On the first hunting day of my usual monthly hunt in July, near the Nagy-Zöld…
On the first hunting day of my usual monthly hunt in July, near the Nagy-Zöld wallow, I sat out in a stand set up 7 m high, hidden in a blackthorn bush.
During the night only a few red deer passed through the stretch of forest at the edge of the wallow, but just after 4 a.m., at dawn, the boar arrived that I already recognized from the trail camera pictures.
He stepped into the water of the wallow with loud squelching and splashing — impossible not to notice.
This stand is still fairly new, and foolishly, a branch of the blackthorn bush had been serving as the bow holder. That was my undoing.
Because when I lifted the bow off it, the bush moved — even if only minimally. The boar, 20 meters away, had already turned back into the forest.
Today I finally put up my well-used, familiar bow holder on the tree. That one can’t cause any trouble.
This evening, though, it’s pouring rain. Only the MyHunt app predicted this precisely in advance. So now I’ll be forced to stay in the nearby enclosed hunting blind for a good half hour more.
By the way, MyHunt is promising quite good game movement for tonight.
Around 3 a.m. a lone little striped piglet wandered toward the wallow. It was alone. It simply ambled through the forest.
It didn’t even stop at the wallow to root around, scratch itself, or take a dip in the cool water.
It just walked on, pacing through the forest in silence.
It didn’t catch my scent, didn’t even look my way…
New evening, new hopes…
I sat out in the stand at 6 p.m., and this time I had time to make my hawthorn stand more comfortable. A little branch trimmed here, that becomes a hook for the water bottle. An extra hook there, that’ll be the spot for the thermal camera.
Everything should be within reach when needed.
The night was uneventful, but at 4:38 a.m. the boar showed up.
To my surprise, unlike my previous encounters and the camera pictures, he wasn’t alone. There was a young, half-grown boar with him too.
But I focused on the bigger one.
The boar headed straight for the scattered and buried little bucket of oak acorns, thoroughly sprayed with acorn scent, in the hole I’d prepared.
The bow is already in my hand.
I set the sight to just the right light setting.
Then came standing up.
Because sitting down, the hawthorn covers me completely.
I have to rise up out of the cover of the bush.
Second by second, millimeter by millimeter, slow as a bear but light as a bird, I straightened up smoothly.
I see the big black shape 20 meters away.
But he’s facing me head-on, rooting through the acorns.
(picture . . .)
I draw the bow and I’m already looking at the boar through the sight rings.
He just won’t turn sideways.
About a minute must have passed when the boar turned back into the forest.
There was only one last check left, in the barely-there dawn shooting light, to make sure the boar was in the right position — and at that moment he vanished at the edge of the forest.
I could still hear him rustling around in there for another twenty minutes or so, but I no longer had a view of him.
I simply sat back down on the stand and stared ahead of me.
Why didn’t I shoot?
Why did I need that last target check?!
I didn’t want to make a mistake or wound him.
Better he goes, if I’m not 100% sure the arrow will start off in the right direction.
Maybe tomorrow at dawn I’ll get another chance. But then, after 4 o’clock, I’ll be standing and waiting, ready to shoot.
I won’t waste precious seconds on the thermal camera or switching on the sight…
Today at noon the big sounder with all its many piglets came through and immediately found the scattered/buried acorns, thoroughly turbocharged with oak acorn scent.
I’d scattered roughly one or two handfuls of acorns here, and sprayed the surrounding area thoroughly with natural oak acorn scent.
The effect can be seen in the pictures.
Even the middle-aged boar from dawn found his way straight here.
So the magic potion works 🙂
In the evening, still after 8 p.m., in daylight, the resident group of 5 piglets that regularly show up in the area arrived, without the sow.
They threw themselves straight onto the fragrant acorns.
I tried shooing them off with a hiss, so they wouldn’t eat up all the acorns before the boar I was waiting for at dawn got to them.
They did dash back into the woods, but only as far as the nearest thicket.
They waited there, then came out again.
I disturbed them again, and this time they followed my trail all the way to the stand.
(I’d even sprayed the soles of my shoes with the oak acorn scent.)
Then under the tree they rooted through everything.
So I had my hands full with them until about midnight.
After half past one at night, the big sounder arrived with at least two dozen piglets, 3-4 sows, and 5-6 half-grown boars.
They flooded the wallow, they were everywhere.
The countless piglets threw themselves straight onto the fragrant acorns, and by now the bigger ones were also sidling around them.
Since it was pitch dark, I needed some kind of light to see anything at all. The red light of the weapon light on the bow wasn’t enough at that distance, and without the filter it mostly just lit up the branches of the hawthorn bush.
So I experimented a lot with a stronger flashlight, until I could finally see the reachable areas of the wallow well.
In the end I let them go too, and focused on the boar I was expecting at dawn.
Unfortunately the boar that regularly shows up at dawn didn’t come today.
