Went hunting this weekend at my friend's deer lease. Shot a doe Saturday morning, and videotaped a buck I wanted to shoot. It was a nice buck, which I thought was 4 1/2. Looked to me like a good managment deer. He was only about 12" inside spread, but with good mass, 8" G2's and 5-6" G3's. I only saw about a 1" brow tine on his left antler. But, while watching the video, we noticed about a 1/2" browtine on his right. So, the head honcho at the lease told me that, since it had both browtines, and he wasn't sure if it was 3 1/2 or 4 1/2,he wantedto let him grow for another year. He sent me to a blind Sunday morning where there was a "slick 6" buck (six points, no brow tines) that they wanted culled for their management program. He came wandering by about 7:15, and is now on ice, waiting for a trip to the butcher.
Sunday evening, I went to a different blind, hoping to see some pigs, and after sitting there for about two hours wathcing two does and a 1 1/2 year old forkhorn, I caught a glimpse of a black shape, hustling through the pasture from my left to my right. I've been hunting at this lease for 3 years, and this was the first live pig I had seen. Saw plenty on the skinning racks, but this was the first live one. I guessed the range to be about 200 yards, and started tracking it through my scope. I kept thinking maybe it would stop and I'd get a shot. Well, it stopped for about two seconds, facing away from me...so... no shot. It started running off again quartering away slightly from left to right, and, as it was about to reach the limit of where I could see it from the blind, I decided it was now or never, so I put the crosshairs just ahead of it and squeezed the trigger. It took about two steps and then jumped into the air and did a nose dive into a patch of cactus... I thought, damn, I missed and it decided to hide in there. But, then, I noticed that a couple of the cacti had turned bright red. I waited a few minutes and got down from the blind. I paced off the distance at 175 yards, and found the pig lying in the cactus patch. The bullet had entered just behind the rib cage on the right, and exited through the left elbow.
As I said, I hadn't seen a live one before, and it was hard to judge her size as she was running through the field, so she suffered considerable "ground shrinkage". She weighed in at 40 lbs, and I'll be cooking her up on Tuesday. Ought to be a good size for eating...
I couldn't have been happier with the performance of my .243. The doe was a base of the skull shot, and dropped in her tracks at 40 yards. The 6 point was a right shoulder in, through both lungs and heart,exit behind the left shoulder shot at 80 yards, and he didn't move an inch. The piglet, well, she took two steps and did a swan dive into a cactus patch...
All in all, a very fun weekend.
Piglet down... Watch out Eeyore, you're next! (Pic added)
