eat their own anyway.
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