It's all about the Hirschy Hog Hunt

The past 48 hours have been fantastic. My plane touched down in Orlando shortly after typing my last blog post. That night was filled with entertainment at the Hirschy Household. It was good to meet some of his family that is in town for the wedding and also to just hang out and relax. That night I didn’t get to bed until about 2 A.M. and had to wake up at 4 A.M. for our Hog Hunt….

The Hog Hunt excursion happened to be one of the most fun things I have done in my life. Sam and I woke up around 4 to get over to Publix where we met before we headed down a couple hours south of Orlando. In my car was Sages brother-in-law Jason, Kent (Senior at Alabama), Clay (Senior at Alabama), Josh (Sage’s Cousin), and Sam (Senior at Auburn, my roommate next year). In the other car was Romin (Sage’s Brother), Roger (Sage’s dad), Luke (Works for Sage’s dad with Romin), Sage (Wedding Boy), and Ned (Sage’s Uncle). It took around 2 hours to get down there. Before the hunt we stopped at Micky D’s for some breakfast and then out to the property. Upon arrival we get into this large vehicle, I mean very large that we would be riding around the property in. We had two dogs that served us in the finding of the Hog’s. The dogs would find the Hog and then chase them around until they had them cornered so at that point we could kill them. This was my first time hunting in any sort of fashion so I was a little timid at first. Luke was the first one to go and kill one of the hogs. Then Sam went and got himself one, a rather large one to say the least. These two guys used pistols to kill their Hog’s but when it came to me next I elected to use the shotgun. I took my seat at the front of the vehicle waiting for the dog’s to bark for us to go see if they were running a hog for me. We were coming up on the hog and the dogs were still chasing it through this thick brush. I took my first shot at it when I could tell where it was at and missed. I then took my second shot and wounded my hog then. We were unsure though where it had gone when I hit it in the back. We then drove around and found it again and I pretty much shot it from point blank but this animal did not want its life to end. Sage and I hopped out of the vehicle and I shot it one more time and it went down. Sage ran up to it and it was still moving some so he thought he would get a little trigger happy and shoot it with him pistol to make sure it had died. So, that is how I got my hog. It was an incredible adrenaline rush for me. Josh got his after me and then Sage killed his after that. The next story about the hog hunt is a little gory for some to even read about but if you think you can handle it feel free to read it….

We went back to the house, where our cars were, to drop off our dead hogs when Kent and Clay the two who had yet to go said they wanted to use a knife to kill theirs. The guide immediately made sure they felt comfortable to do it. He told us he would have to get a different dog though; he then called his other co-workers to get out Rocky. This dog was a pit bull that was ready to go in for the kill. We still had our other two dogs that were in much better shape for running the hog’s long distances. After Rocky was in the cruiser we were back out on the hunt looking for the hog Kent was going to kill first. After a couple of false alarms, we found the hog we would release Rocky on. He was let out of his cage and headed strait to the hog with Kent a little behind him. As Rocky struck the hog first in the face and then grabbed his ear, Kent came in with his knife and just started stabbing it all over his backside, due to Rocky being on his front side. We were all going nuts, typical guys out in the wilderness stabbing an animal I mean how much better of a man type event does it get. He ended up taking it down shortly after Rocky attacked him. This whole time Rocky was biting the hog on the ear. It was one of those moments for me when I just was like imagine if that dog was set loose on a human. There is no way a human would survive. After Kent killed his, Clay set out to kill his hog the same way Kent did. He ended up getting one shortly after and after Clay got his we headed back home. This hog hunt was just a good guy trip, I would definitely recommend doing it. I would love to do it again.

We returned back to Orlando in the afternoon to fill the rest of the afternoon swimming at Kent’s place. Clay, Sam, and I went fishing in Sage’s lake where we did not catch anything which was frustrating but still a good time out there. Kent joined up with us for dinner where we ended the night at Cheesecake Factory around 10 P.M. We were all hungry to say the least. This day was like the ultimate outdoorsmen guy day. It was definitely a blast. I fell asleep around 12 P.M. finding myself sleeping like a puppy because of how much stuff our day had been filled with.

So far today, Sam and I woke up and went to church at my old Church (First Baptist Church of Orlando) and then went to lunch up at the country club. After lunch we had homerun derby at a little league field where I can say baseball is definitely not my forte. This blog is getting to be a little to long so I will post next time about the rest of today and about the message Pastor David Uth gave this morning at church. Thanks for reading my third blog post and I continue to look forward to hear your comments back.

In Him,

Nathan Ring