Arizona Javelina

by JimT, Texas, Sunday, May 15, 2022, 09:05 (923 days ago)
edited by Miles Fortis, Sunday, May 15, 2022, 16:36

(This was written 20 years ago .. 2002)

It had been 4 years since I had hunted the smelly little pigs in the high Sonoran Arizona desert country. Miles Fortis and I had put in for Arizona's Draw-Hunt Permits and had gotten drawn for the last hunt of the season. Applications have to be filed with the Arizona Game & Fish Dept. about 4 months or so before the hunts. They are then drawn on a lottery-basis and we had made the cut. From what the hunters in Arizona tell me it is getting harder and harder to get drawn for the particular hunts you want. More and more hunters I guess.

I had lived in and hunted the area we applied for and was reasonably certain that if we could spend a few days hunting we could find the pigs. While Arizona has a good strong population of Javelina, they are hard to find. I remember reading a report some years ago where the Game & Fish Dept. had fenced off an area up in the Three Bars that contained a large number of pigs. They then had various hunters go through and try to find them. Very few saw any pigs and only a handful counted more than 5 or 6. No one came close to seeing the 20-some pigs that were actually in the enclosure.

Once we received the notification that we had been drawn for the hunt and had received our tags and licenses we began to plan for the hunt. The area we would be in was at about 5000 feet above sea level and in February the weather could be warm, cold or hot depending on how the jet stream was running. We decided we would prepare for anything and packed accordingly. We ended up taking more than we needed, but we were prepared.

I decided I would hunt using the Reeder/Sixgunner.Com Limited Edition .45 Colt Vaquero as my primary hunting gun.

I took along a back-up gun in case anything broke, but it was not needed. However, when traveling any distance to hunt a back-up gun is only common sense. I also packed my .22 Single Six but never had a chance to hunt jackrabbits as I intended. In fact, we did not see many jacks.

For several months I practiced with the .45 every day. On the days that I could not actually fire it I dry-fired. My practice consisted of pulling the gun up, catching the front sight and squeezing the trigger while holding the sights steady. For dry-fire practice I used a 1" aiming point at about 15 feet. On the range I shot bowling pins and paper targets at ranges to 25 yards. All shooting was practiced using a 2-hand hold. I also practiced thumbing the hammer rapidly for a second or third shot. Practice like you shoot. Shoot like you practice. In the end it pays off.

I settled on the Cor-Bon 200 gr. JHP factory loads as the hunting load I would use. The Limited Edition gun hit just above Point-Of-Aim at 25 yards with these loads. I sighted the back-up gun to hit the same POA with them so there would be no difference in hold should I have to use it. As I said, it wasn't needed but I was ready just in case. Cor-Bon lists these as producing 1100 fps. While the short barreled gun will not necessarily reach that, velocity was sufficient to produce good bullet expansion.

We packed cold weather gear, our camping gear and guns and ammo and pulled out of Missouri several days before the hunt was to begin. The trip to Arizona was long but it was a nice drive. We had a great time watching the countryside. There are places in New Mexico where you could hide Los Angeles and it would take you a week to find it! The first day we drove as far as Grants, NM and spent the night. The next day we drove into Arizona and cut south through St. John's, Show Low and the Salt River Canyon. Miles had never been in this part of Arizona so it was new country for him. Seemed like new country to me also in some ways. People are moving into Arizona in vast numbers ... someone told me 400 per day ... and little hamlets that I remembered from years ago are now large towns, bordering on becoming cities!

We arrived in Oracle, AZ on Wed. afternoon and hooked up with friends. Rob Lundberg was to be hunting with us. He is just getting into hunting and this was to be a new experience for him.

On Thursday we made our way into the hills where I felt we could find the pigs. The road in to the hunting area crosses private property held by a mining company and we had to stop in their offices and sign wavers assuring them that we would not sue them should we somehow get hurt when crossing their land. That accomplished we set out.

The road was bad 4 years ago. It has not gotten any better in the years since I last drove it. We were in a 4WD Chevy that belonged to Mile's Dad and I took some photos to show him we were taking good care of his truck... and that it actually could operate with the axles bent in different directions and at weird angles. The drive into the area where I wanted to camp ... not more than 2 miles I don't think... took about 30 or 40 minutes. We arrived with only minor "desert pinstriping" on the sides of the truck from cactus, catclaw and other scratchy growth and proceeded to set up camp.

Camp was located above a large canyon. The hike down into it was at least a quarter mile long. The hills and valleys around that canyon had always been good game habitat and I hoped that it had not changed in the years since I had been there. An ominous sign was that the first night out we did not hear one coyote. The weird thing was, we never heard or saw any coyotes all the days we were in the hills.

Opening day found us hiking down into the canyon and searching the hills and valleys for Javelina. While we saw Whitetail Deer, we hunted all day without spotting any of the little elusive pigs. Sign was abundant. Droppings, tracks, rooted up ground and shredded prickly pear cactus were quite evident. We saw where the pigs had been. We saw where they should have been. But we did not see any of the pigs.

We covered some very rough ground that first day and I think that is where Miles initially injured his leg, though he did not say anything at the time. That evening back at camp we were all tuckered out.

Next morning we were up before daylight and figuring out our hunting strategy. Miles said he would go up the canyon to the North and East so Rob and I decided to circle up over the hills and strike toward the head of the same canyon, above the place where Miles would be. It was an area abundant with prickly pear, mesquites and scrub oak. It also was covered with signs that the pigs were somewhere's nearby.

As we climbed up into hills we saw a group of 4 or 5 hunters about a mile away on the other side of the canyon in the direction we were heading. They were a half mile above where Miles had said he was going to be. We watched them work their way down into the canyon as we moved in that direction ourselves. About a half hour later gunfire began racketing out of the canyon and as I watched I could see the shape of pigs running across the canyon from us. It was a quarter mile or more away but I could still see them as they ran through the brush. I told Rob to get out on the point of rocks ahead of us at the mouth of the draw we were in. I figured the pigs would cross the canyon and come our way, especially since the cliffs were very steep to both sides of us. The place we were in was a natural passage.

About 10 minutes later Rob signaled that he saw pigs coming our way. I began moving up around a hill in front of me to try and cut them off. As I came over the hill I pulled the sixgun and held it in my shooting hand, just in case. Coming around a point I was suddenly confronted by a large Javelina who had a younger, smaller pig running with it. At the sight of me the larger pig bristled up and began popping it's tusks at me. The distance was no more than 20 feet and the pig presented an almost perfect silhouette shot. I pulled the sixgun up and caught the front sight and fired.

At the shot both pigs ran directly away from me. I put the sight on the large pig and fired again. Then they were out of sight around the corner of a hill. I wondered to myself, "Did I miss?" ... but as I thought about it, the shot "felt" good. I replaced the 2 fired cartridges and then moved along the path they had taken.

As I rounded the hill I saw a large splash of blood on the rocks. A foot or two further and another... and another .. and another. I looked up ahead as I came through some brush and I could see the pig laying on it's side. It appeared to still be breathing and I did not want to spook it so I stopped and waited. Rob came up behind me and I pointed it out to him. In a few moments we moved on up to it.

As we came up on it the pig breathed it's last. I got my camera out and set it on my backpack and took a self-portrait. I did not notice at the time but I did not get all the pig into the picture, but you can see where my first shot hit it. I took a couple more photos and then set to work cleaning it. Rob was easing around the hills beyond us looking to see if any of the pigs relatives might still be in the area.

My first shot had taken the pig high through the abdomen .... gut-shot. Intestines hung out the off side. Devastation from the Cor-Bon 200 gr. JHP was very evident. The second shot had taken it center in the stomach from the rear and intestines were protruding from the entrance wound of that shot. There was no exit from that shot, the bullet going up through the abdominal cavity. The sow ran no further than 50 or 60 feet before bleeding out. I was impressed with the bullet performance. There was a sizable exit wound on the off-side of the pig. Interestingly, when I skinned it later I found some pieces of jacket material and lead under the hide around the edges of the exit wound.

My practice at catching the front sight and shooting paid off. The Arizona sun was bright enough I could not see the rear sight very well. I shot instinctively, doing what was put into the computer, and it worked. Both shots were fired fairly rapidly. I did not notice how fast but both Rob and Miles commented on it later.

After cleaning the Javelina I hung it in a tree and Rob and I looked for one for him. We made about a half-mile circle through the hills and as we were coming into the last half of the circle I spotted a real large Javelina coming down the hillside toward us. I motioned to Rob and we both froze as the pig ran up to within 50 feet of us. There was a mesquite tree between him and the pig and Rob could not see it at first. Then it moved and presented a sideways shot and Rob spotted it. He fired and missed and the pig took off at a high rate of noise. Rob was watching it run, kinda dumbfounded that he has missed, and I yelled, "SHOOT!" and he levered another shell into the gun and fired at the running pig. The bullet kicked up a large cloud of dust behind the pig as it disappeared from view.

We looked for the pig for some time, but could not locate it. It was getting on in the afternoon so we decided to head back to camp. I shouldered the pig I had shot and we hiked the hills and canyons back to camp. By the time we got there I was wore out. Miles showed up to camp just before we made it to the top of the canyon and was waiting on us when we arrived. He had heard the shooting and had tried to locate us but his leg was bothering him so he headed back in to camp also.

We struck camp that afternoon and headed into Tucson to Rob's house. There we cleaned up and packed the cut-up pig into the freezer. Rob had a man who was going to cook one for him if he got one, so I donated the one I had shot to the cause. We rested up at Rob's house on Sunday, then headed back into the hills on Monday.

About an hour into hunting on Monday morning it was evident Miles had pulled a muscle and would not be able to continue hunting. The country is extremely rough and if you are not in good working order you will have a bad time of it. He parked on a ridge overlooking some good country. I pushed the hills and canyons to see if we could stir anything but saw nothing. In fact, as I said earlier, we never heard or saw a coyote all the time we were in the hills, day or night. It was weird. We did not see many deer either. The only coyotes we heard were at Paco's house the night we spent there. They were singing around his place, taunting him to come out and do something about it!

We spent that afternoon and the next day with Paco and his wife. It was a great time. Good food, good friends. Then we headed home. We ran I-10 over to Deming, NM, cut across to Hatch and picked up I-25 to Albuquerque, then ran I-40 to Oklahoma City where we caught I-44 on home. We had an uneventful trip for which we are thankful.

While I was disappointed I could not get Miles onto a pig the trip was good one. You can read Miles' version of the HERE We saw some wonderful country, met some great people, and generally had a good time. We left the 85° weather in Tucson and got home and unpacked in time for a good snowstorm and 8° temperatures. At least Miles and I are among the few in S/W Missouri who are sporting sunburns.