jerry russell
Senior Member
This is the story that appeared in the April issue of GON magazine. It has been about six weeks since I shot this boar but GON had thought that it might be a good idea to hold off publishing it on the forum until it was published.
I miss hunting this hog and the story here will help you to understand why. For those of you that don't get GON magazine and care to read it, here is how it all went down.
The Story of Kong.
The boar stood just four yards away and his massive size was nearly overwhelming. Missing him at this range would be like missing a minivan. But before we go any further, there is simply no way to get to the end of this crazy story without going back to the very beginning in the Fall of 2011.
I received an email from a guy that was a nuisance animal trapper. He knew that I guided for hogs and asked if I could give him some pointers on a hog removal job that he had been contracted for. The hogs in question were reported to be true monsters and the two of them were basically terrorizing a small neighborhood. We discussed a game plan for establishing a bait station as the hogs were solely nocturnal. Several weeks later, he reported that he had in fact killed one of the boars and it was a monster with an estimated weight over 400 pounds. Unfortunately, the second hog had escaped.
He hunted this hog several more times but the close call along with being shot at a second time left him with a hog that had become very wary. After many more attempts the hunter called me back and asked if I would like to take over the hunt. I jumped at the chance. I have always loved hunting giant hogs. I killed my first hog in 1980 and have been hooked on chasing big hogs ever since. Most would call it an addiction for me.
For those that don’t know me, I have been a hog hunter for nearly 40 years and I guide hog hunters (among many other things) for a living. I have taken more hogs than I can remember and have never had a great deal of trouble taking a specific boar, given enough time. I am providing this bio to help put the rest of this story in perspective. I am not new to the game of big hog hunting. To be honest, I thought I would make fairly short work of this big boar. I had no way of knowing that an incredible journey was about to begin in my life.
I am a trophy hunter by most folk’s definition of that term. What I mean by that is I like to specifically hunt mature animals. Four to five year old deer, bear and hogs are what drives me. Now, having said that, I really couldn’t care any less about the size of the rack or the weight of the bear or boar. It is the challenge of hunting any animal that has survived so long that it has reached a level of intelligence that makes him nearly impossible to hunt that I love. I like matching wits and don’t mind a bit getting out matched by these awesome animals. My ability to eat regular helpings of humble pie would serve me well over the next three and a half years.
From the very beginning I knew there was something different about this hog. Sure he was a giant but I quickly came to realize that he had been pressured to such a state that he wouldn’t ever move in daylight hours. This was no big deal for me. I had hunted this kind of hog before, but what happened over the first several months taught me that everything I had learned in nearly 40 years of hog hunting might not be enough to outwit this paranoid porker.
I began by trying to find entry points into the jungle he called home. There were several sections in excess of 3-4 acres where even crawling in was next to impossible. This area contained the thickest mix of privet, kudzu and briars I had ever encountered. In some places, this thick growth formed a dense canopy over sections of an acre or more. Even getting up through the canopy to place a tree stand was difficult, and when you did break through, you had to chop a hole to shoot down through it.
I began by attempting to hunt the hog on trails, but there was no way to approach his bedding areas without making noise. Even if it were possible, most of the locations wouldn’t even allow you to stand to shoot, much less draw a recurve bow. I placed a bait or two and thought that he would certainly come in. Wrong again. Well-worn trails would go dormant as soon as bait was placed. It was evident that the memory of his near miss human encounters was going to make this extremely difficult. I became aware of his extreme aversion to anything human related as I walked down a sandy creek bed one morning. I picked up his huge tracks and followed them as he approached a bait station. Thirty yards from the bait his tracks showed that he had become aware of the feeder ahead and had milled around a moment. The tracks then climbed out of the creek bed and circled around the bait and then reentered the creek only to continue away from the bait station. I stood looking at the tracks in disbelief knowing that this was not a normal hog and now sure that this was going to be much more difficult than I previously thought.
At this point, I had yet to even get the ghost on camera. I just wanted to see what I was dealing with. He seemed ghost like in his ability to detect cameras and would stop short of the camera view every time. I had to develop a plan and I knew that cameras near bait sites would never work. I changed my camera plan to travel routes and I blanketed the area with 10 cameras. It took a full six months to get the first picture. I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on that hog. It did not seem possible that a hog could be this big. I gave him the nickname Kong. It sure seemed to fit. At first, his reaction to being caught on camera could be described as explosive. The trailcam set in video mode captured violent reactions. In time, the sheer number of cameras in the area made it impossible for him to travel and not be recorded, and after several months he began to ignore them.
I quickly discovered that there was never a pattern to his movement as far as trail usage but he did travel between the hours of 11PM and 4AM. He would enter the back yards of several families and wreak havoc in gardens and lawns. I knew that the only way to have a possible opportunity at him would be on a food source. I hunted apple trees in season, white oaks and others but it was impossible to pattern him. I then came up with an idea that turned things around. I took feeders and suspended them as high as 20 feet up into the trees so that he would not see them. This would change the game, and about a year into hunting him, he finally started coming to a feeder. These early hunts showed me just how unbelievably intelligent this animal was.
Kong would circle baits 100% of the time, but I had anticipated this and placed the baits where this was not possible. Using creeks and ravines, I made circling impossible and I hunted on very specific winds. He countered this by simply coming in and refusing to get closer than 30 yards. He would approach the bait and stop and stand for periods of more than an hour without moving a single step. I didn’t think an animal of this size could do this, but it occurred many times. It became apparent that if he could not use the wind for protection that he would stand and wait on it to change. If it would not change to his advantage, he just simply walked away. This cat and mouse game happened countless times over the next few months. I spent many all-night hunts in those first three years. On the occasions that he did detect me, he would emit a deafening roar of disapproval and would leave the area for up to two weeks. He never once took a chance. Everything seemed calculated. As the weeks turned into months and he countered every tactic I had, I realized that everything WAS calculated. This hog was thinking.
My first time seeing him was an event I will never forget. I had established a bait in a nearly impenetrable area of privet, and I ghosted in a full hour before dark prepared for an all-nighter. While I was looking at my phone, thirty minutes before dark I sensed something approaching from my right. I looked at the area and determined nothing was there. I returned to my phone scanning and my brain reminded me that every other scan to my right did not include a massive black area just 40 yards away. I snapped my head back up and was stunned to see Kong standing there like a ghost in the swamp. I was absolutely amazed at his size. I have seen hundreds of big hogs in my life and this just did not seem possible. He moved forward a few steps and disappeared from view about 25 yards away. He stood without moving for nearly an hour until full darkness set in and then started a slow circle. Once down wind, he let his absolute disdain for my presence be known with a series of roars. It would be weeks before he would return to the area.
I miss hunting this hog and the story here will help you to understand why. For those of you that don't get GON magazine and care to read it, here is how it all went down.
The Story of Kong.
The boar stood just four yards away and his massive size was nearly overwhelming. Missing him at this range would be like missing a minivan. But before we go any further, there is simply no way to get to the end of this crazy story without going back to the very beginning in the Fall of 2011.
I received an email from a guy that was a nuisance animal trapper. He knew that I guided for hogs and asked if I could give him some pointers on a hog removal job that he had been contracted for. The hogs in question were reported to be true monsters and the two of them were basically terrorizing a small neighborhood. We discussed a game plan for establishing a bait station as the hogs were solely nocturnal. Several weeks later, he reported that he had in fact killed one of the boars and it was a monster with an estimated weight over 400 pounds. Unfortunately, the second hog had escaped.
He hunted this hog several more times but the close call along with being shot at a second time left him with a hog that had become very wary. After many more attempts the hunter called me back and asked if I would like to take over the hunt. I jumped at the chance. I have always loved hunting giant hogs. I killed my first hog in 1980 and have been hooked on chasing big hogs ever since. Most would call it an addiction for me.
For those that don’t know me, I have been a hog hunter for nearly 40 years and I guide hog hunters (among many other things) for a living. I have taken more hogs than I can remember and have never had a great deal of trouble taking a specific boar, given enough time. I am providing this bio to help put the rest of this story in perspective. I am not new to the game of big hog hunting. To be honest, I thought I would make fairly short work of this big boar. I had no way of knowing that an incredible journey was about to begin in my life.
I am a trophy hunter by most folk’s definition of that term. What I mean by that is I like to specifically hunt mature animals. Four to five year old deer, bear and hogs are what drives me. Now, having said that, I really couldn’t care any less about the size of the rack or the weight of the bear or boar. It is the challenge of hunting any animal that has survived so long that it has reached a level of intelligence that makes him nearly impossible to hunt that I love. I like matching wits and don’t mind a bit getting out matched by these awesome animals. My ability to eat regular helpings of humble pie would serve me well over the next three and a half years.
From the very beginning I knew there was something different about this hog. Sure he was a giant but I quickly came to realize that he had been pressured to such a state that he wouldn’t ever move in daylight hours. This was no big deal for me. I had hunted this kind of hog before, but what happened over the first several months taught me that everything I had learned in nearly 40 years of hog hunting might not be enough to outwit this paranoid porker.
I began by trying to find entry points into the jungle he called home. There were several sections in excess of 3-4 acres where even crawling in was next to impossible. This area contained the thickest mix of privet, kudzu and briars I had ever encountered. In some places, this thick growth formed a dense canopy over sections of an acre or more. Even getting up through the canopy to place a tree stand was difficult, and when you did break through, you had to chop a hole to shoot down through it.
I began by attempting to hunt the hog on trails, but there was no way to approach his bedding areas without making noise. Even if it were possible, most of the locations wouldn’t even allow you to stand to shoot, much less draw a recurve bow. I placed a bait or two and thought that he would certainly come in. Wrong again. Well-worn trails would go dormant as soon as bait was placed. It was evident that the memory of his near miss human encounters was going to make this extremely difficult. I became aware of his extreme aversion to anything human related as I walked down a sandy creek bed one morning. I picked up his huge tracks and followed them as he approached a bait station. Thirty yards from the bait his tracks showed that he had become aware of the feeder ahead and had milled around a moment. The tracks then climbed out of the creek bed and circled around the bait and then reentered the creek only to continue away from the bait station. I stood looking at the tracks in disbelief knowing that this was not a normal hog and now sure that this was going to be much more difficult than I previously thought.
At this point, I had yet to even get the ghost on camera. I just wanted to see what I was dealing with. He seemed ghost like in his ability to detect cameras and would stop short of the camera view every time. I had to develop a plan and I knew that cameras near bait sites would never work. I changed my camera plan to travel routes and I blanketed the area with 10 cameras. It took a full six months to get the first picture. I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on that hog. It did not seem possible that a hog could be this big. I gave him the nickname Kong. It sure seemed to fit. At first, his reaction to being caught on camera could be described as explosive. The trailcam set in video mode captured violent reactions. In time, the sheer number of cameras in the area made it impossible for him to travel and not be recorded, and after several months he began to ignore them.
I quickly discovered that there was never a pattern to his movement as far as trail usage but he did travel between the hours of 11PM and 4AM. He would enter the back yards of several families and wreak havoc in gardens and lawns. I knew that the only way to have a possible opportunity at him would be on a food source. I hunted apple trees in season, white oaks and others but it was impossible to pattern him. I then came up with an idea that turned things around. I took feeders and suspended them as high as 20 feet up into the trees so that he would not see them. This would change the game, and about a year into hunting him, he finally started coming to a feeder. These early hunts showed me just how unbelievably intelligent this animal was.
Kong would circle baits 100% of the time, but I had anticipated this and placed the baits where this was not possible. Using creeks and ravines, I made circling impossible and I hunted on very specific winds. He countered this by simply coming in and refusing to get closer than 30 yards. He would approach the bait and stop and stand for periods of more than an hour without moving a single step. I didn’t think an animal of this size could do this, but it occurred many times. It became apparent that if he could not use the wind for protection that he would stand and wait on it to change. If it would not change to his advantage, he just simply walked away. This cat and mouse game happened countless times over the next few months. I spent many all-night hunts in those first three years. On the occasions that he did detect me, he would emit a deafening roar of disapproval and would leave the area for up to two weeks. He never once took a chance. Everything seemed calculated. As the weeks turned into months and he countered every tactic I had, I realized that everything WAS calculated. This hog was thinking.
My first time seeing him was an event I will never forget. I had established a bait in a nearly impenetrable area of privet, and I ghosted in a full hour before dark prepared for an all-nighter. While I was looking at my phone, thirty minutes before dark I sensed something approaching from my right. I looked at the area and determined nothing was there. I returned to my phone scanning and my brain reminded me that every other scan to my right did not include a massive black area just 40 yards away. I snapped my head back up and was stunned to see Kong standing there like a ghost in the swamp. I was absolutely amazed at his size. I have seen hundreds of big hogs in my life and this just did not seem possible. He moved forward a few steps and disappeared from view about 25 yards away. He stood without moving for nearly an hour until full darkness set in and then started a slow circle. Once down wind, he let his absolute disdain for my presence be known with a series of roars. It would be weeks before he would return to the area.
Great job Jerry in many ways! Good of GON Magazine to publish it.
