By Steve Ballard II
It was damn hot, a typical Tennessee dog day, and where I was headed was the closest thing to a canyon the Volunteer State has to offer. I left the asphalt and entered the tree line along the path of a dry creek bed as the limbs swung together behind me. It was markedly darker in the ever-narrowing bottom as I marched a mile past an “old home place” loaded with yucca plants. Despite being surrounded by an ever-present blood-sucking cloud of mosquitoes, I paused briefly to enjoy the shade.
This is what I had been longing for since the end of turkey season. The sweltering August heat hung in the air and I was headed to check a feeder swinging over some of the most extensive feral hog rootings I’ve ever seen. I still get excited to have something to shoot at during the off season, no matter the blood tax to be paid. I must have something to break the monotony of the incessant multitudes of tourists slinging plastic bags and red solo cups out of their $150,000 ski boats while they scream at their wives and jackknife their trailers on the boat ramp. The modern family vacation.
I scouted this particular hollow after turkey season trying to learn the local deer movement when I happily sighted my first pig. I returned with modern conveniences like a cell camera and a programmable corn feeder after obtaining the appropriate permits from the TWRA, of course. The boys in green were all too eager to issue permission given the current feral pig epidemic facing the collective south. It wasn’t long before I had a total of 38 hogs visiting the bait on a daily basis, including daytime visits.
The wind was out of the southwest which was dominant and downright annoying since my only access was from that direction. I thought that if I hugged the toe of the eastern slope, I could avoid slinging scent over a portion of the drainage, which in retrospect might’ve actually worked. I crept closer towards the feeder through the multitude of spider webs that adorn shaded areas during this season as I crossed the winding creek bed for the final time. The ground beneath the feeder and camera was clean and devoid of everything but dirt.
I am of the mentality that one should never enter the woods without some sort of firearm no matter your endeavor and this instance was no different.
My mind was occupied trying to read sign and tracks at the feed site when a distant rustling from the ridge to the south caught my ear and instantly, I was overrun with piglets rushing to within arm’s reach of my crouched form. My ears felt like I had on headphones and they were cranked to 11. The hairs on my neck were standing straight up as a large sow barreled off the adjacent ridge finger and cleared a spring without checking up. Onwards she came towards the piglets and me. I shouldered the rifle, found the hog in the crosshairs, and fired. As the sow turned to flee, I could see blood pumping out of the left shoulder. The rest of the pigs vanished. As the adrenaline finally made its way to my fingers, I tried to text my buddy, Tyler, to let him know I had a pig down and I might need some help just before my phone went dead. Par for the course.
The blood trail was simple to follow and it wasn’t far to the carcass. By way of cutlery, I possessed only my pocket knife, a Bugout from Benchmade. Up until this point in time I was unimpressed with the knife but that changed. Between fighting the vampiric swarm and potential dehydration I worked my way through breaking the pig down, propping the quarters up to cool as they came off. When I finished, I chucked two of the quarters into a deep hole from the nearby spring, threw the back straps over my shoulders, and with the remaining two quarters in each hand, struck out for the truck.
As luck would have it, I had a cooler with two bags of ice in the bed of my truck. I was wringing wet by the time I popped out of the tree line where I saw Tyler and his brother making their way towards me. “Damn, I should’ve just told you to bring some beer.”
