Collared Peccary

Project 365

02/18/2010

The story behind this skull falls right in with the Ruger Redhawk in the earlier post. This is one of those great shot stories I had mentioned.

A friend of mine and I went out to the Winchester Mountains to hunt javalina during the HAM hunt. They call it the HAM hunt, not because you are hunting javalina, but because the only weapons allowed are Hanguns, Archery & Muzzleloaders. Anyway, we had gotten camp set up mid morning and went out to hunt the rest of the day. After a few hours my buddy convinced me to go back to camp. After an early supper I was very restless. I wasn’t used to that kind of hunting. We are always out on the hunt well before sun up, possibly returning to camp for lunch, then heading back out to return to camp only after dark. Since the sun was still up after we ate, I couldn’t stand sitting around so I went for a hike up N-O canyon and some of the side ravines. About a mile away from camp I heard a couple of dirt bikes coming fast up the nearby road. They stopped adjacent to me and the two guys jumped of and hurried right past me up into a side ravine. The second guy slowed just long enough to say high and that they had seen a herd of javalina come into this side ravine from the other side of the ridge. I didn’t want to interfere with their hunt so I just stood at the mouth of the ravine to see what happened. They both climbed up the same side of the wash and stuck together. I thought this was a mistake on their part since if they had gone on opposite sides, they could have watched out in front of each other a greater distance. Well, after a few minutes they jumped the herd and took a shot which sent the whole bunch of them running down the wash right at ME. I pulled the Redhawk and watched as they kept coming. When they were about 30 yards away I cocked the hammer and they all came to a dead stop! They had actually heard that, at a dead run. I stood still, keeping aim at the leader since he was closest. I didn’t have the greatest shot since they were all facing me. For non hunters, it is best to have a broadside or quartering away shot since it is easier to hit the vital organs that way. Well, those half blind little guys never saw me as a threat and were more scared of what was behind them so they took off at a run again. They went down into the wash that separated us and I could see that they would come up my side about twenty feet away. As soon as the leader was broadside to me on my side of the wash, I took the shot. I swear that guy doubled his speed. Not believing I had missed such an easy shot, I was dazed for a second. I fired several more times as he ran past me and each time I couldn’t figure out how in the hell I was missing him. A second later and he was gone, out of sight, along with the rest of the herd. I only had to track them a few yards into the brush before finding him lying dead. Once I had a chance to check him out closer, I found five bullet holes in him all within about a six inch pattern. I opened the cylinder on the redhawk and there was one live shell left. I had hit the running javalina with every shot including the first one. Once again, instinct and practice paid off. All of them had been fatal shots but that javalina refused to go down. I cleaned him, then slung him over my shoulders and carried him back to camp. I still get a kick out of the look on my buddies face when I carried him in. Only then was he sorry that he hadn’t come along.

Took it in to Willcox Meats the next day and they made some great chorizo out of him for me.