SIPPYHOLE BLUES

by Kurt Zuelsdorf

​Then it appeared. Big, dark, and muddy… a sippie hole! A place unfit for man or beast, carved deep by unlucky drivers who dared to cross her.
Tommy Taylor, a good ol’ Southern boy who lives for the outdoors, called when wild hogs started tearing up his hunt lease just south of Tallahassee. I paused, then reacted instinctively. Next thing I knew, five hunters were crammed into my Trooper, sputtering into town on I-10 with a bad water pump and a ton of camping gear. A parts delay at the repair shop forced us to make the best of a hotel. After checking in, we called Tommy about the change of plans. Our hearts ached for camping in the vast Apalachicola National Forest—750,000 acres of slash pine, cypress heads, and gum swamps. But our excitement would have to wait until morning.
At 4:05 a.m., Tommy rolled into the parking lot in his wife’s two-door Blazer, a loaded .270 Remington on the dashboard. Peculiar? Maybe, but his logic was airtight: “In case a big ol’ buck jumps the road, I’ll be ready.” How do you argue with that?
Once underway, Jimmy, a rotund lifelong sportsman from St. Pete, started his antics. His weapon of choice? Fox urine. If you’ve never smelled this pungent piss, don’t. It’ll make you sick. Like all good hunters, Jimmy was immune to the stench of urine and other foul scents. Funny how the guy wielding the stink bomb is always the only one unfazed. He quietly detonated his scent bomb, sporting a crafty grin. Tommy was the first to notice, muttering, “Who brought the litter box?” The stench flooded the truck, swirling through the heating ducts—a dizzying, nauseating breeze. Five men craned their necks out the windows like dogs catching the wind. As uncomfortable as it was, I’ll admit I enjoy pranks like that with the boys. It’s what adds character and humor to my hunts—sometimes, the camaraderie is the only thing I take from the woods. Jimmy “The Fox” is a master at concocting blends that stagger the senses, a true asset to any hunt group.
By chance, we came across a fresh road-killed red fox that morning. Jimmy nearly leaped out the window for the trophy tail, claiming it was lucky. Tommy took it to heart, pulled the truck around, and with a quick flick of his pocketknife, the tail was his. He didn’t mind the ticks and fleas falling off as he hung it from the rearview mirror.
Miles of dirt road passed as we swapped tales from past hunts. Ronnie recounted an adventure involving (as his stories often do) doing his morning business on a mound of red ants. “Those damn things crawled all the way up my ass before they bit! Felt like I’d been shot with a hot load of double-ought buck!” When he offered his bare backside as proof, I got the point. Ronnie, though, could shoot a shotgun slug like nobody else. I once saw him pull a double on a deer hunt while balancing on a barbed-wire fence. Two deer broke cover during a cattail drive, and two went right back down—high-quality shooting born from years of wielding a shotgun.
Terry relived a moment with a pack of wild hogs in the Green Swamp. “Those suckers were everywhere. I could smell ’em, and when they broke cover, I just started shooting. Must’ve been five… maybe eleven hogs in those palmettos!” He learned what happens when common sense fails and survival kicks in—he called it a “phobie.” “In a situation like that, you don’t wanna be short on lead. I’m loaded to the teeth with ammo now, and when my .45 gets rolling, you’d better be out of the way!”
Tommy shared the time he cornered a 250-pound sow in a water hole. His partner spotted a snout and eyeballs poking above the water. “I knew I put a good hit on her,” Tommy said, “but the arrow passed clean through. The skin sealed up, and she didn’t bleed a drop. So we put ol’ Jake on the scent—he’s a Pascagoula hog dog, and boy, can he track! By the time we got to the hole, Jake was locked onto her snout, getting swung around like a ragdoll. That pup wouldn’t let go; he knew he’d get the barrel treatment.” (That’s a technique I’d heard for breaking a dog from chasing deer: toss ’em in an oil drum with a deer hide, seal it, and roll it down the road with the truck’s bumper.) “Jake held on long enough for me to grab her hind legs. I held her till she drowned.”
We arrived at the hunt camp, which wasn’t what I expected: a few old trailers tucked under pine boughs, a mess tent with a floor of nailed-together wooden pallets, screen doors strapped for walls, and a rip-stop tarp for a roof. Two picnic tables sat in the center, with a bulletin board displaying a map of the property’s tree stands, each marked by a pushpin. A washer on a pin meant someone was in the stand—an ingenious setup.
The hunt was on soon after we marked our stands. Our first steps from camp were brutal. Brambles, blackberries, and palmetto thorns tore at our hands. We tried keeping pace with Tommy, who slithered through the swamp like a snake, gliding over logs and vanishing into the thicket. Terry grumbled about the terrain and his bad knee. We lost Ronnie and Jimmy early on—they turned back. Terry and I pressed on to find Tommy, who’d already bagged a nice sow. I asked where the fatal shot was. He grinned, “What shot? What gun? I caught her bare-handed and slit her throat with my knife!” He stuck his fingers through the fleshy neck, pointing out the jugular. “Hit ’em right here, and they shut down quick-like.” Terry and I stood in disbelief at his speed. Now we had to get the “rooter” back to the truck.
Past hunts taught us the best way to extract a pig from the swamp is by pole. We tied her legs, slid a sturdy branch through, and hoisted her between two sets of shoulders. Before I knew it, we were back at the truck, strapping the hog on top. As blood drooled down the windshield, Tommy mentioned his wife’s request to keep the truck clean. I didn’t care—we had a hog and a few beers in the cooler. Time to head back to camp and celebrate.
I didn’t recall mud puddles on the way in, but on the way out, we slogged through a few that made me nervous. We’d planned on the Trooper for mud work, and I wished we had it now. Then it appeared: big, dark, and muddy—a sippie hole! Unfit for man, beast, or street vehicle, it was thick with mud, carved deep by unlucky drivers who took the chance. It looked shallow and serene on the surface but was soft and deep below. Tommy’s eyes said he could take it. He eased in. The front wheels dropped off the edge, water crashed over the hood, and he floored it. The rear dumped, and the front wheels slammed against the steep side of the hole. Within seconds, the tires spun free.
Mud and water poured into the cockpit, seeping through every crack and crevice, rising up my shins. The boys looked troubled when a black water moccasin slithered in the window. Terry panicked, scrambled over my shoulder, and clawed through the muck to dry land. I tried opening the door, but the hole’s steep sides pinned it shut. The snake, startled by the hollering, turned inside out and fled. I didn’t want to abandon the truck with a snake in the water, but then the left front wheel dropped a foot, followed by the right. I’d heard tales of park rangers vanishing with their vehicles in Florida swamps, never seen again. Not wanting to be a statistic, I dove out the window.
On dry land, I saw Tommy still behind the wheel, laughing. “My wife’s gonna kill me, boys!” He gunned the motor, trying to free the truck, but the sippie hole held tight. Terry and Jimmy flagged down a big mudder pickup. A huge man stepped out, scolding us for tackling the swamp in a two-wheel-drive vehicle. With a quick snap, he freed the Blazer. Tommy angled the truck on a side hill and opened the doors. Water rushed out, but the mud clung stubbornly. We scooped it from under the seats and dash with our hands—it was sloppy and stank of sulfur.
I admired Tommy’s humor about returning the truck to his wife. He laughed all the way back to camp, joking about claiming it was stolen to avoid her wrath. In the end, he did the right thing and went home. I haven’t returned to the Apalachicola Forest since writing this, but I’ve tangled with a few off-road hazards since. I know that when I least expect it, I could be singing the Sippie Hole Blues.
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