My last hunt with the Sweed

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02-27-2006 | 10:04 PM

260rem

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Joined: Jan 2006

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From: NSW AUSTRALIA

My last hunt with the Sweed

This was from the last hunt I had with my old M96 in 6.5X55sweed I was pushing 120gr Taipan hollow points with 43gr of AR2208 for 3020fps.

My mate asked me if I wanted to go on a hunting trip to central QLD after some pigs. He is a pilot and the plan was to hire a plane at Sydney and fly up to this property as there was an air strip practically at the front door of the homestead. My mate had made arrangements to meet up with some other people we had never met up there so that we wouldn’t have to hire a vehicle, well a long story short this bloke had brought along 3 mates and his two kids and we had to all cram no the back of the one Ute.
Now I like to hunt alone and I don’t like shooting around other people but due to the nature of this place we had to get driven from one spot to the next and I find it very hard and frustrating to try and sneak up on anything with 9 people crunching through the bush in a race to be first one there.
The only luck I had was when I struck out on my own and walked about 1km away from where they were having lunch in the middle of a scorching hot afternoon and stalked up on a Billabong and managed to get into some goats (more on that herehttp://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=1440497 )
Well that didn’t even turn out for the best as the goats headed there way and it turned into mad house as anything and everything got shot at (that’s not how I like to do business!!!)
But luckly they left 2 days before us so we hired a Ute from the owner and drove around on the second last day of the hunt and stalked the water holes. We managed to get a little boar in the morning as it went for a wallow and a little sow at lunchtime as it headed back after getting a drink. Every one was buggered by mid afternoon and stoped for a rest, so I decided to bite the bullet and stalk a bore drain back to an old abandoned farm house where I would then radio them and they would come pick me up.
Well I made it about half way back when I heard some very contented grunting coming from up ahead somewhere so I checked the wind and decided to move out a bit and come in from a slightly different angle. After a 15min stalk I caught sight of about 8 pigs having a feed on an old carcass. Well I stalked in to about 20m and looked over the mob there were about two good 80kg black sows in the mob but this nice ginger sow caught my eye, I decided that I would have her and then try for one of the slightly bigger black sows.
Well all was good as I lined her up just back from the front leg just below the shoulder for a textbook heart shot, the boom sounded followed by a great thump that sent the rest of the mob running and my sow gave a squeal and went running off in the other direction. Well I was sure she was hit and as I don’t change targets until the first one is on the ground I ran forward to take a better position in the clear, I saw that the sow had travelled about 60m away spraying a 1ft wide track of blood. Then she turned and I couldn’t believe this gutsy sow was going to charge me but on she came, so I took a knee and turned my scopes power down to 4X and lined her up and then at 15m she collapsed just as I was about to fire.
So that’s how I wound up with the only solo pig for the trip, and while she wasn’t the biggest pig I have ever shot I love remembering what I had to go through to get her and she still remains one of my fondest hunting moments.