Why I Keep Coming Back to That One Drainage: A Wild Boar Tale

Why I Keep Coming Back to That One Drainage: A Wild Boar Tale

Some spots stay with you. Not because they’re easy. But because they demand everything. There’s a twisted finger of dry creekbed just north of Cotulla—choked with huisache, boxed in by caliche ridges, and littered with game trails like an old roadmap. That drainage hasn’t just produced pigs. It’s tested my grit, wrecked gear, and handed me moments I’ll never forget.

Here’s why I keep going back—and what went down last November that made it feel like the first time, all over again.

🧭 The Drainage That Doesn’t Forgive

I found it five seasons ago. Pure accident. A blood trail from a gut-shot sow led me to the head of a narrow ravine. Just 10 feet wide, shaded, full of tracks. Since then, I’ve returned every fall—sometimes with friends, often alone.

“It’s not the most scenic. It’s not even the most productive. But it feels alive. Like something’s always about to happen.”

You don’t glass this place. You don’t wait. You work it. Slow. Quiet. Nose into the wind, eyes on every root tangle and rock overhang.

🐗 Last Season: Dusk, Drought, and Dust Clouds

On November 12, I dropped in an hour before last light. Everything was dry—cracked mud, curled leaves, dust so fine it coated my boots like flour. I hadn’t seen sign for 300 yards, and I almost pulled out.

Then a faint grunt. One I’d heard before. Then another. Downwind.

I circled wide, stepped into the drainage from a side cut, and froze.

Six pigs. One big boar. Feeding, unaware. 45 yards. No clean shot.

I waited. One step, two. The boar angled broadside. I thumbed the safety.

“In that light, in that place, every hunt I’d had there came flooding back.”

🔥 The Shot, the Charge, the Memory

The .308 barked. The boar flinched, then turned toward me.

Not away. Toward.

He made it 15 yards before I anchored him with a second shot—dead center in the chest.

The others scattered like marbles on concrete. I stood still, heart pounding, hands shaking, watching the dust settle over the body of the biggest pig I’d ever taken in that spot.

🧠 What This One Spot Keeps Teaching Me

• Familiar ground teaches new lessons – No two hunts are the same, even when the map doesn’t change

• Dry sign isn’t no sign – When it’s dusty, even faint sound matters more than tracks

• Stay patient, but stay ready – Good ground is nothing without presence and poise

• Return for what might happen, not what already did

• Respect earned spots – If you bleed in a place, it deserves your best

“I don’t keep coming back for more pigs. I come back because I haven’t mastered it yet.”

🎒 The Gear That Survived the Return

It’s not always about harvest numbers. Sometimes it’s about terrain that kicks your butt—but offers clarity. Sometimes it’s a place where you miss, or bleed, or nearly give up. And sometimes, you just connect. This drainage is mine. Not because I own it. But because it owns part of me.

“When the land shapes your story—not just the hunt—you go back. Again and again.”