MORE ABOUT THE BAD, WILD HOGS GENE BROOKS HUNTS
The Chapel Hill Boar, Part I
 Editor’s
Note: Gene Brooks of Dublin, Georgia, who hunts hogs
in three different states and is on call to a large
number of landowners and farmers. When a bad hog or
a pack of hogs starts eating and destroying crops, tearing
up roads and killing dogs, then landowners and farmers
call Brooks, whose motto is “Have Dogs, Will Travel.”
Although Brooks catches and removes any hog or group
of hogs that terrorize the landscape, he specializes
in “killer” hogs – those that have
been hunted before by other hog hunters. These killer
hogs are so bad that they leave bulldogs, curs and hounds
lying on the ground like casualties from a bombing raid.
This week we’ll continue to look at the man, his
dogs and the hogs he hunts.
 “I
found the Chapel Hill hog when a landowner called me,”
Brooks recalls. “This farmer had had dead cow
that the Chapel Hill boar had dragged off into the woods.
When I saw the cow, I went up to it and saw some huge
hog tracks by it. I also saw where the hog had been
rooting to get bugs and critters coming out of the dead
cow. Although the track indicated that this hog was
a pretty good size, I never had a clue that this was
an exceptional hog. One night when we decided to go
hog hunting, I decided to go to that old cow carcass
and turn my hounds loose. The dogs bayed the hog after
only about 50 yards. I could hear him popping his jaws,
so I knew it was a boar. I turned Rusty, my catch dog,
loose to go chase the dogs. What I learned later was
that the hog had bayed-up in a real bad thicket full
of briars and brambles.
 “Rusty
was a red-nose pit bull that could catch any hog I ever
put him near. He could catch a freight train if you
could pin ears on it so that he thought it was a hog.
When Rusty hit the briars, I heard squealing and hollering
and dogs yapping, and then I heard nothing. The battle
was over. I knew that the hog had broke and run, and
I thought Rusty was running with my cur dogs trying
to catch the boar as he ran out through the woods. The
cur dogs were right behind the hog, and I was running
wide open right behind the cur dogs. When we got to
the hog, I was expecting to see Rusty clamped onto that
boar’s head, but when I didn’t see Rusty,
I knew that the hog had probably cut him. I could tell
this bull weighed close to 400 pounds. The fellow I
was hunting with had a pistol and wanted to shoot the
hog. But I told him, ‘No, we don’t shoot
hogs. A real hog hunter who has a pack of dogs always
catches a hog. He never shoots him. That’s against
the hog hunter’s code.’”
“When the hog broke bay and ran again, I told
the other hunters to follow the dogs. I was going to
go back and look for Rusty. I knew if Rusty wasn’t
catching that hog, then he was cut and hurt. I realized
that the sooner I could get to him, the better my odds
would be for saving his life. When I reached the thicket
and crawled in to where the fight had taken place, I
found Rusty. His entire shoulder was cut away and was
lying back across his back. He had his throat cut, and
he was cut in the chest twice. knew there was nothing
I could do for Rusty—he was already dead. But
I had to go try and save my other dogs from this old
bad hog.
 “I
took off running back to where I heard the hogs barking
and baying. When I got to the fight, I found that three
more of my dogs had been cut by the hog. I knew that
if I didn’t get my bay dogs away from that hog
he would cut up or kill every dog we had because my
catch dog was dead. And you just can’t let your
bay dogs go in and catch the hog. You really need a
bulldog to do that. So, when the boar would lunge at
a dog and the dog would jump back, one of the other
hunters or myself would grab the dog by the collar and
put a leash on him. We finally caught up all our dogs
and let the hog go.
“On the way back to my truck, I asked one of
the other hunters if he would go get ole Rusty. Since
that hunter knew how much the dog meant to me, he went
into the thicket and brought Rusty’s lifeless
body back and laid him in the back of the truck. I took
ole Rusty back to the house and buried him in my dog
cemetery because he had proven he was worthy. Of all
the dogs I’ve owned through the years, I’ve
only buried 20 of the toughest and bravest in that cemetery.
Each of those 20 dogs was a true warrior, full of courage
and staying power, and the kind of proud dog that made
the man who owned him proud.”
TOMORROW: THE CHAPEL HILL BOAR, PART II
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