White Oak Mountain Ranger: The Big Cypress And The Big Hog
“The South is a position. East, West and North are very little but directions.” – Letter to the Editor, Richmond Instances Dispatch
“They use all the things about the hog other than the squeal.” – Upton Sinclair
We have been somewhere west of the horror that is described as the superior-increase and stucco splashed east coastline of South Florida by 50 or 60 miles on Alligator Alley.


There was an just about imperceptible increase in elevation as the monotonous sawgrass of the Everglades was remaining subtlety replaced with scatterings of cypress tress and bromeliads. At times, off in the flat expanse of the distance, we would glimpse pine islands, or hammocks, as we drifted into the warm afternoon wintertime sunlight of historic south Florida.
The Big Cypress swamp was little by little engulfing the ribbon of asphalt, paralleled by two darkish canals of deep drinking water, dense with cattails, and drinking water hyacinths. Flock just after big flock of Ibis, Good Blue Herons and Bitterns drifted lazily around the flat horizon like slow relocating dragon flies.
The Jeep pickup was loaded with the a few of us, a fifteen foot canoe, a week’s worth of food items, equipment and six dogs of many designs, sizes and dispositions. Our host was Charlie, a domestically famous pet dog breeder and swamp hunter based out of Homestead, Florida. Charlie and his pack specialised in managing deer and hogs, generally at the same time.
This particular trick of acquiring six pet dogs that chased hogs and deer at the very same time required hounds that had been precisely bred from Labradors, Plotts and Beagle mixes. “Catch dogs” sometimes resembled German Shepards, Rottweilers blended with Pit Bulls, with a minor Plott and Beagle combined in in some way, just for some type of unusual stability. Charlie was a tiny guarded about the exact breeding regular he coveted when it came to breeding leading notch, very aggressive swamp hounds.
These canine had been fourth and fifth technology goods of single minded dogs. These canines ultimately ended their life buried on pine islands that dotted the broad expanse of the Large Cypress. More than the system of the up coming couple of times we visited various dog graves marked by collars nailed to trees. At each individual spot we listened to of the valiant fatalities of these well bred animals, who normally had been “done in” by 1 of the three matters indigenous to the swamp Huge hogs, Big snakes and Big gators.
The drone of Alligator Alley below the tires of the Jeep was interrupted by Charlie’s course to slow down. He appeared to be exploring for a turnoff. I was telepathically communicating with the other member of the occasion from south Ga about how there was certainly no way to exit this road at any variety of suitable angle. There was no perceptible still left or suitable transform without lunging into one of the snake infested canals that flanked the straight as an arrow strip of asphalt involving Palm Seaside and Naples.
3 or 4 miles afterwards, we turned north on a smaller patch of crushed shell creating an opening in the cattails and looked the dark, sinister canal squarely in the deal with.
Charlie stated, “Get out and open up the gate.”
“Get out and swim?”
“No, just wade across the canal and open up the gate.”
“Is there a street?”
“Of class there is a road, moron.”
“Are you guaranteed it’s a road? I never see any street.”
“Just travel on in there, It is not that deep.”
For about a mile, the floor mats floated as the truck pushed a wake in entrance of the automobile as a result of the weeds and stumps.
Charlie said “Pull up on that rise there to the left and we’ll get the chunk out of the h2o.”
“Rise? Increase hell, I have not noticed dirt for two miles! What increase?”
“Just pull around and park. It is acquiring dim.”
The pack of strange seeking canines begun to howl when we killed the engine and drained the floorboard. When we opened the pet dog bins the shortest of the dogs were swimming all around us like Otters and I quietly hoped that any gator lurking nearby would target the Beagle looking dogs initial. Light-weight was fading quick though we loaded the boat with our gear.
Charlie and the canines experienced happily splashed their way down a ditch into the weeds in the direction of camp. My buddy and I were still left by itself to pull the boat by flashlight via a series of waistline deep potholes through some of the snakiest real estate known to person.
Soon after yet another mile of anxiously exploring for our host, gators, snakes, we stumbled into dry land and camp.
Camp was a extensive assortment of dilapidated, moss covered hooches on stilts. The island was a postage stamp, littered with a sequence of weathered construction jobs 50 % finished, canine bins, and a frequently pristine place for Rattlesnakes and Water Moccasins to increase generations of wholesome pit viper people.
There was minimal comfort and ease in the reality that Charlie had confident us that it could be a tiny cold for pit vipers in the course of our take a look at. I myself, immediately envisioned at the very least two tons of snakes residing less than the floor boards of the hooches. Dormant pit vipers in no way entered my brain, while I viewed Charlie’s canine warily sniff out every corner of every single hootch.
Every single corner, every bunk, rafter and horizontal surface area was consistently surveyed by flashlight just before a fitful snooze descended on the island.
In advance of daylight we eased into the chilly, thigh deep grayness of the massive swamp. We ended up led by a pack of swimming canine, splashing their way by way of ferns and cypress stumps in look for of deer or pig scent. Dim rays of dawn illuminated a bewildering jungle of sameness that was compounded by an uncharacteristically dense cloud go over.
We experienced been briefed on general directions about deep water and island orientation and gator holes. Within just an hour or two, I was hopelessly misplaced. The pet dogs experienced enthusiastically chased some variety of swamp dweller out of earshot. My compass was someplace again property in a drawer. This would never ever happen again. Orienting in a swamp the dimensions of Delaware is a genuinely bewildering strategy at finest.
By noon, I was calculating the several hours of daylight still left and attempting to locate a dry spot to expend the evening out of achieve of gators and snakes. By 14:00 I had settled on a significant stump and experienced begun the process of visualizing a very long evening of gator assaults. This impending nightmare was usually interspersed with waves of stump loving, leg extensive cotton mouths when cries of the doggy pack filtered through the cypress. The hounds ran by me in the distance and I fell in line whistling and hoping they would lead me out of the impending nightmare that was confident to finish in a existence of legless range.
Charlie heard me screaming at the pet dogs and eased more than to me and requested “Did you see the deer?”
“Nope.” I replied.
“Where you been for the final handful of hours? Did you get turned all around?”
“Well, Charlie, I acknowledge that I may perhaps have been terribly turned close to there for a minor although.”
“Don’t them dogs seem superior?”
“Charlie, they sound superior than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”
“By the way, which way is camp?”
“Why, it’s that way. Maybe a pair of miles.”
“I considered so.” I lied.
I was 180 degrees out and headed for deep h2o. I hardly ever shed sight of the Charlie following that.
At dusk we slogged our way back to camp and dry land. A further hunter experienced entered camp with a positive ID on a enormous hog on an island about 3 miles to the North. He was deer looking and did not shoot the large pig for the reason that he claimed the hog was just much too major to carry that considerably. He figured the hog was 300 to 400 lbs. We fed and chained the dogs for the night time and built designs for an early island assault.
When the pack jumped the hog the subsequent early morning, he ran into the worst palmetto thicket ever grown. The palmettos were so thick that you could not see two feet in entrance of you. And we had been attempting to run by means of this things to help you save the puppies from what sounded like one thing from the close of the environment, or the quite “Gates of Hell”.
From the sounds of points, in the densest section of the thicket, the puppies had been having a horrible mauling. Charlie was yelling, the canines have been sounding purely hysterical. Every time I stopped and fatigued to centre up on the melee, I could listen to tusks snapping and dogs screaming from being gored and thrown about in the palmettos. At twenty yards and closing, I heard a shot. The canine sounded like they experienced moved in for the destroy and the pitch of their symphony had all of a sudden transformed to a new set of octaves.
When I eventually parted the palmettos, the canine experienced the large hog by the lips, jowls, the ears, the tail, and all four legs. Charlie was on the enormous pig’s again slicing his throat with a significant knife. Blood, slobber, snot, hair and dog sections were scattered just about everywhere in the dense thicket even though Charlie yelled, “Get Otis and Poot off of them hams!”
I right away questioned, “DO WHAT?”
“Grab them dogs by the tail and twist ‘em as tricky as you can till they let go. And then tie ‘em up limited!”
I replied, “Grab ‘em and twist their tails? Are you out of your at any time loving thoughts? Charlie, people canines are foaming at the mouth and just about every previous 1 of them has absolutely absent insane!”
Quickly, each doggy in the pack had summoned the DNA of a deranged, pit bull, killing lunatic!
Now, Charlie stopped slicing on the huge hogs throat, and he turned to get my quick consideration. He elevated a somewhat massive and bloody blade in close proximity to my encounter. It abruptly dawned on me that I could possibly have by some means built him relatively upset. He out of the blue appeared fully pretty serious about making sure the preservation of a pair of Christmas hams. It grew to become evident that he assumed I was not seriously pitching in 100% on this individual ham preserving endeavor.
Otis looked like the the very least probably ham-gripper doggy that was not likely to rip my arm off. So, I took my five foot extensive snake killing cypress pole and jammed it into his snarling, foamed stuffed mouth like it was a crowbar. Momentarily, Otis was seemingly deeply perturbed by this individual diversion. He proceeded to chomp his way up the pole, to my trembling palms, splintering the extended pole in chunk sized pieces like it was a inexpensive toothpick.
I miraculously, in some way managed to get Otis tied to a palmetto with a stout piece of nylon rope. Whereupon, he commenced to frantically gnaw his way by the rope like his incredibly worldly existence depended on it.
Poot, was wholly wild eyed from his ham killing frenzy, and was significantly further than emphatic about having his tail twisted, or releasing his death grip on a flawlessly superior ham. He did momentarily determine to loosen his grip just prolonged plenty of to just take a series of vicious lunging pictures at my throat. Poot then unceremoniously been given a trio of swift soccer type kicks to the gonads that appeared to settle him down a little bit, just prolonged enough to safe a snarling Poot to a nearby tree.
Following the relaxation of the growling pack experienced been unhappily cleared with related finesse, with the support of a lot loud screaming, kicking and shouting, we admired the substantial pig there in the dense thicket. Charlie manufactured the shot at a distance of two ft.
We checked the snarling, intensely unhappy, howling and tethered canine for any vital triage. The retelling of our stories ongoing as we hoisted the major hog on a pole, slogging off the island.
“Which way is camp Charlie?”
“That way.”
I was when yet again 180 levels out as we shouldered the pounds of the pole and struggled into the cool drinking water of the Big Cypress.
Be aware from the WOMR Jen, this one’s for you. Right after ten very long winters in Wyoming and your return to the heat of the South, your ideas and feedback on these southern tales have been drastically appreciated.
Come to feel totally free to comment any time — [email protected] – Thanks.
“We hunt and fish due to the fact we can. Don’t drop that considered.”