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| (Left to right-Me, Don, Andy, Mike. Cooking Elk steaks.) |
There were 7 other people in there getting their tags too, so we had to wait to get ours. After we got them, we decided to have breakfast and head to the visitors center. With the park being on eastern time, it was open when we got there. We got some trail maps and starting talking about where we wanted to go.
We had a plan of going to the end of the trail coming out of the campgrounds and we decided to stick with that for now. We got to the end of the trail and there were 9 trucks there with people in two of them just getting ready to head in to the woods. All of the trucks had hunting gear in them, so we decided to head back out and try Laurel Creek where we hunted last year.
We parked in the field where we parked last year and year some rustling around the pond across the road so we eased over there to have a look. We checked around the pond and saw where something was there recent because the ice was broke in one corner. We set up behind to pond along the creek and started calling. We worked it for about an hour with no luck.
We left there and walked across the road and headed for Laurel Creek. We went down a trail and turned down a draw and found the creek. We started slowly walking the creek, stopping everyso often to listen. (Yes I was quiet this time. LOL!) We had walked quite a ways and came on a deep gorge and water fall. The bluff ran all the way around the right so we headed left and up. We ran into downed trees and couldn't get around to the end of the gorge and back down, so we had lunch and started heading out.
We got back to the truck and picked another trail to try that went to another part of the river. It turned out that the rest of the guys were parked where we had to turn so we looked for them as we were going down the road. We drove as far as we could due to the road being blocked and set out on foot.
We walked for about a mile and crossed a creek that went into a valley so we went to investigate. We found a very nice waterfall and 6 rockhouses. We checked out the rockhouses and found out the hogs had been bedding down in them. There were a lot of tracks and rubs on trees. We set up and called until almost dark and headed for the cabin.
We got to the cabin and waited on Doc to come open up. We ate, BS'd and had a great time. The bed was a welcome relief at 11:45 pm after a long day of hunting and spending time with great friends.
Day 2
We got up Sat. morning, had breakfast, said our goodbyes to all and headed for the valley we found late Fri. We set up and called for for several hours with no luck. We decided to come back up to the trail and head towards the river. We walked until we came to the top of a ridge where 50% of the trees were blown down and impassable. There was a sheer bluff on both sides so we couldn't get around so we headed back to the truck for lunch. We did see a lot of yote tracks though as we had all weekend in the deeper woods away from the trails.
While eating lunch, we decided to go down to Leatherwood Ford, on the river, and try to work our way back up to where we wanted to go before the trail disappeared. We got to the trialhead at the Ford and saw several cars parked there. We headed down the trail and ran into several hikers. We were disappointed and tired so we came back to the truck. We figure this was a lot of the reason we weren't seeing hogs because of the nice weather and people getting out.
On our way out, we decided to try one more spot but, when we got there, people were unloading horses. We decided to head on towards the house, with one stop on the way: the lease.
We were close to the lease on the way back and I decided to head on over there for the afternoon and then to the house. We got to the lease and fixed to cable gate and headed down to the big switchback curve. We parked there and walked on to hog lane.
I set Andy up in the "hog stand" on hog lane and came back up to the stand at the top of the trail. It overlooks our first foodplot and is at the top of the trail to hog lane, so I figured I could catch them coming into hog lane or running out if he started shooting. I sat in the stand for about an hour and started getting stiff and sleepy from the gale force winds blowing the tree and rocking me to sleep. Before I got down, a yote howled and came through the woods but caught wind of me and skirted down hill towards the bottom of hog lane.
I got down from the stand and started walking down the trail towards the third foodplot. I saw a lot of great hog signs and jumped two deer along the way. I got to the third plot and sat for a little while until some clouds started rolling in. I figured it was going to start raining and was probably close to 4:30, (when we agreed to meet up and head out), so I headed back to meet Andy.
When we met up, he reported seeing the yote, a red fox and a bobcat, but no hogs. We headed back to the truck and I was telling him about the property and stand locations and pointed out one stand on the ridge and there was somebody in it. Doc, bigblue and bonecollector had come in about 15 mins behind us. We gave them a ride back to their truck, wished them luck on Sunday and headed home.
I arrived back home around 7:30 pm, kissed the wife, unloaded the truck, got a hot shower and went to Krystal's to pick up supper. I spent the rest of the night in the recliner, relaxing and watching tv. A warm bed and my warm wife never felt so good.
I had a really great time and so did Andy. We both enjoyed meeting everybody, the great food, great conversation, and the great outdoors. I can't wait to do it again next year. Hopefully we will all have better luck next time, but with the great time had by all, it was a successful hunt in my book.
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