Redemption: A New Mexico Javelina Hunt
The author after a successful archery javelina hunt in southeastern New Mexico - taken after a last-light stalk through the Chihuahuan Desert.
“Getting really windy now, not looking good but I’m hunkered down and making one last push.” I texted my friend as I sat down at the edge of a canyon and began to glass. I had been starting to slowly lose hope for about 24 hours at that point – I was worried this trip was going to turn out like a lot of my trips had gone recently; sad, discouraged, and unsuccessful. We can say “it’s just nice being out here” all we want, and there is absolutely truth to that, but sooner or later the emptiness of both your freezer and your walls will start to get to you, and it was getting to me at this point. I was in desperate need of a confidence boost. Even so, I wasn’t giving up just yet; my eyes were glued to my binoculars as I intently scanned every last inch of the numerous different ridges that were within view of my perch. Suddenly, something in my gut told me to look at one particular bench directly north of me, across the canyon. I followed my intuition and trained my binoculars on a small clearing. To my immense surprise, I immediately saw a small, black shape moving slowly but smoothly through the juniper, yucca, and cactus. There was no mistaking it; that was exactly what I was after.
It was the last evening of my three-day hunt in the Chihuahuan Desert of Southeastern New Mexico, and I had just seen the first Javelina of the entire trip. I’d seen multitudes of them before in this area – last September while deer hunting the same exact area – but had come up totally empty now that I had a tag for one in my pocket. Now, with just under one hour left of legal shooting light, there they were across the canyon from me. As the crow flies, they were about 900 yards away, but given that they were on the other side of a canyon, the route I was going to have to take to get to them was easily a mile, maybe more. Under normal circumstances, a piece of cake; but these weren’t normal circumstances. This was a mile that involved going down into and then up out of a canyon, and traversing crumbly limestone that was like walking on a bed of jagged marbles – not to mention the fact that all of this had to be done without spooking the skunk pigs that were foraging on prickly pear at my final destination.
Under normal circumstances, I would have made a note of where they were and come back at first light to relocate them, since Javelina aren’t known for traveling very far from a particular home area. However, since this was the last night of the hunt, I really had no choice but to go after them. So, I texted my buddy and said “I see some, going for broke.” I threw on my backpack, picked up my bow, and started booking it along the rim of the canyon.
Canyon terrain in the Chihuahuan Desert of southeastern New Mexico
I was almost at a sprint, figuring any time I saved now was time I’d have later when I needed to be quiet and plan a stalk. Knowing Javelina can’t see very well, and also knowing I was downwind, I figured I could at least get within 100 yards or so before I really needed to be careful. I dodged chollas, yuccas, lechuguillas, and prickly pears – except when I didn’t – and made my way to the bottom of the canyon with blistering speed (for hunting standards). I checked my watch; 40 minutes left, I’d be cutting it close, no doubt. I climbed up out of the canyon on the other side and powered my way up the hill toward them, parallel to the canyon rim. I was closing the distance; I figured I might even get there with 20 or so minutes left to make my stalk. Then, to my horror, I came across the last thing I needed – another canyon I had no idea about. Admittedly, this one was smaller, and looking back, I can see how I missed it on the map. I realized I had no time, though, and I needed to get to the other side fast. So, I went straight down into it, and didn’t bother trying to find an easier way out, as that would’ve taken me further from my route; I climbed straight up out of there and started on my way again.
By this point, I had roughly 25 minutes left, and the pigs were probably still around 150 yards away. I started running, figuring I’d slow down when I had closed the distance enough to see them. I’m just glad I was hunting Javelina – an elk would’ve already been in the next county after hearing all the commotion. Knowing I had that advantage, I kept pushing.
Finally, I got within about 50 yards of where I’d last seen them, and could finally see the clearing. I scanned it briefly, not seeing anything at first. I nocked an arrow and crept forward, careful not to make a noise or step into the open. I took deep breaths, felt my feet on the ground, listened to the birds and the rustling of the leaves in the gentle breeze, and slowed down to match the pace of the world around me. I was no longer myself; I was the wind, the trees, the bushes, the very earth itself. It’s this feeling that I’ve come to crave as a hunter – the feeling of being not just a passive observer of nature, but an active participant. I’m not someone who ascribes spirituality to hunting for my food, but rather someone who finds a certain meditative beauty in the simple material reality of finding myself in nature.
I heard the faint sound of an animal chewing off in the distance, a sound I recognized from farming pigs in my youth. I looked in the general direction of the noise and saw first a pair of youngsters, then a few older pigs behind them. I assessed the situation to figure out which I thought was the largest of the group before settling on one about 15 yards from where I stood. The youngsters made whimpering noises as they noticed something wasn’t quite right. Then the big one turned and faced me, raising the hair on the back of her neck and letting out a low, rumbling growl, then a sharp bark right at me. Knowing the tusks these things have, I was a little unnerved. But I remembered: “I am not in danger, I am the danger.” I waited a moment for her to look away and drew back my bow. There was a pause when she turned back toward me, continuing her growl. I was being presented with a frontal shot – not ideal for archery, but a shot I am positive that I can make. Still, I held the bow at full draw for about 30 seconds or so to see if she’d turn. She didn’t. I took a deep breath, mouthed the words “keep the pin on,” and steadied my aim.
The familiar snap of the bow string was followed a half second later by the loud smack of the broadhead into the Javelina’s chest. She reared up and let out a loud bark and barreled downhill toward the side of the canyon. She bailed off a steep drop, and after that, I lost sight of her, but heard her as she flopped over in the foliage. I turned and watched the others take off, confused as to what had happened. Their lack of great eyesight or hearing had left them unsure of what had gone down besides that they needed to get out of there.
I called my friend, who has more hunting experience than me, immediately to tell him what had happened – what a crazy sequence of events had led to the moment. I sent him a picture of the blood to see what he thought, and he agreed with me that it looked like dark red liver blood, but there was a lot of it. Given the frontal angle and where I saw the arrow hit, I figured I must’ve clipped lung, maybe even heart. I told him I had yet to find my arrow and suspected it was probably still stuck in the javelina. Still on the phone rehashing the dramatic stalk, I continued following the blood toward where I’d heard her go down.
I heard a rustling in the bushes to my right and saw a Javelina, about the same size as the one I’d shot, turned and facing away from me, rummaging in the brush.
“Wait, is that the one I shot?” I said, stepping slightly forward to get a closer look. The pig rummaged around for a few more seconds and turned around, holding a prickly pear paddle in its mouth. It was a different Javelina, only about 15 yards away from the one I’d shot, who had apparently been too distracted by the delicious nopales in front of it to notice that anything had even happened. Absolutely lost in the sauce. It eventually realized I was standing there – and that none of its herd were still around – and took off to go find them. I relayed what had transpired to my friend on the phone.
“I guess we could both get one from the same group if I come along next time,” he said with a chuckle.
I walked down the hill a bit further into a small stand of trees, and caught a glimpse of the Javelina lying in the leaf litter. I knew she’d gone down, but still breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing her. I nocked another arrow and walked up at her, bow at full draw. I kicked a rock at her to see if she’d move. She didn’t budge. I kicked her directly – still no movement.
She was down; the pursuit was over. Now it was time for the real work.
I took some time for a photo with her, but it was getting so dark that I honestly struggled with getting the lighting to work. Eventually I settled on one that was sorta passable as a decent “grip ‘n grin,” then got to work breaking her down. But now I could relax a little, right?
I pulled out my knife – being on a pretty low budget, I didn’t have a particularly good quality pocket knife, but I figured this one would get the job done.
Javelina have a stink gland on their back near their rump, which is what has earned them the nickname “skunk pig.” This needs to be removed, ideally before the packout, to prevent any of the smelly liquid from ruining the meat. When people say Javelina taste bad, I suspect it’s because they’ve allowed the meat to become contaminated by the stink gland. I got to work cutting it off and realized this knife was not, in fact, going to do the job – at least not very effectively. It was cutting, but not very well. I slowly worked around the stink gland, removing the skin from the muscle and carving out a circle around the gland. I had gotten it mostly off and went to sever the last bit of skin holding it in place.
My knife slipped. The blade slammed right into my knee, there was blood immediately.
My wilderness first aid instincts kicked in and I stripped off my jeans, grabbed the first aid kit out of my backpack, and got to work dressing the wound. I applied gauze and medical tape to the best of my ability, but it was bleeding through the gauze.
“Well, that’s not ideal,” I said to myself. It was quite deep, but hadn’t hit anything critical. Still, I knew I’d be bleeding throughout the packout, and I needed to get back to my car quickly to get to the bigger first aid kit that I keep in there. I didn’t have time to keep breaking down the Javelina, I needed to move. She was a big mature sow – I’d estimate about 40lbs – so that on top of my gear made my pack around 55lbs. Hardly the heaviest pack I’ve ever carried, but given the circumstances, getting out of there felt like an impossible task. I strapped on a headlamp, threw on the pack, and started trekking.
It was a long, slow limp out, bleeding and sore and cursing my cheap knife. But step by painful step, I hauled myself – and the pig – out of that canyon.
I began to feel fear. Not that I’d bleed out, necessarily, but that if I slipped – with that weight on my back to throw me off – I might fall down into the canyon and not be able to climb back out. Or that I’d worsen the injury and the situation would spiral. Or both.
I called the woman I was dating at the time. I told her I just needed to hear another person’s voice. After a few minutes, once I’d calmed down, we hung up, and I kept pushing forward.
I repeated to myself, like a mantra, “You can’t die in fucking Carlsbad.”
I should add, for context, this hunt took place near Carlsbad, NM, where I lived for just under a year throughout 2024 and have some bad memories. The desert outside of town is beautiful and I still go back to visit it; the town, not so much.
Still, despite my aversion to the town, I was staying there with a friend and former coworker, who happens to be an EMT. I called her and asked if she’d be home, and explained what had happened.
“You’re a moron,” she said, “but yeah, I’ll be there.”
I laughed and told her I’d be there soon.
I was pushing hard up the side of the canyon until I came to the road. My shitty little compact car was parked down the road some distance, likely unable to handle this section of the unimproved Forest Service road. But now I was on flat ground. At least walking would be easier.
I still felt that stressed out feeling in the back of my mind and wanted to talk to someone. I picked up the phone and called the friend who I’d been corresponding with throughout the hunt. He stayed on the phone with me until I made it to the car. I rejoiced upon seeing my tail lights in the glow of my headlamp.
We hung up the phone to give me a chance to redress my wound and start breaking down the Javelina. I took the machete off my belt – figuring it was, though bulkier, significantly sharper than my cheap pocket knife. I began working by headlamp, skinning and gutting the pig, separating the quarters and removing the ribs from the rest of the body.
It had made a massive 2-inch wound and not only sliced open the top of the heart, but also punched clean through a lung and torn several blood vessels before embedding itself in the liver. All of the hours of target practice and marksmanship training with my bow had paid off in the form of a clean, ethical kill. No wonder she’d gone down so quickly.
Fortunately for me, it hadn’t completely destroyed any particular organ, and once I cut around the damaged tissue, everything was salvageable. Steven Rinella once made a similar shot on a Nilgai and called it a “thinking man’s heart shot.” So, I’d call this a thinking man’s frontal shot. I was getting hungry already, just thinking about fire-charred liver, sauteed heart, curried kidney, and all the other delicious and richly nutritious organ meat recipes I was going to make – and that wasn’t even to mention the rest of the meat. All-in-all, that big sow gave me just over 20 pounds of clean meat for the freezer, and a set of wicked tusks that were going to make one hell of a Euro mount once I got back home.
Out of curiosity, I cut open the stomach to see what was in there. I’ve contributed to some gut content studies in the past – or at least been in the same labs as the studies were happening in – which hammered home how important it can be to know what an animal is eating. When I sliced open the stomach, it was pretty much all green slurry from eating tons and tons of prickly pear. Not much that I didn’t already know, and without a bunch of expensive lab equipment, I wasn’t going to get any particularly valuable information beyond that. But I still think it’s worthwhile to take a look. If you plan on hunting the same area again, it never hurts to know what your quarry’s feeding on. It’s something I’ll keep doing.
I loaded the Javelina into the trunk, took one last look at the dark canyon, and breathed a sigh of mixed relief and satisfaction. I was sad that the hunt was over, but thrilled that I’d been successful.
There was another lingering feeling, though – one I don’t think I’ll ever fully escape, nor one that I would even want to escape – something I’ve come to know as hunter’s remorse. It’s that feeling you get when the adrenaline wears off. It’s the quiet moment of acknowledgement of what you’ve done. And it’s something I’ve felt since my very first deer when I was 9 years old.
We can slice it and dice it however we want, but as hunters, we accept the responsibility of putting meat in our freezer – and that means taking a life, no way around it. I consider myself an introspective person, and it’s never easy to square that feeling with the joy of success. But over time, you come to understand it, carry it, and own it. For me, it’s not something I can easily put into words, and it’s just something I hold now.
The weight of responsibility to honor the meat and the life that gave it.
I got into my driver’s seat and drove out, back toward the main road. I rolled down the window and felt the cool night breeze that swept across the Chihuahuan Desert. I had come back to the same place that I’d come up empty during deer season less than a year prior. The throbbing pain in my knee wasn’t even of any concern to me anymore – I was soaking in this moment. I had redeemed myself; I’d tasted success again. The drought was over and the floodgates had opened. And I was only just getting started.
High desert terrain in the Chihuahuan Desert near Carlsbad, New Mexico, a beautiful view enjoyed during a successful javelina archery hunt.
5 Lessons Learned
1. Trust your gut.
The whole hunt turned on a hunch and a glance at the right ridge. Intuition is a tool worth sharpening, and “your gut don’t lie” as the old adage goes. I’m a firm believer that your subconscious, unobstructed by the constraints we place on our conscious minds, will work out problems on its own - pick up on subtle cues as to what’s going on, and making assessments in the background. Stay in touch with that.
2. Don’t wait to go for broke.
With time running out, hesitation would’ve cost me everything –sometimes you have to commit and figure it out on the run. Strategically using my speed and athleticism bought me time to get over to where the game was located and allowed me to make a careful stalk once I was there.
3. Know your gear – and its limits.
My broadhead performed flawlessly; my knife didn’t. Having confidence in your tools means knowing which ones will fail and need replaced. I shouldn’t have skimped on the knife, and it’s a mistake I’ll never make again.
4. Pain makes the story worth telling.
Between the busted knee, the limp, and the midnight climb, I earned every step – and sometimes, the suffering is what makes a hunt unforgettable. While you probably want to avoid stabbing yourself in the knee on a hunting trip, there’s plenty of pain and soreness along the way that comes with the activity. Embrace it.
5. Killing something will never feel easy, and that’s okay.
Hunter’s remorse isn’t weakness, it’s the weight of responsibility. If you don’t feel it, you’re not doing it right. It’s important to understand the gravity of what you are doing as a hunter, and feel the responsibility to use the animal.
