The Hunt That Turned Into a Double

I headed out this weekend with one goal: fill my A-zone deer tag. It was 4:30 in the morning when we started hiking. We climbed about 1,500 vertical feet to get into our deer zone, working our way toward one of my favorite honey holes. It was still dark, the kind of early morning where you’re mostly just putting one foot in front of the other and trusting that all the miles and elevation are going to pay off. By the time we reached our glassing point, the sun was starting to come up. Almost immediately, we spotted them....Hogs.

Not just a couple of pigs wandering through. These were legends. Absolute tanks, spread out underneath the oak trees and gorging themselves on acorns. The acorns are starting to drop, and the pigs knew exactly where to be. We settled in and watched them for a while. Then a really big boar showed up. We had never seen a hog that big out there, and after watching him for a few minutes, my buddy decided he had to take the shot. One shot and dropped him. 

We were still taking it all in when another boar came out. I took the shot. Just like that, we had our first double. Neither one of us had ever done that before, and there was something pretty damn cool about looking at two big hogs lying there and realizing what had just happened.

Of course, then came the part nobody talks about as much. The hike out. By the time we started heading back, the day had turned really hot. We had about 1,500 vertical feet to climb back out, except now we were carrying a whole lot more weight than we had on the way in.

We packed out the meat, and I grabbed my hog's head because he had a nice little set of tusks. My buddy took his for a mount. That pack out absolutely beat the crap out of us. But somewhere in the middle of that miserable hike, I kept thinking about the stories we'd have to tell about this hunt someday. Because that's really what makes these days stick with you.

I got some great video of the pigs underneath the oaks,(check on Instagram and TikTok) including a few of them doing what pigs do, playing grab-ass and generally acting like hog while they were stuffing themselves with acorns.

And somehow, the day still wasn't over. Later that evening, a little boar came running right in front of me. About 50 yards. I finally got to put my old lever-action to work, and I couldn't have been more excited about it. A deer tag that still wasn't filled. Two big hogs, our first double, and a meat pig.

A brutal pack out. That's public land hunting for you. You can head into the mountains expecting one thing, and come home with a completely different story.