Last Monday late in the morning I went from Jacksonville back to Palestine on Hwy 79, and about 2 miles outside of rhe 256 Loop in Palestine I saw 2 road killed critters barely off the roadway, laying on the paved shoulder...that had not been there 2 hours earlier when I went thru there the 1st time.
One was a mature WTail laying on his side paralleleing the Hwy with no body damage in evidence from behind the wheel at 65/70'ish, and the other was mebbe tha largest road killed hog I've ever seen.
The hog was on his belly almost stradling the white line that seperates the shoulder from the roadway, and covered more than half the paved shoulder also laying parallel to the roadway, stretched out perfectly upright and apparently fresh killed as his 7-8+" tall ears were flapping in the wind off the passing traffic. The only damage I saw was a massive Kenworth bumper sized bloody swath on the left side of his head. I'm guessing he was 5 1/2-6'+ long from the withers to the base of his tail, and about 36" tall thru the shoulders from the pavement.
I've hunted the other side of Palestine in the past in the Trinity River bottoms and saw a live hog with his sounder that the TPW Warden running the WMA grinned and said was a well known character that probably weighed well in excess of 300 lbs, and agreed that it would have taken cutting at least 2-3 strands off the bottom of property owners 5 wire fence to drag him out of the creek bank he was dozing on...and this hog on the hwy made that one look like a younger brother.
If I were to guess I'd say this guy on the hwy was well over 250-300lbs and possibly a lot larger than that...and all East Texas Rooter bloodlines for sure with his little not so scrawny arse & long bristle ridgeback laying 2 feet off the hwy.
Ran the errands and came back about 2 hours later and both critters were gone...somebody got a nice set of cutters for sure off the big boy....mebbe some illegal venison too.
Ron
Last edited by verhoositz; 02/19/17. Reason: my spelling is crap sometimes
