“Hush and listen,” Thomas Jones told me. “I think I hear the dogs chasing a wild hog on the other side of the swamp.” As my ears strained to listen through the hum of mosquitoes my insect repellant was holding at bay, through the still dark night, I could hear some high-pitched yapping of feist dogs, the mournful bawls of a plott hound and the chop-mouth yapping of an English hound. “They’ve got him bayed,” Thomas said in a plain, clear voice. “We can drive around the swamps and get on the same side of the water as the dogs. Now, this hog could very well be in water, so you may get your feet and maybe even your knees. But this surely will be a good adventure. I believe this is a big hog.”
Hunting hogs after dark is thrilling anytime and anywhere, but hunting hogs in a swamp in the South with macabre Spanish moss hanging off the trees, possible water moccasins in the water and copperheads and rattlesnakes on the banks add a special twist of excitement to muzzleloader hunting for hogs from now until deer season starts in the fall. You can go to Texas and hunt hogs at night on dry ground with spotlights, but the opportunity of listening to large dogs barking and baying in pursuit of feral pigs that have been in this country since the early explorers first turned them loose adds something special to a summertime hog hunt. “We recommend you wear Red Tag Levi jackets and blue jeans, as well as boots you don’t mind getting wet and take a couple of bottled waters with you when you’re be hunting hogs in the swamp at night,” Joe Bostick of Bostick Plantation in South Carolina once told me.
The trick to taking a hog with black powder at night is to hold your shot until the dogs are clear of the hog. Make sure you either can center the hog’s chest or place your bullet behind the hog’s front shoulder, so the bullet travels forward to reach the hog’s vitals. Expect the hog to be in thick cover or water when the dogs bay him. You need to decide before the hunt whether you’ll try to take a trophy or a meat hog. A trophy hog will have long tusks and weigh over 200 pounds. A meat hog will weigh 150 pounds or less, and you’ll generally want to take a sow for the most-tender, delicious meat. You can hunt hogs at night or in the daytime with black powder and dogs from now until the beginning of deer season in many southern states. Also, in northern states, where hogs are damaging farmer’s crops, you may be able to get a crop-depredation permit to hunt hogs.
Hogs have been targets for muzzleloader hunters from the days of the early explorers and settlers. Feral hogs fed the early settlers, and before the fence laws were enacted, most livestock was allowed to roam free, including hogs. Using dogs to find, catch and hold the hogs is an old form of hunting. Feral hogs are delicious to eat and can provide a very-impressive trophy, if you take a big, old boar. However, if you’ll be hog-hunting at night or during the daylight hours, I suggest you take more than one blackpowder rifle or have a conventional rifle or a pistol with you as a backup. A wounded wild hog can be extremely dangerous. However, your insurance policy is a pit bull, commonly referred to as a catch dog, with more courage than brains. When released, this pit bull’s mission is to jump on the hog’s head, jowls or ears and not turn loose until the hog goes down. I’ve seen good catch dogs throw a hog that weighs 200 to 300 pounds.
If you’re tired of sitting around the house looking at your CVA muzzleloader rifle on the wall and dreaming of going hunting, then consider hunting hogs. You can hunt hogs in the daytime from a tree stand or with dogs in the daytime or at night, depending on how much adventure you really want to have in your hunt this summer. If you’ve never hunted hogs with dogs at night, I guarantee you’ll have an adventure of a lifetime and learn more about a sport that’s very conducive to blackpowder hunting. And, if you’re successful, you can have your hog processed and go home with a cooler full of meat to feed your family. You can have one of the best hog hunts at this time of year at Lifetime Hunts with Terry Knight in Mississippi.
To hunt with Knight, call (662) 361-1008, visit www.lifetimehuntsllc.com, or email lifetimehunt@tecinfo.com. When you’re not hog hunting at Lifetime Hunts, there are plenty of ponds there stocked with bass, bream and crappie.
Scott Olmstead, Editor in Chief of American Hunter magazine, presented the award, stating that once the NRA staff began the testing of the gun and had “picked it up, and pointed it, then shot it – and finally hunted with it – we realized that CVA created something that is more than the mere sum of its parts. With its straight buttstock and trim, rubberized fore-end, it points more like a Ruger No. 1 rather than a clunky single-shot of old.” He concluded by stating that “the APEX is versatile, functional, accurate and affordable, but to fully appreciate it, you’ll have to pick one up for yourself.”
