Hunter-Gatherer.

The title of this post may have given this away…..but I did end up hunting and killing a wild boar this past weekend.  It was an incredible experience unlike anything I’ve ever done. Incredible doesn’t necessarily mean “good” or “bad”. Just something I’ll never forget. I’ll start from the beginning…

We got there Saturday and went out around 4 to a blind (which is basically a tall structure where people hide from the animals. It also gives you a better visual of the surrounding area). The wild boars in that area apparently come out to eat when it gets dark and early in the morning before sunlight.

We didn’t see any boars Saturday night. But we did see a bunch of deer! We even saw a deer chasing away a bobcat which was pretty cool. We’re assuming she had some babies to protect. We headed home around 8 to eat some dinner. After dinner, we decided to head out one more time in case the hogs were there. They weren’t.

The next morning we woke up super early, about 5:30, and headed back out. It was pitch black outside and we had 1 flashlight. It’s weird how vulnerable you feel in an unfamiliar territory…especially when you can’t see anything.

We rolled up slowly and quietly to the blind and heard grunts! There were hogs there! The issue was, of course, we couldn’t see anything without the flashlight. We tried our best to be sneaky, but had to turn the flashlight on. Once we did that, they were out of there.  So, technically nothing happened that morning….but it was still exciting/scary when we heard those hogs grunting. The “hunting” part of hunting-quietly sneaking up on an animal- is pretty fun actually even if it doesn’t lead to anything else.

We had one more night ahead of us. We made some dinner to pack for the trip….the dinner of champions: macaroni and cheese with hotdogs (this town was extremely small…so we found our dinner at the gas station).

Finally, we were ready to go. We went to a different blind around 5 and waited. First, three deer rolled up and were just chowin’ down on some food. They’re so pretty to watch but we noticed they looked startled a couple times……finally, the reason became apparent. A big boar came strolling down the hill towards their food. They immediately backed away from him. He stood there eating for about 40 minutes.

So, this was my chance. During that entire 40 minutes I basically had an emotional breakdown. I was completely torn between doing this or not. I held the rifle up the whole time but was clearly stressed out. I was shaking from being nervous and at one point cried. Looking back, I think it was the most stressed out I’ve ever been. I was completely overwhelmed with emotion.

Finally, I pulled the trigger. It was a clean shot, most likely killing him instantly.

I’m not sure if I’d do it again, there’s definitely a possibility. My hand was so sore after from holding a death grip on the gun. It was very emotional for me.

But, we took basically all the meat home with us. This boar lived a great life on a huge ranch. Much better than any commercial pig. I’ll spare some details of the night along with pictures. If you’re interested in seeing pictures, you can check out my husband and I’s blog.

I still can’t believe I did it. It’s probably too early to tell if I feel good or bad about it. Either way, I’m grateful for the experience.