This thread will pick up after my post in the Sus Venetor section. After all the commotion I made taking pictures and measuring and dragging the boar that I killed earlier, I didn't think anything would come out in the hay field for a good while. Since the moon had started rising, my position was exposed and I would have to move anyway, so I decided to check a couple pastures and the other spot I had put corn out. I loaded everything in the ranger and headed back toward the front of the property. When I got to the first gate that goes into the next pasture, I thought I saw something moving through the trees that line a small spring fed branch. The cows have access to this pasture, so I wasn't sure what I was seeing. I decided to go ahead and open the gate and get the ranger into the pasture. When I cleared the gate, I shut down the ranger and checked the targets with the rifle and sure enough there was a sounder of somewhere between 20 and 30 filtering through the trees. Unfortunately, they were moving away from me and the moon had come up enough to light up the pasture between me and the hogs like a street light. I decided to leave everything except my shooting stick and an extra magazine with the ranger and try to close the distance by staying along the treeline in the shadows and hoping that I could get within a reasonable range without getting detected. I was able to move about 200 yards down the pasture and as the tree line turned away from the hogs' position, there were some long shadow that projected out into the middle of the pasture to a position closer to the hogs. I traveled in that shadow until I got to the end of it and was starting to be lit up by the moon. Fearing that they would bust me, I just stood still and waited for them to get closer. Seeing that they hadn't even taken note of me, I would move about 10 yards at a time and stop and watch. I kept going over the things I learned here and tried my best to figure out which one was the lead sow, but couldn't figure it out. They were all spread out just grazing their way out of the pasture so I picked one of the largest hogs that was on the far side of the group from me hoping that it would force them to run toward me. As soon as I shot, I realized that I hadn't turned the recorder on, so I grabbed the remote and turned on the video while I watched their reaction. At first, I thought it wasn't going to work since they all ran away from me to the other side of the tree line. But, they slowed down and bunched up looking around confused. So, I targeted another one in the group and when I shot the ensuing panic caused them to start coming right at me back into the open. I thought it was going to be a slaughter, until I realized I shoot like DJ. 
I also had to hold off until they cleared the cattle before I could continue the shooting. This allowed them to cover almost half of the open area unmolested. I made some numerous hits and emptied the mag. By the time I changed mags and got back on target, all I could see was numerous rear ends diving over a 15' drop off into a creek bed. Even with all the good hits, I was only able to find 3 bodies. The land owner will keep an eye out for buzzards this weekend and let me know if he finds any others. I'm sure there will be more bodies that may never be found but will return to the food chain. These are the 3 that I was able to recover. By the time I got them policed up and drug off the pasture I was pretty worn out so I headed home. All in all a great night for me and I was back in the jeep by 11:30.
PS. This should be in the video section, but my scope messed up and the video isn't very useful. Too bad, because it was epic and the shooting was flawless and you can't dispute it. lol
I also had to hold off until they cleared the cattle before I could continue the shooting. This allowed them to cover almost half of the open area unmolested. I made some numerous hits and emptied the mag. By the time I changed mags and got back on target, all I could see was numerous rear ends diving over a 15' drop off into a creek bed. Even with all the good hits, I was only able to find 3 bodies. The land owner will keep an eye out for buzzards this weekend and let me know if he finds any others. I'm sure there will be more bodies that may never be found but will return to the food chain. These are the 3 that I was able to recover. By the time I got them policed up and drug off the pasture I was pretty worn out so I headed home. All in all a great night for me and I was back in the jeep by 11:30.
PS. This should be in the video section, but my scope messed up and the video isn't very useful. Too bad, because it was epic and the shooting was flawless and you can't dispute it. lol
