450 Dollar Hog

450 Dollar Hog

A friend of mine called on July 21, 2008 and said there were some hogs rooting a place up over in Citrus County. He got permission for us to take my dogs so we met at 5:30 AM the next morning. Turned Monkey out at daylight by himself, and he went off down in a swamp that borders the field and he caught a 70-80 lb sow. We legged the sow and he then pulled out and went a pretty good ways. We had to track him with the tracking unit and found him bayed across the swamp. He was far enough away we couldn't hear him. We drove around and got as close as we could get and I told Carlos to go to him as he wasn't but about 100 yards in the swamp. I turned JJ loose to go to Monkey, as she usually catches when she gets there. I went right in behind her. I heard her get there and try to catch the hog, heard a wreck, then the hog broke, they tried to catch it again, then both went to baying. I knew it was a big hog. But I couldn't understand why JJ didn't have it caught. We got there and it was a 175-180 lb hog that they couldn't hold as it had almost no ears. I shot it (actually 3-4 times with my .22 pistol) and it finally went down. We caught the two dogs and the hog had broken JJ's bottom jaw. It was hanging down at a 90 degree angle from what it is supposed to do......not good. Now I know why she wasn't caught! Been to the vet and have a vet bill out of the deal. JJ now has a plate, some wire and a pin in her bottom jaw and probably won't be hog hunting anymore. She even lost some bottom teeth. About my luck.......UPDATE: Cost another $100 to have pins/wires removed from JJ's jaw..expensive hog!