Well I am glad there is video to show some of what went on, otherwise I would be even more confused about what happened.
I got out of my truck about 70 yards from the first game camera that I was going to check last evening. It was on a tree at the fence line overlooking the oats field. As I leaned around the tree to open the camera, I noticed hogs in the oats, the small patch still left after farmer cut the oats. I made a quick trip back to the truck for my rifle and sticks and returned to the fence and the sow and her piglets could not have cared less. I watched her briefly and when she raised her head above the oats, it seemed like a good time to shoot. The shot was to be just behind the head, center of the neck. I don't think it entered there and the exit was behind the ear higher on the neck on the other side, not what I expected to see. It did not appear to directly impact either the skull or the vertebrae. The shot had no impact on her ability to run and run she did.
Despite behind close to the neck and being right behind the head, the Berger VLD-Hunting did not delivery the necessary hydrostatic shock that such a POI would need to drop the hog.
The hog first made it into the deeper oats and then into the Johnson grass along the fence that bordered the creek bottoms and out through one of the holes in the fence. Found the hole. Found tracks. So I thought it should be just a matter of following the tracks, right? Once I got on the creek side of the fence, any bare spot of ground dry enough to hold a track had either a hog or deer track on it. Tracks were everywhere. There were big tracks and little tracks. There were tracks on tracks. The only places that didn't have tracks were the rocks, vegetation, boot sucking slurry mud, and the flowing creek. I found no blood trail.
She could have gotten far away or possible could have died in the high vegetation. I could not find her and Angry Bird could not find her. It is now in the hands of the Turkey Buzzard Preservation Society.
