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Got One !!

I got to my hunting spot and checked around Thursday afternoon, but really didn't see anything. I spotted what might have been tracks of a hog by one of the tanks, but they also could have been a small calf. I put out some corn there, but when I came back by Friday morning it had not been eaten.

I set up a target and checked the sights on my rifle. I made a few adjustments but mostly I observed that I'm just not a great marksman. I need to forget anything fancy like head shots and go for the high-percentage shots. That's what I did Friday afternoon.

I had coffee with some of the neighbors out there Friday morning, then pushed off a little after 10:00AM to start scouting some more. I put a fresh battery on my game camera, then headed over to walk through some areas where I've sometimes seen hogs in the past. I looked around there a bit, and noticed that in one area the creek had dried up enough to walk across. I journeyed over to the other side and meandered around there. I always like to check out a little tank at one corner of the property whenever I can because I have sometimes observed hogs there before. The only problem is that I have to be able somehow to get across the creek -- I can't drive onto that portion of the property except under extremely dry conditions.

I didn't see any hogs when I got there a little after 11:00AM, but I did see very fresh signs of wallowing. They were certainly less than 24 hours old -- I later concluded they were perhaps less the 2-3 hours old. I hiked back and re-crossed the creek, called home to let my spousal unit know I would be a while, got a bit of corn and returned to the tank. I arrived back just after noon and spread some corn around the area where the hogs had been wallowing. I set myself up on the other side of the pond in a position where the wind wouldn't carry my scent toward the wallow and commenced to wait. I collected a few sticks and weeds and made a crude blind to somewhat break up my outline and wished I had brought a book. I was prepared to stay most of the afternoon if necessary, but fortunately the hogs didn't make me wait long.

A few minutes before 1:00PM I heard a crunching sound, and looked up to see some dark shapes coming through the brush on the other side of the tank. They were eating the corn I had put out, that was the crunching noise I heard. At first I thought they might be cows. They were only about 60 yards away and looked huge. I couldn't see them distinctly through the brush, but then I saw some piglets come through and I realized they were definitely hogs. They weren't actually that large, they just looked big because they were so close and coming over a rise to get to the tank which made them look larger. There were three sows. I sighted on one but she had large teats and I assumed she was nursing the piglets. I moved my sights to another sow and she didn't show obvious signs of having piglets, so I put the crosshairs just behind the shoulder and shot. The bullet went pretty much where I was aiming, and she went straight down and lay still. I waited close to 20 minutes to see if the others might return but they didn't. I have no idea why I did that. It's so much work to clean one, I don't know what I'd do if I got two. Recall also that this was across the creek where I couldn't drive meaning that I had to drag it about a quarter mile to get back to the truck.

I got it cleaned and it's in the ice chest now. The next job is to get busy cutting it up and ready for the freezer.

I'm including a photo: The hog is dirty because I had already dragged it about a hundred yards. I stopped to rest and decided a photo would be a good idea. The bullet went through both shoulders. I'm guessing it weighed roughly 70 pounds? It's been a bit of a hunting dry spell for most of this year. This is only hog #2 for 2010. Hopefully things will pick up a bit from here on.

The rifle is a Browning A-Bolt II in .308 Winchester. The bullet was a Winchester 150 grain PowerPoint.