They call it hunting for a reason...

Well, 2nd time out to the land without bringing anything home. My brother-in-law and 2 of their boys met me out there and we hunted Friday night and Saturday morning but didn't connect on anything. We saw about a dozen pigs on Friday night but they were nearly 1/2 mile away and it was only 10 minutes before dark so we didn't go after them. Saturday morning we saw a nice 2 1/2 year old 8 pointer but I asked him to pass on him so he could grow another year.

We set out some raccoon traps Friday night and didn't do very well on that either. With 9 traps out in 3 sets of 3 we only connected in one location and ended up with 1 raccoon and 1 skunk there.

I got some more trail camera pictures of a bobcat and I think this one is different due to it's coloration.

Talked with the neighbors who were there hunting and they showed me a nice buck that they had shot earlier in the week and once I checked my trail camera pictures I realized that I had gotten a picture of the same buck last week on one of my trail camera pictures.

At one of my corn feeders I have it setup where I can run a light on the feeder and it is legal in Texas to shot pigs even after dark. Several weeks ago some pigs came in after dark and I shot at a large dark pig in the background of the feeder, but after investigation there was no dead pig and could not even find any blood on the ground. The pig was quartering to me but I was shooting my 7mm Rem Mag with 175gr soft points and didn't figure that the angle would matter much. I checked again the next day and couldn't see any signs that I had hit anything. When I was looking for the blood at night I noticed that I cast a very distinct shadow in the light and thinking it through, I thought must have shot at a shadow, now I'm not so sure.

I recently got some interesting pictures of a large pig that has a broken right shoulder. I had some pictures of this pig last time I was there and didn't realize that the right shoulder was broken at the time, but this time I had several pictures of him and there is no doubt that he is not putting any weight on that right leg. He is hanging out with a very similar group of pigs to the ones that I saw at the feeder the night that I thought I shot at the largest of them which he would have been. I had shot 3 coyotes as far as 256 yards away that weekend as well as a nice deer so I was pretty confident in my shooting skills at the time and was having a hard time thinking that I could have missed. Now I'm thinking that I very well could have shot this pig and not killed him as he started showing up with the injured leg on camera just a few days after I thought I had shot the shadow. I doubt I will be able to prove anything conclusively unless I ground check him and recover the bullet. Not sure one way or the other, but he seems like he must be getting along reasonably well on 3 legs. I have several pictures of him over the last two weeks and he is hanging out with the same group of pigs each time.

Here's a picture of him the very next night:

Not sure when the next time I'll get back down there to do any hunting or trapping. I really want to give it a try at trapping one of those bobcats, and even though I shot 3 coyotes a few weeks ago from the sounds of them howling and yipping at night there are still a dozen or more of them in the area. I would like to trap a few of them as well.

Well, that's about it for now. Nathan