A sound I've never heard before

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Managed to get some time away with the family for a week's vacation in North
Carolina. Great time! Glad to be back in the fields!

This evening was my first outing in over a week.

Drove to the same farm I've been hunting for a few months now with the intention of
setting up for a hog that has alluded me twice. Both times I had set up for shots
across the width of a field where I've been very successful in the past.

The first time I'm sitting there in my favorite spot with my back against a tree
stump, when I hear this low, airy woofing sound; somewhere between a bark and a
growl. A sound I've never heard before. I just sat there as still as possible
waiting for whatever to come walking or crawling out of the bushes, but after about
five minutes it stopped. I don't remember what happened after that, but I
eventually got up and walked in the direction of the sounds and found a pretty fresh
hog hole in the side of a dirt mound. The hole was about three feet back from the
edge of the field, ten yards from where I was sitting. He must have spotted me and
was trying to get me to move or something, but I couldn't see him through the weeds.
I realized I had a fresh, new victim to match wits against.

The second time, I'm set up in the exact same place and glassing across the field.
I lower my glasses and there he is, no more than ten yards away. He's still, I'm
still, but trying to get my gun into position for a shot when with a squeal, off he
goes. That's twice he's gotten the better of me.

This evening I decided to position my truck about twenty yards from the road, in
line with the hog hole, so I can nail him from the driver's seat. I couldn't have
been there more than ten or fifteen minutes glassing the hog hole and surrounding
area, when I see something without the glasses that looks out of place. I bring the
glasses up and there fifty yards away I see a hog sitting on a stone fence row with
about half of his body showing. He must have been there the whole time I was
setting up, but never moved. I brought the gun up and squeezed the trigger. The
shot echoed off the mountain in the background. I walked over to the spot and there
was one of this year's crop of hog, a young male, shot through the neck.

It's now six thirty and I figure I've got about an hour's worth of daylight left, so
I went back to the truck and sat there waiting. Well it took about a half hour of
glassing and waiting, glassing and waiting when I thought I saw something. I
brought the gun up, but wasn't sure because the light was getting low. I checked
again with the glasses and son of a gun, there he was. I could just make him out at
the edge of the weeds. I brought the gun up again and put him in the crosshairs.
The shot surprised me when it went off, the way it's supposed to. I got out of the
truck and walked the seventy-five yards across the field to the hole. Turns out he
was at least three feet back in the weeds at the entrance to his hole, another young
male with a shot through the side.

The one on the left is the fifty yard shot with an exit wound in the neck. The one
on the right is the seventy-five yard shot with an entrance wound in the side. Go
figure???

Tomorrow afternoon I'm planning to head over to the new location I got permission to
hunt and see what I can find. Have not even scouted the place, but I'm told there's
a bunch of hogs for the taking, all around the barn and behind the house. I'll let
you know.

Doug from NJ