Things don't always go as planned, "wild boar hunt in Florida"

I will like to share this story with all of you, Since I have never seen anything like it in my 40 years of hunting . It happened many years ago but it is still fresh in my mind . One morning my wife woke me up early with the news that my hound dogs were all gone, someone had probably opened the kennel doors and had taken them , we were very concerned ,because one of the females was ready to give birth to a litter and she had some difficulties through the pregnancy. I was very relief when someone call and said he was holding all five dogs to come and pick them up, I took off like a Rocket to the guys' address it was 12 blocks from my house, when I got there he had all the dogs tied to his porch and even had the bitch laying in a small mattress , he had food and water. The fellow was not only a nice guy , he was very impressive about 6 feet 4 inches tall, 240 lbs just a massive looking guy, I found out he lived in NY and was vacationing in Miami at his parents house, we started talking about hunting right away, he told me hunting stories about NY about bear hunting and monster bucks weighing 300 lbs we got excited just talking about hunting. When he found out my Redbone hounds were trained for wild boar , he told me that is the only thing he never hunted and was dying to shoot and bag one for mounting, so we made plans for the next weekend, during the week he called me like everyday 2-3 times or showed up at my taxidermy shop, I could see he was all fired up and more excited every day as the weekend approached. Finally Friday night we took off, for the 2 hour drive to west palm beach , to the property owned by A US senator friend and customer of mine, about 7 thousand acres filled with all kind of game, specially those black critters with a bad disposition the Spaniards left behind ,they were so thick in there, the owner wanted me to go every weekend and just shoot them , because of the soil damaged they were doing to his cattle ranch.

When we got to the property the care taker was already at the gate waiting for us with, a big smile, he knew there was going to be meat at the table that night ,since he got most of what I shot , I gave it to him and he made sure a lot of needy people in the town near by got the meat , nothing was wasted even the heads I mounted and sold. The caretaker said I got a big one located I saw him last night weighs about 500lbs, my new found friend was drooling ,one thing I forgot to ask him what kind of rifle he had, so I ask him to take his weapon out and loaded but not to place any bullets in the chamber, to which he replied" all I brought is this Bowie knife I intend to stab this one to death , while the dogs hold him" I quickly replied you are nuts, my dogs are trained to track and bayed at the pigs, these are not pit bulls so I knew we were in trouble. I thought About going home and getting him a rifle and come back at another time ,but that was he last weekend in Florida, so he said why don't you let me use your .357 magnum revolver? At the time it seem like a solution so I handed it to him, and we proceeded to go look for the big one ,No sooner I put the dogs on the ground they took off with a track , at about 200 yards from the jeep in a small head of palmetto cabbage plants they cornered the boar , We could hear the dogs were real angry and almost fighting him, which they usually didn't do as they were only trained to track and bayed, when we got there walking through water up to our waist, we realized we had found the big one ,this thing look like a hippo, and mean as a rattlesnake, the dogs were doing their best to keep him surrounded and in place, but he was just too much for them, So he lined up facing us and took off like a Rocket ,Richard aimed and fired the 357 magnum and hit the pig , right in the middle of his shoulder blades , the pig didn't even slow down, and Richard didn't have time to fire again, the pig hit Richard right square on ,knocking him flat on his back the pig was really mad now , and proceeded to gore him around his legs ,he lost the gun as he tried to fight off the huge beast, all I had was my Bowie knife and my Cuban Machete which are longer in length than the average machete, so I realized this guy is dead unless I do something quick, I jumped on back of the pig, and proceed to chop at the head with machete and held tight with my legs like I was riding a bull, finally the pig gave up mortally wounded , he walk off a bit and drop dead, mean while , the care taker had heard the commotion and had come all the way to where we where with a swamp buggy, Richard was bleeding pretty bad ,his pants were red all over with blood, he was passing out on me ,I took off his pants to see where the blood was coming from. To my ,dismay he was bleeding profusely from his groin, Having been trained as a medic in the army, I proceeded to apply pressure to his groin while the care taker went back to the house to call for help, mean while I came up with a tourniquet with one of his shoe laces. Half an hour went by ,waiting for help, the caretaker came back and said they are sending a helicopter , I knew they couldn't land in all that water and brush , so we used the winch that we had fashioned to pull the pigs unto the swamp buggy, and we drove him out to the dirt road and made a fire as instructed with an old tire so we could be seen . The helicopter arrived and took him to a local hospital where he had surgery and had a testicle removed , when everything was over I realized only one dog was with me , We went back to scene and found three of my dogs dead ,gore to death by this monster, I mounted him Life size, he weigh in at 420 Lbs the tusks were 14 inches long in total, and they protruded 41/2 inches outside , this is the last time I took someone out pig hunting that I didn't know , Today I take people hunting for wild boar with bow an arrow, but from tree stands, and we don't allow anyone to look for a wounded pig, rather I look for them. hope you all enjoyed this story,

Alex Perez, Sr. Advancetaxidermyall@hotmail.com Let's go Hunting

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