The scorching sun hung high above the Chihuahuan Desert as the lawman carefully made his way up a steep limestone escarpment, mindful not to drive the arched spears of Lechuguilla into his shins as he secured footing to make the next push upward. A fall among the boulders below would be much more painful, if not life-altering. Faint scuffs on the slick rock convinced him that the men he was after had scaled the looming cliffside.

A fellow once told me that, regarding feral hogs, there are two kinds of places...them that’s got ‘em and them that’s gonna get ‘em. Feral hogs, if they are anything, are adaptive. We even have them out here in this high, dry desert country of the Texas Big Bend. They are tough, prolific, and destructive...oh, and they’re really fun to hunt.

For the past five years, I’ve been trying to shoot a bull. When I was twelve, my buddy and I tracked down a cow that had been wounded by poachers and put her down with muzzleloaders. I got close two years ago when I had my bow drawn back at a bull standing at thirty yards for over a minute. Sadly, he never presented an ethical shot, and I had to let him go.