Airboat + dogs + knife = Awesome hunt
I just got back from FL and I wanted to share my experience.
My wife, daughter and myself were in FL last week for our 10th year wedding anniversary. I am not a theme park guy and I knew that I needed to find something to do while I was in FL. I started to look for wild pig hunting in the area we were going to be staying at (Kissimmee), when I found a website called Switchgrass Outfitters. The owner Seth is hard to reach by computer, so call him versus sending him emails as he's not on the computer very often.
http://www.switchgrassoutfitters.com/
I've always wanted to hunt wild pigs and out of state, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to accomplish both. I also never been on an airboat nor have I hunted with a knife. While I've owned knives, I have always wanted an Esee knife. Of course since this was a special occasion for me so, I ordered and Esee 4. I knew that you didn't need much more than a 3" knife to get the job done. I went with the Esee 4 due to the fact that the blade was much thicker than the Esee 3.
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When I say I love firearms, it's not a stretch, but I have always wanted to hunt with a knife. I grew up working on a dairy farm that raised pigs as well. I am comfortable being around swine. It was really cool hunting with a knife and the guys at Switchgrass really took care of me. My safety was their primary goal along with making sure I had a memorable hunt.
I've seen youtube vids of wild pig hunting with knifes and everyone I've seen the guy will puncture the heart from the shoulder. In those vids, I have seen up to 10 stabs on the pig and it didn't expire quickly. The vid on YT that I was referring to was of a black guy with a bowie knife. I don't know how many times he stabbed the pig with the knife, but you could tell he was scared and he didn't kill that hog the right way. I was very disturbed by watching that vid and I almost didn't want to do the hunt when I saw that video. I'm glad I did the hunt because my hunt was nowhere like that one in the video.
Seth does it differently as he was correct in stating that it doesn't guarantee a puncture to it's vitals. They will have the dogs hold the pig at bay...come in and lay the pig on it's side, so that you have direct access to the heart. One puncture to the pig and bleed out in under 15 seconds. The blood poured out and I was amazed how quickly it expired.
Those guys probably were laughing on the inside as I was wearing 7mil latex gloves (Harbor Frieght as some great quality latex gloves). You have to understand that my wife along with her college friend are both in the food industry. I didn't want them to lecture me about food borne illness. I'm glad that I wore the gloves, because there was so much blood that poured out of the pig.
The place offers still hunting or hunting from an airboat. I've still hunted plenty and I felt that still hunting wouldn't be as exciting and it would be really hot sitting all day in the humid FL weather. I opted for the airboat hunting....this time a year, Switchgrass recommends night hunting since the dogs would be too hot to hunt the daytime hours. The weather didn't help as it rained nearly everyday and there were some record highs for this time of the year. I was originally suppose to hunt on Tuesday the 29th, but it was a steady rain and rain messes up the dogs nose to track down pigs. I ended up hunting the evening of Wednesday the 30th.
It was the perfect evening to hunt as the weather was actually cool outside. I wore a long sleeved shirt because I was expecting lots of bugs and I didn't want to make things easy for ticks to get onto my skin. I wore snake boots from Lacrosse because I didn't want to step off the airboat and have my legs as targets for the many poisonous snakes in FL.
Now the hunt, Seth was there along with two of his friends. The one guy (I believe his name was Russell) was new to this type of hunting and had a new dog he wanted to train. Seth also brought along some inexperienced dogs to train. Brain was a seasoned hog hunter using dogs as he breeds them. So within the first 30 minutes of hunting, Brian's dog let out a bark indicating he had a pig. There were four dogs total that came with us and Brian's dog was alone. This dog was amazing as it took on the sow by his self. We were at least 300 yards from the dog and pig as the dog had a GPS collar for tracking. I jumped off the boat with Brian as we were near the dog and pig. Man that FL swamp has some tall vegetation...this stuff was taller than I am and you couldn't see anything you were stepping into because every step was uneven and difficult to walk through.
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The dog and a pretty nice sized sow. Brian commanded the dog to back off and he put the pig on her side. I came in and delivered the kill shot with my Esee 4. Brian kept on saying the entire night how sharp the Esee was...he was impressed how easily the Esee 4 did it's job. The sow was a decent sized and I'd say she was around 175lbs. Great size for eating that is for sure. I didn't see any large cutters on her as I wanted to have one skull cleaned with beetles and a trophy. This is the brown colored pig in the picture.
The second hog that I got took a while as we were riding around at least another 2.5 hours before the dogs were on the second hog. The second hog managed to get himself into an area that was really thick with brush and in some nice FL mud. It took me a while to reach the pig as the mud was making me sink and I was getting stuck in the mud. This was a boar that the dog had...I just wished it was a bruiser as I wanted a huge hog to have his skull. This hog was probably the 100lb mark. All of the dogs were on this pig and man they were really going after this pig. The dog that was being trained needed help letting go of the pigs ear. With all of the bushes, it was more difficult to get into position for the kill. Got the pig on it's side and the Esee did the rest. This was the black pig in the picture.
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I brought along my action camera and I never turned it on. I should have taken the time to turn on the camera, but I know this won't be my last wild pig hunt.
Equipment used
Amazon shoulder harness for action camera
Rothco desert long sleeved
lightweight zip off shorts/pants
Lacrosse snake boots
Esee 4 knife plain edge
Nighteyes red headlamp
I want to go back and do another hunt like this with some friends. I may do a gator hunt with Seth as well.
I would highly recommend using Switchgrass Outfitters if you are in the Orlando area and want to try something different. Once you hunt with a knife and get so close to the animal, you will want to do it more often. This was such an adrenaline rush and I promise that you will never forget this type of hunt.
