After talking about it for at least a couple of years, my friend SChunter and I finally got together to pursue swine on Dur's stomping grounds near the North Carolina/South Carolina line. I arrived at Dur's place on Saturday, May 31st and was greeted by Dur and his beautiful wife Carla, along with Emily who was a friend of the Thomason's. Dur is a salesman by trade and he is apparently very gifted at delivering a smooth line seeing as how he managed to talk lovely Carla into being his bride.

I was immediately served a malted beverage with a name I couldn't pronounce in a frosty glass (at least it had a whitetail buck etched into the glass) along with sweet potato chips and hummus. WTH? I’ve never received hors d'oeuvres in hunting camp before; I thought we were going hog huntin'? Oh, and there was also a pimento cheese dip to die for.

Dur assured me that this immersion in culture would soon be extracted from me by the many bloodthirsty mosquitoes inhabiting the swamp that we would soon be visiting. As evening approached, Dur and I donned our camo clothing, rubber boots, and bug-tamer tops and headed out to the hunting property armed with Freedom Arms handguns.


Dur was packing a scoped '97 in 41 Mag along with an unscoped '83 in 454 Casull. I packed a couple of '83's; my iron-sighted .44 Mag and my .454 Casull topped with a Trijicon RMR. Dur had been busy for the past couple of weeks getting a couple of stands baited up and he had gotten several trail camera pics of hogs visiting the feeder during daylight hours.

A couple of hours before dark, Dur set me up on a stand that had plenty of tracks and wallowing sign and he left to go sit on another stand a little farther down the road. After I had been on stand for about an hour, a couple of deer appeared (a small buck and a doe) and I was amazed by how fast my heart was beating even though deer season was still months away. I'm sure the deer caught my scent because they were acting extremely nervous and didn't hang around long, they just moved on out of sight.

I continued to sit in the stand for another hour or so and nightfall was approaching quickly. I thought that it was going to be an uneventful evening when all of a sudden I looked up and there were three hogs in front of me; two shoats and a larger hog. I also heard another hog grunting back in the brush but it never revealed itself. It was already much too dark for the open-sighted .44 Mag so I reached for the 6" 454 Casull topped with the Trijicon RMR. I had the RMR turned down to its lowest setting and I placed the dot on the larger hog's right side. I started pulling the hammer back on the 454 when all of a sudden the hogs exited back into the thick stuff. However, after just a moment, one of the shoats came back into view with the larger hog not far behind. It was now VERY dark and I was having a hard time getting the RMR aimed exactly where I thought the vitals would be. Eventually, I was able to place the dot behind the larger hog's left front shoulder as he angled slightly away from me.

The 454 broke the silence and hogs scattered in all directions. The larger hog ran toward my stand and then turned to my left and ran back into the cutover. After stowing all of my gear into my pack, I climbed down out of the stand to go check for signs of a hit. There was a little blood on the tripod legs of the feeder and I began following the blood trail into the cutover. Dur texted me and informed me that he was on his way to help.

The hog was bleeding well and it was an easy blood trail to follow. After Dur arrived, he joined me in my search for the hog. The hog had already made it about 150 yards into the cutover and I was beginning to doubt my shot. I was worried that since it was so dark when I took the shot that I might have hit him too far back with the 325 grain Swift A-Frame. The ever-optimistic Dur pointed out that the hog was spraying blood well and he pointed to a particular drop of blood that was bright red; too bright for a gut-shot hog. This raised my spirits and we continued following the blood trail deeper into the cutover. We probably only went another 25-50 yards when we nearly stumbled onto the hog in the brush. Luckily, it was very much dead!



When I shot the hog I assumed that it was a large sow; the mother of the two shoats accompanying it. However, this hog had a large set of coconuts and it turned out to be a 240 lb. boar. I was thrilled with the hog and was prepared to get him back to the skinning shed. However, Dur had another plan up his sleeve and he informed me that he had another stand that we needed to check out first. He suggested that we mark the hog’s location with the GPS, go hunt the other stand and hopefully kill another pig or two. We would hunt until midnight, then come back and retrieve the hog with the 4-wheeler. Killing more hogs sounded like a great idea to me!

Even though it was now pitch dark, the stand was lit by game lights and Dur scanned the area with his thermal-scoped, noise-suppressed 300 blackout AR. He grinned and handed me the AR and told me to check out the bait station. As I peered through the scope, a white blob was moving around under the light. The white objects would melt together then separate as the hogs milled around under the feeder. Dur asked me if I would like to take a knee or try to set up for a prone shot. I told him that I would prefer that he take the shot since he had already put me on a nice hog. He informed me that he could do this all Summer and since I was visiting that he would like for me to take the shot.

As greed overcame me, images of the Grinch filled my mind's eye. The corners of my mouth slowly turned upward into a smile as I began rubbing my palms together and salivating profusely. I had never even held an AR before and Dur had to show me how to take the safety off. Dur piled our packs on top of one another and I laid the AR across them obtaining a rock solid rest. After observing them for a while, the pulsating white blob under the green light spit out a pig-shaped form that was facing left. I was able to steady the cross hair of the thermal scope just behind the pig’s left shoulder and squeeze off a shot from the suppressed 300 blackout.

Hogs scattered at the shot and my hog exited to our left. As we approached the area where the hogs had been feeding, we heard another hog back in the thicket to our right, huffing and grunting at us. I found blood almost immediately but we decided to stake the area out for another hour or so to see if any of the hogs would return before blood trailing the hog. Unfortunately, they did not. When the clock struck midnight, we set out to collect the two hogs that I had shot. The second hog had only run a few yards into the brush so it was a short drag back to the entrance trail.



After collecting the hogs on the 4-wheeler we transported them back to the skinning shed where we skinned and quartered them. After we finished processing the hogs, we got cleaned up and ready to turn in. We finally turned the lights off at 3:30 a.m. I might be getting too old for many nights like this!

I had a great weekend at the Thomason residence. In addition to hunting, Dur and I went to his local gun range on Sunday afternoon to sling some lead at steel targets with weapons of various calibers. Dur and Carla are wonderful hosts and I had a great time visiting with them. If 400 miles of geography didn’t separate us, I’d probably wear out my welcome in a hurry!



Sounds like y'all had a great time & a great hunt!

I'm jealous!!! A hog / javelina hunt is something I've always wanted to do.

Great job!!!

That's awesome Darrell! Nice work and excellent shooting as usual. One day when I grow up, I'm gonna be just like you and Dur!

Awesome story. I just had to giggle a little inside as I wonder how we ever got it done in the old days

You can't beat the Durwood guide group. They take you to the stand in a BMW golf cart and you get a free pack of sardines and mustard sauce with 3 packs of saltines he saved from his last visit to Red Lobster.

Gourmet chit- no less

You can spot the hogs with the security cameras that were borrowed from the golf greens behind his house.

Great job guys looks like there was fun had by all.

High-tech, Classy, Hog hunting....I like it! Nothing like hors d'oeuvres before tromping through the swamps.

Darrel, congrats on an eventful hunt. Dur sure started you out with a great representation of a NC hog and to finish up with the tacti-cool stuff; that's awesome.

Darrell, so glad we could finally pull it together! We had to put on airs, at least momentarily, to dispel the Redneck Riviera stereotype that plagues Horry County, albeit justified most of the time. Plus, anyone that vacations in Hilton Head would certainly have lofty expectations...

Little did Darrell know that I wouldn't feed him again until the Anaconda-meal nearly 24 hours later.

As promised, we plunged off into the shallow end of the culture pool soon enough.

And Dur also noticed that the spray was high on the bay bushes in the cutover - "Darrell, was this a big hog?"

Wading through the bushes, following the spoor (more high class, almost PH-like), I think my life flashed in front of my eyes when we about stepped on this nice boar (240.9 lbs to be exact - don't short yourself, Darrell). Great hog with good cutters for this tract.

Darrell got to see first-hand all the beauty and beasts of the Carolina coast - between gorgeous old growth timber in the Riverbottoms to trailing leaking swine through snaky, skeet-infested swamp. And with (relatively) little complaining. And nearly all of it was from me!

So this trip was a bunch of firsts - an inaugural hunt (1) coupled with Stella Artois (2), hors d'oeuvres in "camp" (3), pig harvests in the Carolinas (4), shooting a suppressed, thermal-equipped ARs (5,6,7), and ringing steel with a subsonic suppressed Contender (8). Lots of firsts, but definitely not the last...so happy that you were able to join us, and really glad we had success. But then again, I knew you would close the deal if given the chance! Fellas, don't let Darrell fool ya. Underneath his humble exterior is a stone cold killa...but a super nice guy to boot.


Doubtful - can't wait until the next time, my Brother!



Yep - definitely "out kicked my coverage" with the Mrs! My best sales job yet...

Nice trip and good shooting darrel those are nice hogs!!!

Great adventure and recount. And thanks for reminding me that my 300 really needs a suppressor and I guess I need to add a thermal to the list. Well, not really as both are out of the budget, but it is nice to know what I am missing. very cool,

Craig

Good going Darrel!

Dur is truly and great guy and now we can add great guide to the list. Great shooting btw

Congrats guys,looks like Dur extended the hospitality the Carolinas are known for.
Darrel that's a really nice boar hog for free roaming.

Been chasing a few myself when the time has allowed but no luck yet.Congrats again guys.

Very nicely done, gentlemen!! Nice write up as well!

Haha - beer and other sweets just before going out on a hunt. Oldest trick in the book - he was just making sure your blood was nice & sweet so the skeeters would pick you first.

Great job and thanks for the writeup.

Great story and very successful hunt!

Awesome story, well written as always Darrell. Congrats on the critters! Sounds like yall had a blast.

Very nice, guys!

Gentlemen,

Thanks so much for your comments, I'm glad that you enjoyed reading about our adventure! Thanks again to Dur for an awesome time.

Also, it would be amiss not to thank Gary for making this hunt possible. Without this awesome site, two guys with similar interests like Dur and I would have never hooked up. In addition to developing a friendship with Dur, because of this website I have met, exchanged emails with, and spoken on the phone with some great handgun hunters. You guys have given me the confidence to travel to Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Alaska, Africa, and now the Carolinas armed with only a handgun. I would never have attempted such a seemingly foolish stunt had I not developed confidence through the experienced handgun hunters on this site.

You guys are awesome, thanks!

Darrell, Dur told me about your hunt when he visited with me earlier today. I know you guys had a great time!

Congratulations on a fantastic hunt.

That was really sweet......

Thanks to all for the comments, suggestions, and good-natured ribbing

After draining off water, re-icing, and draining some more, the slam-full cooler was delivered to the processor...and less than 24 hours later, I received over 90 lbs of processed swine!

Hot bulk and link sausage - some of the best we've had yet! Makes me want to go shoot some more

Always good to read these hog hunting stories and Dur.