Hogatha Beast, Dec. 2006
Being from Oregon, hunting in a box blind was a little out of my element. Jonathan was losing his patience with my lack of it. Needless to say, I do not do well when I have to sit for countless hours waiting for the hogs to come to me. After 5 days of deer and hog hunting, lots of luck on the deer, not so much luck on the hogs, I was really beginning to wonder if it was going to happen for me on my trip to East Texas.
Longview, was our third stop on a trip that covered more of Texas than I ever want to see again. However, after striking out in Wimberley and Palestine, Jonathan promised me Longview would come through for us. We arrived to thundering showers, followed by lightning and buckets of rain. Did I forget to mention NO sign of hogs? The feeders hadn’t been touched for over a week; there was enough corn on the ground to raise a market steer for the county fair. We sat through the rain and thunder for 2 days. Not even a sign of those plentiful creatures. The weather finally broke on the third day, the last day we had to hunt before I had to go back to Oregon. As the sun finally broke through the clouds it was nearly gone in the sunset when we heard crashing in the brush. Jonathan whispered one word “hogs”. In a matter of a few moments they came out single file, first a bunch of piglets followed by adults, one after another. My heart began to race, I was ready to shoot the first pig that stepped out, Jonathan told me to relax, they weren’t going anywhere till that corn was gone. With light slipping fast, I was running out of the little amount of patience I had, I wanted a boar, so I finally found a big red boar, Jonathan said to take him. As I flipped the safety off, we heard more crashing, a snort from the brush and all the pigs were gone! My expression was “WTF”. Jonathan said “Just wait, they will be back”, seconds later he was right, a monster of a black hog walked out! We immediately named it Hogatha Beast. The others slowly came into view, not getting too close too this over aggressive eater. It would run each pig off as it got close. Jonathan and I both knew which one I was going to shoot then. I asked if he was ready, he once again said “take him”. I shot and the monster hog dropped in its tracks! Jonathan quickly said we needed to get the hog and get out of there before the others came back. We snapped a few pictures and quickly loaded the biggest pig ever taken at the ranch. As we field dressed the hog we decided to weigh it. The shoulders were still on the ground when the cable broke and the hog came crashing down, breaking the cable rated to 330 lbs. Our best educated guess was 350+lbs. Jonathan and I have both loaded plenty of deer and elk, this hog was a true Beast. Not too shabby considering after all was said and done it turned out to be a big dry sow. I would like to thank Lilly Creek Outfitters for an amazing hunt; I challenge anyone who books a hunt with Jonathan to break the record I have set. The first person to do so will get a bottle of Jack Daniels, courtesy of yours truly.
Greg Schmidlin
Cornelius, Oregon
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