mahkagari
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2015
- Messages
- 226
- Reaction score
- 63
Took this sow on Friday morning. Same guide and location as my mountain lion hunt on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation. The tribe has been shut down since the beginning of COVID and they had to completely cancel last year's hunting season. That's a significant source of revenue they didn't get. They also had to cancel their pow-wow gathering for the past two years. He offered me a good discount as a repeat customer to come for a bear hunt. I drew an elk tag for this year, but he warned me if they have to shut down again, it will get deferred.
I had packed a week's worth of supplies and we got her treed the first morning before I'd even eaten breakfast yet. I hit her with a good shot with the .58 but she still took a while to fall. I was stressing that I hadn't hit her well but could see that she had blood on her mouth and that she was huffing real good, so I knew I'd hit the lung. I managed to get some follow-ups in, first with another .58 and then with a centerfire. It took awhile because she kept pointing her butt at me from in the tree. Hitting her in a hind leg wasn't going to get her down. It was just going to inflict more pain and damage meat.
When she finally did fall, she got her leg hung up and was hanging from a branch for a couple of minutes. We were wondering if we'd need to get a chainsaw or try shooting at the branch she was hung up on, but she finally let loose. When we got to where she fell, I could see the shot was dead on, but she just didn't want to go down easy to make me work for it. I saw my follow ups had also hit her lungs. I told her I was sorry she took so long to go down, but I couldn't have made better shots to make it quicker. When we were picking her up, I could feel the leg she got hung up on was shattered. I was glad it happened as she expired because that would have been incredibly painful otherwise. When breaking her down, there was nothing left of the leg. The bone break had bruised all of the meat of the shank. It was worse than blood shot. I also lost a rack of ribs to the follow-ups. The rest of the meat is great. I've already had some breakfast sausage from her that was excellent.
It took four of us to carry her out on a pole. Easily over 200lbs. Lots of fat on her, which was unusual for this early in the season. The outfitter had warned me we had to choose between getting her early with less fat or waiting and taking the chance that they'd migrate on for the winter. She ended up being just what I was looking for. Lot of fat for tallow and a good amount of meat. She gave me a quick time getting her to a tree, but was making me work taking her down and hauling her out. Cutting her up in the summer heat quickly to get her into the freezer was no picnic either. Oh, and then when I was skinning out her skull, she was biting her lip! I'd gotten the rest of her face detached, but one piece of her lip was caught between her upper and lower canine. So I had to cut her lower jaw loose to get the hide off to the taxidermist.
This is the first time that rifle has actually killed something. I'd tried it on a bison bull, but it just managed to give him a headache. It's a replica I built of my great-great-great grandfather's which is on display in the Palace of the Governor's in Santa Fe. It took 2 years of research and 100 hours over four months to build.
I had packed a week's worth of supplies and we got her treed the first morning before I'd even eaten breakfast yet. I hit her with a good shot with the .58 but she still took a while to fall. I was stressing that I hadn't hit her well but could see that she had blood on her mouth and that she was huffing real good, so I knew I'd hit the lung. I managed to get some follow-ups in, first with another .58 and then with a centerfire. It took awhile because she kept pointing her butt at me from in the tree. Hitting her in a hind leg wasn't going to get her down. It was just going to inflict more pain and damage meat.
When she finally did fall, she got her leg hung up and was hanging from a branch for a couple of minutes. We were wondering if we'd need to get a chainsaw or try shooting at the branch she was hung up on, but she finally let loose. When we got to where she fell, I could see the shot was dead on, but she just didn't want to go down easy to make me work for it. I saw my follow ups had also hit her lungs. I told her I was sorry she took so long to go down, but I couldn't have made better shots to make it quicker. When we were picking her up, I could feel the leg she got hung up on was shattered. I was glad it happened as she expired because that would have been incredibly painful otherwise. When breaking her down, there was nothing left of the leg. The bone break had bruised all of the meat of the shank. It was worse than blood shot. I also lost a rack of ribs to the follow-ups. The rest of the meat is great. I've already had some breakfast sausage from her that was excellent.
It took four of us to carry her out on a pole. Easily over 200lbs. Lots of fat on her, which was unusual for this early in the season. The outfitter had warned me we had to choose between getting her early with less fat or waiting and taking the chance that they'd migrate on for the winter. She ended up being just what I was looking for. Lot of fat for tallow and a good amount of meat. She gave me a quick time getting her to a tree, but was making me work taking her down and hauling her out. Cutting her up in the summer heat quickly to get her into the freezer was no picnic either. Oh, and then when I was skinning out her skull, she was biting her lip! I'd gotten the rest of her face detached, but one piece of her lip was caught between her upper and lower canine. So I had to cut her lower jaw loose to get the hide off to the taxidermist.
This is the first time that rifle has actually killed something. I'd tried it on a bison bull, but it just managed to give him a headache. It's a replica I built of my great-great-great grandfather's which is on display in the Palace of the Governor's in Santa Fe. It took 2 years of research and 100 hours over four months to build.
She just didn't want to go down. Happens that way sometimes, at least to me. I've put four centerfires into a bison cow's brain and she was still kicking.
