Oklahoma Hog Hunt 2022
One night in the fall of 2021 I was shooting pool with my Grammy at the local tavern, having a few beers and hanging out when my the idea of going to Oklahoma for a hog hunt came about. I have always thought of hog hunting to be a Texas thing, but my grandma had a friend that stayed at a ranch in the southern part of the state and had a blast. I didn’t really think much of it until I heard how cheap it was for our stay, and we got to bring home two hogs each. We booked our hunt for the upcoming March, and I got started looking into the hunt more.
Never hunting hogs didn’t concern me to much, how hard can it be they are everywhere! I figured they would just turn the feeder on and they would come running out, boom dead. As I look into the website of the guide service we were using I find out that they have all sorts of animals on this ranch including Fallow Deer, Aoudad, Elk and Dove. I start looking at prices and decide I’m definitely just hunting hogs. Its more about the fun experience with the family more than the hunt anyways.
We make the 13 hour drive south and end up in Gracemont, Oklahoma in one piece and get to the ranch in time to enjoy some sunshine and have a few beers. We meet our guide, Caleb, that night and talk about the game plan for the next two days. The mornings we sit in a tree stand or blind and for midday we do some stalking, and then back in the stand in the afternoon.
The first morning I get out to my stand and it is tucked back in the woods a little with good shooting lanes to the feeder. The weather is beautiful, low 50’s feels pretty good coming from the bitter Wisconsin winter, the sun starts to break over the horizon and the woods come to life. I have some Rams come through, I can see a Fallow deer bedded in the woods about 250 yards away, and then I hear some rustling in the woods and the pigs start to come out to the feeder. You can tell that they have been hunted, they are skittish and weary around the feeder but start to relax after a while. I look carefully for something with some good size but pass on what I saw that morning with hopes that the midday stalk will be more exciting.
My Uncle Ben, his friend Ed and I go out together with Caleb to go walk about and see what we can find, it reminded me of our deer drives during rifle season in Wisconsin. We look all over, kicking some up from under fallen cedar trees, no good shots yet. We come up on a big sow bedded under the thicket we decide it is Ben’s turn to take a shot, he drill her right in the ass! She takes off and Caleb hollers for us to “shoot that b*tch!” We open fire and down her, ended up being 250lb and one of the biggest hogs on the ranch, it was a great time. While walking around, I shot a nice little one running threw a ditch, and then it was time for the rest of the group to head out.
Afternoon comes around and I get a shot at a nice 150lb hog, and the rest of the group gets all of their hogs as well! It was an unforgettable experience with family and friends, I wasn’t expecting to see so much different wildlife and enjoy a different style of hunting. Hopefully we will all be able to get together down there for another hunt in the future, thank you for reading!
