I Meet the Pigs, Eye to Eye
Tim Martinez
Work continues to be extremely busy, with average work weeks of 70 hours. Combine this with a 3 month old baby and a 3 year old toddler, its any wonder at all that I can get out into the field. And that is where today's blog starts. I usually replenish my bait station and replace the memory card in my camera trap every weekend. This allows me to get some up to date photos and keep up with what's going on in my hunting area, even though I am not there. But with work piling up at the office, I just wasn't able to go out and retrieve my camera. I last set the camera trap on Saturday November 14th. I was putting off going out to the field because I had just given my notice to work that I had accepted a job in Northern California and promised them that I would work every hour possible to make sure they are in a good position before I leave. And now with moving my family back across the Pacific Ocean on my mind, hunting hogs has taken a back seat. So I let it sit out in the field for what seemed like forever, but works out to be 22 days.
I had a million things running through my mind when I hit the trail head. I had actually talked to my wife about some of the things I was thinking the night before. Like if someone had found the camera and cut the lock, or if a hog had taken a liking to it and maybe chewed on it a little bit. So with those things, along with the move, the job change, my kids and my wife on my mind, I hit the trail on Sunday November 30th.
When I arrived at the trail head at 7am, the parking lot was empty. I thought this was strange, but with this being the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I figured everyone was relaxing and didn't want to get up early. I packed light for this trip. Only bringing my Fieldline Pack, water and cell phone. The plan was to get in and out as fast as possible. Then get back to the house to relax with the family for the rest of the day. This would soon be a decision I would come to regret.
I headed off onto the trail. Taking the normal route down. But the air was still. I couldn't hear a single bird or gecko. The only sound was the Lower Waimano river roaring in the distance from a heavy rain the night before. But I stayed the course and moved on. Because I wasn't hunting, I wasn't paying any mind to how much noise I was making. My only goal was to get in and out as quickly as possible. But the hunter in me could not move so fast as to not notice tracks and game trails. With the rain the night before, you could easily tell the newer tracks from the older ones. As most of the older ones were washed away. But I always found fresh tracks on every hike and hunt. They were usually from hogs that had been running around the jungle in the cover of darkness. These hogs are heavily hunted. There is no way they were going to make a mistake during shooting hours. So I thought.
As I reached the point were I go off the main trail, which is about a 1/4 mile from the camera location, I could smell the hogs. And even knowing that smell, I somehow convinced myself that the hogs had vanished before the sun came up. And that the smell lingered only because of the damp air. Once again, I was wrong. All of a sudden I see movement in front of me. It was a piglet, weighing in at around 15-20lbs. As I focus on this piglet in front of me, I see more movement in the trees. The whole jungle seemed to come a live. I was only able to identify four piglets and a sow. But I could see the backs of numerous other hogs. They never made a sound. Not a snort, not a wheeze, nothing. So at this point I was truly regretting the decision not to gear up and bring my bow.
I stood behind a tree staring directly into the eyes of the piglet. Trying to hide myself from the rest of the hogs, hoping to get a better view. I pulled out my cell phone and tried to take a picture. But because of the thick jungle, the camera could not focus on the pigs, rather the nearest tree. What a disaster, no bow and I can't even get a clean picture. At this moment I thought to myself I could keep walking and scare the pigs further into the jungle or fall back and call my buddy to come back for an evening hunt. I decided on the later. I calmly pulled out of the area. It seemed that no other hogs besides that one piglet had seen me. I planned on using this to my advantage later that evening.
My buddy did agree to come back that evening and we did put in a good 3-4 hour hunt without success. I had missed my golden opportunity. But I did come away with some valuable information. I will never again not bring my hunting gear while retrieving a camera during hunting season. No matter how unlikely I think it will be that I see my target animal.
Thanks for reading. Good Luck and Good Hunting.