Hunting Hogs With A Crossbow

On my Florida hog hunt this past spring, I went head to head with a major bowhunting controversy, shooting the crossbow. I found the crossbow accurate and powerful. The crossbows we hunted with had 150 pounds draw weight and shot arrows like darts. Neil Dougherty of Gainesville, Florida, and I stalk hunted what I called barbecue pigs -- ones that weighed from 60 to 100 pounds each.

You can stalk hogs successfully if you come from downwind and don't make much noise as you move through the palmetto swamps. Hogs have very keen senses of smell, poor eyesight and relatively good hearing. I use D-Scent's deodorizer and scent eliminator when I hunt hogs to keep them from alerting because they've smelled me.

When Dougherty and I located a herd of about 15 hogs and moved to within 30 yards, Dougherty aimed his crossbow and delivered the arrow, making a clean pass-through that caused the hog to go down quickly and efficiently.

"I'm so excited that we have a crossbow in our line," explains Craig Dougherty, the vice president of the North American Archery Group, which includes Bear, Jennings, Buckmasters and Golden Eagle bows and Satellite archery accessories, "because the crossbow is a natural link between the gun hunter and the archer. Our company has noticed that the states that permit hunting with crossbows generally have a growing archery market also. A hunter can use the crossbow like he does a shotgun at close range and then convert usually within a year to shooting a compound bow."

Crossbows also enable hunters who may not have the strength or the ability to pull a compound bow to hunt with a crossbow. After hunting with a crossbow on this trip, I believe the crossbow hunter definitely has a place in the world of archery. If crossbow hunting will bring more men and women into the sport of hunting, then I think all states need to take a serious look at including this sport.

While in Florida tuning up for October's bowhunting season, I saw hogs all weekend and bagged one barbecue hog with the Fred Bear Epic Extreme, one of the new lightweight, fast-shooting bows taking the bowhunting market by storm. Then I had the opportunity to take a trophy boar with huge tushes, called cutters, that I watched for more than 20 minutes before I took the shot. I waited for the hog to offer the quartering-away shot that would allow me to place the arrow behind that inch-thick shield of gristle that protected his vital areas.

But when I drew the bow to take this perfect shot, I forgot one critical ingredient about successful shooting from a tree stand. I failed to bend at the waist. Even though I aimed dead-on, I missed my trophy boar of a lifetime.

For more information on hog hunting, contact Don Teston at Wingshooters (941) 693-2549, P.O. Box 980, LaBelle, FL 33975. To learn more about North America Archery Group's newest bows, call or write (352) 376-2327, 4600 Southwest 41st Boulevard, Gainesville, FL 32608-4999. To learn more about D-Scent, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to 3-J Corporation, P.O. Box 32, Fostoria, IA 51340, or call (712) 332-5072.

TOMORROW: OTHER PLACES TO HUNT HOGS IN FLORIDA

Check back each day this week for more about FLORIDA -- A PLACE WITH IT ALL ...

Day 1 -Taking Turkeys In Florida
Day 2 -An Eager Tom
Day 3 -Start Preparing Now For Bow Season
Day 4 -Hunting Hogs With A Crossbow
Day 5 -Other Places To Hunt Hogs In Florida

John's Journal