Ross likes to say that the best way to make sure the land is taken care of is to leave it in the hands of its owners, not in the hands of the government. To him, this property is the perfect example. That much of the area was devastated by individuals and private companies doesn't seem to factor much into his thinking.

A HOG IN THE CROSSHAIRS

We park at a small campground of trailers and unload the guns from the back of the truck.

The largest of the four, an AR-15 semiautomatic, belongs to one of Ross's sons. Both of Ross's two children killed their first boar before they were 10, but the lawmaker himself came to hunting later in life, after he met his wife. Her family got Ross interested in hunting. "The only key to any land they had was a pair of bolt cutters," he tells me.

Ross decided a while ago that it was best for him to get some land of his own to hunt on, and he's glad he did. It's one of the few things he can do these days and feel as though he has accomplished something -- a feeling he rarely gets from his work in Washington.

"The problem I have is that I get impatient," Ross says of his first year in office. "I want to see gratification, and I want results, but the process hasn't allowed us to do that." Yet, for all his frustration, he doesn't see himself as part of the problem. So what if he and others helped bring the country to the brink of default during the debt-ceiling negotiations? So what if voting against measures to fund the government could have caused a shutdown? "I don't view this as clashing," he says of the partisan nature of Congress. "It's more about slowing down the ship and working to put it in another direction."

I go with the .308 Ruger M70 rifle. The name means very little to me, but it sounds impressive. Ross tells me that it's a big gun that shoots big bullets. We jump into a Kawasaki Mule utility vehicle and go in search of hogs. Right away, it's clear that finding them won't be hard. We drive through cattle fields filled with patches where hogs have dug up the dirt. The locals tell me that hogs breed faster than rabbits and are something of a problem in the area. A hog infestation has held up the construction of a golf course. You can hunt them year-round because they are such a nuisance.

"They're damn near the only thing that isn't regulated down here," Ross says. So it isn't much of a surprise when, just 15 minutes into our bumpy ride, we spot three hogs about 80 yards away. They are tucked into a patch of tall grass, just their heads and flicking tails visible. Ross shuts off the Mule, hands me the gun, and tells me to take a knee and shoot. I line up the middle hog in my scope, figuring that if I miss wildly, maybe I'll at least hit one of its companions.