I'm back!
A few weeks ago I gained access to a 3,700+ acre hunt club that has a serious problem with hogs. The hunt club property is owned by the local paper mill and only paper mill employees are eligible to join the club. Luckily for me hunt club members can take guests. For some strange reason, none of the members hunt hogs, so no one has been to the swamp bottoms since December.
I went with a guy named Larry and his soon to be son-in-law Jason. Larry retired from the paper mill last year after developing pulmonary fibrosis. Breathing is difficult for him at times so we had to take it slow.
The paper mill uses the swamp bottoms and a lagoon as a natural filter for the chemicals used in the paper making process so we had zero intention of keeping any on the hogs we killed.
Last weekend we drove around the swamp bottoms looking for clearings to bait, but to my surprise, we didn't find a single clearing. I decided to bait along the sides of the roads that ran through the swamp bottoms.
Since the hogs in the swamp bottoms were not used to human noise, I decided that we would park by a bend in the road about 300 yards from out bait pile. We had our gear ready as we stopped after entering the property to load up. We didn't make it more than 50 paces when I heard noise to our right. I pulled out my thermal monocular and saw 4 hogs less than 75 feet from us. I whispered that there were hogs to our right and that they should set up.
Larry was using my R700 in 300WM with a NF scope and an Armasight NV clip on. Jason was using my R700 .308 with a NF scope and an ATN thermal clip on. I was using my LWRC 6.8 with an Armasight thermal. The hogs were moving around too much in the trees for us all to synchronize our shots. I didn't know it, but Larry was have a hard time breathing and carrying the rifle. He whispered for us to take a shot. Jason and I had a quick count down. He connected with a small sow and I connected with the larger sow. Jason's sow crossed a small creek and expired on the other side. My sow spun in circles eventually taking three shots.
The Hornady 123g bullets worked well. I was impressed with the results, but my shots were from less than 100 feet.
We loaded the sow onto the back of my jeep and took her to edge of the lagoon and donated her to the alligator preservation society.
Work schedules won't allow us to go back until next weekend, but it feels good to get back at killing hogs.
A few weeks ago I gained access to a 3,700+ acre hunt club that has a serious problem with hogs. The hunt club property is owned by the local paper mill and only paper mill employees are eligible to join the club. Luckily for me hunt club members can take guests. For some strange reason, none of the members hunt hogs, so no one has been to the swamp bottoms since December.
I went with a guy named Larry and his soon to be son-in-law Jason. Larry retired from the paper mill last year after developing pulmonary fibrosis. Breathing is difficult for him at times so we had to take it slow.
The paper mill uses the swamp bottoms and a lagoon as a natural filter for the chemicals used in the paper making process so we had zero intention of keeping any on the hogs we killed.
Last weekend we drove around the swamp bottoms looking for clearings to bait, but to my surprise, we didn't find a single clearing. I decided to bait along the sides of the roads that ran through the swamp bottoms.
Since the hogs in the swamp bottoms were not used to human noise, I decided that we would park by a bend in the road about 300 yards from out bait pile. We had our gear ready as we stopped after entering the property to load up. We didn't make it more than 50 paces when I heard noise to our right. I pulled out my thermal monocular and saw 4 hogs less than 75 feet from us. I whispered that there were hogs to our right and that they should set up.
Larry was using my R700 in 300WM with a NF scope and an Armasight NV clip on. Jason was using my R700 .308 with a NF scope and an ATN thermal clip on. I was using my LWRC 6.8 with an Armasight thermal. The hogs were moving around too much in the trees for us all to synchronize our shots. I didn't know it, but Larry was have a hard time breathing and carrying the rifle. He whispered for us to take a shot. Jason and I had a quick count down. He connected with a small sow and I connected with the larger sow. Jason's sow crossed a small creek and expired on the other side. My sow spun in circles eventually taking three shots.
The Hornady 123g bullets worked well. I was impressed with the results, but my shots were from less than 100 feet.
We loaded the sow onto the back of my jeep and took her to edge of the lagoon and donated her to the alligator preservation society.
Work schedules won't allow us to go back until next weekend, but it feels good to get back at killing hogs.
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