Feral Hogs

An unwritten rule of the outdoors (mainly if you're a hunter) is any time you go out to scout the scene for wildlife and you take a gun with you, you likely won't see a darn thing.

But, if you leave your guns at home like the Johnny Cash song tells you to do, then you will see every wild animal, Sasquatch and exotic bird in North America. It never fails.

A group of us were in Rotan last weekend and decided to scope the countryside for species of the feral existence. We opted to leave the weaponry at home.

The result? We saw a whole pack of feral hogs, three decent bucks, a passel of does, a yeti and Elvis. Unfortunately, I only got a picture of the hogs.

While we were driving along a field that had been planted in winter wheat, I noticed a black animal below us. I thought it was an Angus cow, so I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to appear too jumpy since I was the only female in the truck. Turned out it was a stinkin' huge black wild hog.

We scurried out of the truck and I tried to take a few shots (I didn't have the appropriate camera gear, of course) and the darn things bolted out of a bush right at us. There were at least six in that group, and several others, including the large, beastly one, ran off in the other direction.


By the way, for those of you who have never seen or been where feral hogs have been, they stink. They stink really bad. Plus, they leave their nasty smell behind for you to enjoy.

These last two pictures don't really have anything to do with the hogs.