After my hunt was over in southern Oklahoma, I quickly made my way back up to hunt with Hank and the Little Gal.  I had hunted that morning and planned to hunt with them this evening.  I had dropped them off two days prior and they had been having fun with out me so now I was excited to join them.

Saturday morning they had headed out to hunt turkeys and weren’t able to call them off of the neighboring property so they went with our friend Travis to check his hog traps.

They were pleasantly surprised to see young hogs in the trap and the Little Gal got to hold one after Travis snared it.

The Little Gal holding a wild baby hog.

The remaining traps were empty so they headed to the creek to catch some fish.   She caught the most fish out of anyone and was pleased with the day so far.

The Little Gal with a sand bass and a crappie.

After some time they headed to the house for lunch.  As they sat and ate they noticed that there was a fire on the neighboring property.  The fire ended up rolling over the hills in no time at all and instead of an after noon hunt, they ended up playing fire fighter as they protected Travis’ family’s house.  The afternoon hunt was out of the question.

The following morning, they checked traps again and skipped the turkey hunt.  They spent their time watching the embers of charred trees to see if anything would flare up or trees would fall over.

I was excited to meet up with them and made it back in good time. They had told me what was going on with the fire, but I had no idea.  I made the three-hour drive and turned onto their gravel road to see not just smoke but flames.

I headed to the house to see charred land all along the way.

As I pulled into the drive, the ground and trees were charred all around.

I got closer to the house and worried about what it may look like.  They had done a great job.  There was a beautiful circle of green all around it.

View from the patio. The crew had managed to keep the fire away from the house and there was a circle of green within the black charr of the fire.

I unloaded and went in.  No one was there to great me.  I walked through the house and out to the back patio where I found everyone sitting, exhausted watching the smoking embers of what remained of the fire.  They were pleased that they had managed to save everything and acted as if it weren’t too big a deal.  They were mainly exhausted from the smoke they had been breathing for the past day.  We decided to rest and then head out to take the Little Gal for an evening hog hunt.

We were excited to take her out that last evening of our trip.  She wanted to get a hog to give to her grandpa.  If she got a hog, her grandpa would be taking it to give to an indian tribe as an offering.  We headed out and had high hopes for her.  She was very nervous as we went to a crossing path where the hogs would be heading from one field to another.  We found a place and sat in the brush and waited.  Soon we heard a grunt and the Little Gal got nervous.  She lifted her gun and we told her “Here it comes.”  She said she couldn’t see it.  It ran past and sure enough, she couldn’t see it.  She was just a little too low in the brush.  We stood her up and saw more coming.  She was pretty rattled after the first hog ran by so as this group came, we spent our time trying to get her settled.  She finally settled and the last straggler of the group headed our way.  She aimed her Benelli and we weren’t sure if it was going to happen, but there it was, BAM!  She squeezed off a shot and hit that hog, “right in the goodies” as she would say.

We waited quietly in the brush to make sure it wasn’t going to move and nothing was going to get us and then we headed out to see her harvest!

Success for the Little Gal!   I was so happy to have been able to make it back in time to experience her hunt with her and be a part of it.

Mom was blessed to be a part of the Little Gal's first hog hunt.

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Don’t forget to read about Mia & the Little Gal’s adventures at the Women’s Outdoor News

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