Hunting with Hogstickers

Feral hogs are much more likely to be active at night when it's cooler out, so Hogstickers hunts usually begin a little before sundown, just as the temperature is beginning to drop. (During the day, hogs can be a little harder to find, especially if the heat makes their scent hard for the dogs to track.) We arrive at our hunting site with 10 or 15 dogs in their cages on the back of our truck, having brought with us all the food, water, and other drinks we'll be likely to need for the next 12 to 15 hours -- a good idea, since we're likely to be hunting at least 20 minutes, if not much, much farther, from any town.

After introductions, we run through the schedule, go over some basic rules about hunting feral hogs, and make sure everyone has the right equipment, especially flashlights and knives. Then we split up into trucks, ATVs, and/or golf cart-like "mules," with each client matched up with a specific guide. (This is for safety in the dark; it can be very, very dark.) Right before we leave, we RELEASE THE HOUNDS -- meaning we let the tracking dogs out of their cages. We'll spend the next several hours trying to keep up with them.

Using our ears and GPS units that show where the tracking dogs are, we wait for a hog's scent to get picked up. Once they have a scent, the hounds will signal with their barking; when the barks reach a certain pitch and the GPS shows the dogs chasing something together, the real action starts: We release the "catch dogs" -- two or three pit bulls -- and grab our flashlights, taking off into the brush right after them as fast as we can go. These catch dogs will make a beeline for the sound of the trackers, and once they catch up to the hog that's being tracked or cornered, they will lunge straight for the ears and face of the hog while trying to avoid being bitten or gored by its tusks, if it has them.

Even though it may be pitch-black out, it isn't hard to tell where to run: The combined noise of the barking hounds, the growling pit bulls, and the grunting hog is so loud that it can be heard from a long distance. Getting to the scene of the struggle is its own part of the excitement, as most of rural South Texas is covered with scrubby brush, low trees, and ground cover such as thornbushes and prickly pear cactus. The growth is rarely so dense that it can't be passed through, but there are many low branches and sharp points to avoid. Sometimes we have to circle back in a hurry to find an easier path or get down on our hands and knees (or even stomachs) for a second to get through.

If the hog hasn't managed to break away, we'll find it struggling to free its head from the vice-like mouths of two or three pit bulls when we catch up to it. This is the climax of the hunt: With the dogs distracting the hog, we grab its back legs to further immobilize it, and someone -- preferably a client -- points a knife-blade into the hog's underbelly and shoves it in, aiming for the heart. Immediately, the hog collapses, the dogs are pulled away, cameras are pulled out, and discussions begin over what bits of the hog to try to take back for trophies. (Tusks get saved, heads get mounted, hides get made into boots, etc. Clients are advised to settle these matters among themselves beforehand.) At this point, hog's blood is all over boots and jeans and knives and flashlights, but nobody cares -- everybody's heart is beating a mile a minute, and we're all only now catching our breath. Finally, we make our way back to the vehicles to get a drink or a bite to eat and patch up any dogs that need it.

And we wait, knives strapped at our sides, for the tracking dogs' telltale barking in the distance yet again.