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No matches found.PIG TALES: Even with a homemade spear, Destin hunters go whole hog
Here are some recollections from a recent hog hunt from Destin’s Jeff Chesser, of Harbor Diesel.
“I shot the pig right at dark. Not a pig, it was a hog and it weighed right at 260-270 something.
I went to get my gear to drag the hog with. I had put my rifle up because he was laying out flat. I thought he was dead.
So I went down there and he had gotten up and he was mad. He looked like one of those wrestlers that had blood all over the side of his head, he was stumbling around and wasn’t making a big deal out of it.
All I had was my little pocket pistol. I shot him and he took off into the swamp. Uh-oh he’s going to get away, I thought, so he ran down into the swamp and I went in there after him.
I had a spear I had made out of a bayonet and a hoe handle. So I got down there and when I got down by the little creek, he decided to stand his ground. In other words he came after me. I stuck him with that spear two or three times and it didn’t do anything but just make him mad. You’ve got to get them in the vitals.
Once they get over 200 or 300 pounds they get a hard shield under their hide. They are hard to stab. You’ve got to stab them behind the shoulder and they don’t allow that very much. A lot of these guys that do that hunt with dogs and the dogs hold them down.
I stuck him two or three times and he charged me. In that process he bent my bayonet. He came after me and tried to bite my knee and I shot three times – used the rest of my bullets – so I’m in the swamp with no bullets and a bent spear.
And the hog is not scared of me – if anything he’s got an attitude.
The only way I can get this hog – because I’m not giving up and I’m not going home without him — I said I’m going to have to bend the knife back straight. I bent it back straight and I got on top of him and got him penned down where I got the spear through both eyes. He was still alive – he was trying to get me. But it dawned on me that if I had the spear through his eyes he couldn’t see me. So I’m going to pull it out and get him behind the shoulder – that’s when I got him.”
One might say Destin’s Jeff Chesser is pigheaded about pigs.
“They’ve labeled me the pig guy,” said Chesser, who’s been hunting pigs for about two years. “But I’m the pig guy because I’m persistent. I don’t want them to beat me. And I’m going to continue until we figure them out.”
Chesser along with his buddy Corky Decker hunt hogs in DeFuniak Springs and on a private lease in Mossy Head.
“We bait them on private land with corn,” Decker said. “Corn is king for hogs.”
There are a couple of methods for baiting hogs, some use feeders, but Chesser and Decker bury the corn – four-feet in the ground with post hole diggers.
“When you bury it, they dig it up. I guess it’s more fun for them,” Decker said.
“They’d rather have it like that, than if you poured it out,” Chesser said. “It’s more about them digging.”
Chesser said it’s kind of like a dog with a bone. “There could be four bones just laying there, but the one that is buried is the one the dog is going to go for.”
Chesser says pigs like the swampy areas.
“They are going to be near water … and they’ll go wherever they have to to find feed,” Chesser said.
A pig has a wide range as to where he’ll go to look for food.
“They’ll go 20 miles or whatever,” Chesser said. “They learn where everything is at. They know in the springtime that the acorns are here and they’ll move in and wipe the acorns out ahead of the deer.
“They learn how to work different areas,” he said.
Chesser says the pigs can be smart.
“I’ve spent twice as much time hunting hog as I have deer, and I’ve got half as may hogs as I have deer,” Chesser said. “Deer hunting is hard and they’re smart, but hogs are smarter, especially the bigger ones. The big ones are hard to kill. They are smart enough to hide.”
The duo baits the pigs and then monitors them via a video camera.
“The camera helps … we start getting a pattern as to when they come in,” Chesser said. “They start coming in right at dark.”
Thus Chesser and Decker try to be in their stands about two hours before dark.
And the best days are rainy days.
“If it rains it will push them up out of the creeks and stuff,” Chesser said.
Chesser said one of the best days they’ve had pig hunting there was a tornado warning.
“The tornado had just missed us … but that afternoon they came out grunting and snorting all around,” he said.
Chesser likes to use a 22 or 17 caliber or archery equipment to nail the hog.
“I think you’re better off to shoot them with a small caliber …,” he said.
Last year, Chesser shot nine hogs, with the biggest being around 260 to 270 pounds. He also had a couple at 160. “Everything was over 100 pounds,” he said.
To get a good shot on a pig, Chesser says he likes to be within 100 yards or 40 yards with a cross bow.
“One hundred and fifty would be the max with a small caliber, but 80 to 100 yards is perfect. You’re far enough away that they don’t smell you and they’ll come out.”
Decker says a pig’s sense of smell is more keen than a deer.
“Smelling and hearing are there two big senses, but they can’t see worth a darn,” Decker added.
“Deer are curious. A deer will stop and look if he hears something. But a pig if he hears something, he doesn’t care. He’s gone,” Chesser said.
“And once you kill on in the area, you’re done,” Decker said. “Once we kill a hog out of a stand, they won’t come back to it. They might never come back or it might be two or three weeks.”
“They get offended real easy,” Chesser said. “… they can smell the death.”
Chesser loves the challenge of pig hunting.
“I definitely have a passion for it,” he said. “I do have a sense of accomplishment when you conquer something that is smarter than the average hunter.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Chesser said. “The part I like is you tackle something that’s as big or bigger than you … that could have hurt you. And they’re smarter. There is still a lot of unknown about them.”
The two are planning to hunt a couple of times a week throughout the month of February.
“This weekend is the last of deer, and ducks are done, so we’ll be focusing on the hogs,” Chesser said. “February will be a good time.”
Hog season is open year round in Florida.
“They are absolutely incredible table fare,” Decker said. “We grind them up and make hamburger meat and use it in all kind of sauces. It’s beautiful.”
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