Well, another update from Andrew’s exploits up in the Smoky Mountains National Park.  He’s been backcountry camping with another sharpshooter these last 2 weeks on the Appalachian Trail.  Sleeping and laying around camp during the day, hunting at night.  Last week, he killed a pair of giant tuskers!  One weighing in around 400 pounds and the small one at 360 or so!!!  On Wednesday night, he said the pigs were everywhere.  They got into several different groups throughout the night rooting on the wet soil from the day’s rain.  One of the pigs dropped practically ON the Appalachian Trail.  It took them quite a while to drag it off the main route.  Although, he already had quite a heavy pack for a week’s worth of camping, one head was salvaged with 3″+ cutters and Andrew is planning on getting that skull cleaned and bleached for display!  They added a couple other hogs throughout the week, but he was ecstatic about finding some true heavyweight hogs!

Added note, Thursday morning they woke up to a black bear in camp.  Not sure what attracted him, but he just kind of sniffed around, ate some grass that was growing nearby and wandered off back into the woods.  No harm, no foul!

Well, I’ve been chatting on the phone back and forth with my buddy Andrew Partin who is culling pig populations for the NPS in the NC mountains.  After several weeks of inactivity, hogs came out of the woodwork and Andrew and his partner were able to lay the smackdown 14 times last week.

One day, they were hiking a loop trail when Andrew spotted a sow along a stream bank late in the afternoon.  Carrying his 870 Express, he crept closer while his partner kept a bead on the pig with his 30-.06.  Eventually they switched weapons and discovered there were a bunch more pigs that just the one.  Seven to be exact.  I can’t remember the exact details, but Andrew’s first shot from the 30-.06 centered a big sow right between the eyes and then the 870 express took over.  And when I saw the 870 took over…it dominated the entire rest of the herd.  Complete eradication!!!  Another sow and a mess more of piglets/shoats.  Needless to say, mission complete for that afternoon!

Andrew said this week should produce some more piggies but he’s not holding his breath about the kind of action last week produced.  His total is up to 40…which leads all pig sharpshooting teams in the NP so far this year.  This weekend, he’s coming home to switch out his truck that is being worked on and hopefully we’ll be out bowfishing on Saturday.  Stay tuned for those pictures next weekend.

Well, Andrew has had a slow couple of weeks in the Smoky Mountains.  Not much fresh pig sign has been spotted lately and even fewer pigs have been seen.  One pig has become a personal nemesis of Andrew though.  He believes the same pig is using a certain hollow where a trap or two is located.  Several times now, the tusker has rooted within 20-25 yards of the trap, but he hasn’t made the fatal mistake yet.  Hmmm…sounds like he might have had a negative experience with traps before?!?!

Looking forward to this weekend though, Andrew is taking off a couple of days to come back to the Piedmont which means we’ll be doing some bowfishing…weather permitting.  As long as its not raining, I reckon we’ll be out there.

Well, I’ll follow through with my promise of a hog hunt diary from last week’s post about Andrew culling hogs for the National Parks Service.  When he came home from his summer internship in the Great Smoky Mountains, one of the things he kept saying was…”Dude, we’ve got to get on some hogs!”  At first, we were trying to get a spot where we could hunt them with archery equipment, but we soon learned that getting a shot at pigs during daylight hours where we had permission would be virtually impossible.  Andrew did the legwork of getting us permission and did an awesome job of networking!

We had permission from a sweet potato farmer whose fields were at least 1/2 mile from the creek bottom where the pigs were bedding.  A week’s worth of trail camera confirmed that the pigs were arriving about 2 hours after dark and leaving again a couple hours before dawn.  Time to devise a plan!

We set up a couple baitpiles and kept tabs on the pigs for another couple of weeks all the while scheming how we would ambush them.  We came up with a plan to hang two climbing treestands side-by-side and wait on the hogs to come in.  When they arrived, we would start a countdown before cutting on a couple of Ductaped flashlights with red cellophane filters.  Then we would initiate a 3-2-1 countdown to a buckshot shower!!! 

The first night we tried our plan, we got rained out…but 2 hours into our second attempt I was the first to hear the unmistakeable sounds of twigs snapping.  Then the muffled sounds of grunting and the occasional squeal could be heard.  Before we knew it, we were surrounded by wild hogs.  We have no way of knowing exactly how many there were, but I would guess somewhere around 10 hogs.  We reviewed the plan in whispers for the 1000th time and started the first countdown.  ‘Let their be light’, zoooommm….all the hogs take off except for 2.  Well, screw the second countdown, we’re shooting.  6 shotgun shells as fast as we could put the bead on pigs screaming across our 25 foot illuminated circle. 

Even though we had to abort mission plans a little prematurely, we both got our pigs.  I dropped a MONSTER sow with my first shot and then switched to throwing lead at other pigs at they cut through the light.  Andrew put a load behind the other stationary pig’s shoulder, put a finishing shot into my sow, then threw the last shell helter-skelter into the melee. 

Here is the end result.  Andrew poses with my 317 lb. sow and his 75 lb. pound young boar.  We butchered the smaller hog into quarters for a BBQ, but had an ex-Food Lion butcher process the sow for us.  Now we have a freezer full of sausage, pork chops, ‘Boston butts’, ribs, and more.  She is delicious!

I had my sow skull cleaned up by my taxidermist friend and I couldn’t be happier with the unique trophy!

Here’s a final picture of me posing with our version of “Hogzilla”

What is really cool is that we have a bunch of pics (35 mm, I haven’t scanned them onto a computer and I believe Andrew has the pictures) of the big sow raiding the sweet potato fields, even a really cool one of her with her mouth open and tusks easily visible!

Hint:  If you plan on conducting a night raid on local feral pigs, make sure you have contacted any surrounding neighbors to alert them of potential gunshots and contact the local game wardens to make them aware of what you are planning.  We covered our hides 100% and it worked out great!!!

So, just wanted to write a blurb about my old roommate (he got replaced by my wife…lol). Last summer, he was an intern with the Student Conservation Agency doing problem bear work in campgrounds at Cades Cove and similar places throughout the park. This involved using scare tactics to ‘haze’ problem black bears and darting and relocating bears caught in culvert traps around human activity. He also ran a series of baited traps for wild hogs later on in the summer. But he didn’t quite get enough of the little piggies.

He graduated from NC State in December 2007 and took a seasonal 6 month job with the National Parks Service in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park doing wild hog control full-time. He was trained in weapons proficiency and is now a full-time hog slaying machine. He has used 12 guage shotguns, AR-15s, and .357 revolvers to kill almost 25 pigs so far in his first 2 months. In fact, he is outpacing all of the other hog control teams throughout the national park. Props to my hardcore brother! His typical day consists of either running baited traps on long loop trails and dispatching caught hogs along the way or conducting night hunts using his infrared night vision equipment and shooting any hogs he can find hiking or driving.

The picture at the top of the post is the result of a hunt that he and I went on in October this year. Yes, I did kill the biggest hog, but he connected on a running shot on the smaller squealer in the foreground. Stay tuned for Monday’s post about our first hog hunt ever.

Anyways, I will try to insert an update every once in while about his hog hunting progress. Thanks Andrew for checking out The Outdoor Smorgasbord in your free time and I’m looking forward to some late March bowfishing!!