Decided to go out late Monday night and had a great time in spite of the heat, humidity, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks, mud etc., etc. Oh well it's summer so what can you say? I saw zip at my usual three corn feeders so decided to check out a friend's wheat field before calling it a night. Good decision. There is a tree lined road that runs for a half mile beside the 200 acre field. I parked in the trees and walked about fifty yards to a clearing where you can see the back half of the field. There were three different sounders out there feeding with around fifty hogs total. The nearest group was way out there but it would be my only chance as they weren't drifting in my direction. Also had zero cover for a long stalk and the wind was wrong. So I lined up on the sticks and fired, amazingly watched it drop and the others head for the trees. I left the sticks standing there for a reference point as I walked to the dead hog. But then the other hogs from the sounder came back out of the trees and went by as if to check on their fallen comrade. So I had to take a shot at them from offhand as my sticks were back at my reference point. Also my scope was still set on max magnification so my field of view was quite narrow. I shot and heard the impact but the target disappeared. I had to lower the rifle, push the button to change the zoom and by that time there was nothing in sight. I've never seen hogs respond like this, they continually surprise me with something new. The hog I first hit turned out to be a nice sow and what amazed me was the GPS showed me to be 220 yards from the sticks. That's a personal distance record for shooting with the thermal! My joy was turned into more joy the next morning when I went out for clean up duty. I found the second hog in a ditch 50 yards beyond the sow. He had turned straight away from me after being hit instead of continuing to run to my right as expected. But for all the good fortune and bragging rights I had never pressed the Record button so you have to settle for pics and my story of the events as they unfolded. I've always thought I had a pretty good sense of direction but man is it easy to get disoriented in the dark out in a big field of cut wheat.
