We are just finishing with the big boar when I get a text alert from the ravine camera.
About a mile down the road, I had built a brush stand near a ravine. It's as close to a forest as the hill country gets.
During a big rain, flash floods take it from bone dry to about seven feet of water. The setup has two hog tubes, a small feeder, green feeder light from Elusive Wildlife (old version) and a Covert Black Ops game camera with a phone card.
(Slim and I had worked on this site during a previous couple of visits; he had rigged up solar power for about the feeders and the camera. Used plastic pistol cases sealed with silicon to keep the batteries and connections dry - pretty impressive).
We stop the truck about 200 yards short of the brush blind to walk in. The tight space at the blind allows room for only one shooter.
(At that time, my night gear was 30.06 with a red scope light). Slim offers me his .308 with a Zeus thermal. Probably out of guilt - see Part One.
I take it.
Even before we get to the blind we could hear them knocking around the tube and grunting.
It's a narrow shooting lane between the trees and brush to the ravine, about 45 yards away.
Of course, at that distance they could easily hear us so we ease in as quietly as a church mouse pissing on a Q-tip.
There are about six hogs knocking around the tube - two average size hogs and about four shoats.
Although unnecessary at that range, I lay the rifle down on my Primos trigger stick bipod. I wait about a minute to see the two larger hogs would line up for a potential double, but they aren't coming close to each other.
I'm getting concerned that they would wind us soon with the shifting breeze. I take a guess on the lead sow, drop the crosshairs of the thermal on the sweet spot and touch the powder off.
With the muzzle blast, the silence erupts into sound – squealing hogs scrambling through the brush and a cacophony of protest from the turkeys bursting from their roost in the nearby trees on their unscheduled ballistic wake up alarm.
I don't bother racking in another round; there is no point in trying to reacquire at such close range and in fairly thick cover. We are done here.
Apparently not.
Suddenly, a very bright white light goes on next to me. I see Slim with a flashlight in his left hand and clearing leather with his Judge in the other.
I immediately think he has mistaken the turkeys for pigs, I holler, "They're turkeys!"
Too late. Starsky has already slid across the hood of the '75 Gran Torino, and is moving into the brush.
Leaving me trying to recall how many tags the standard Texas hunting license has for Rio Grandes.
In April.
With a handgun.
And a spotlight.
The Judge goes off. And it's LOUD.
So now we've got pigs squealing, turkeys blaring, brush snapping, lights flashing and muzzle blasts – the only thing missing is chopper wash from Uncle Ted Nugent manning the fifty for air support.
I hear another boom and see a muzzle flash from thirty feet away - Slim is crouching in the scrub with some kind of further modified Modified Weaver, waving his light.
"Woo-hoo! I got him!"
Wonderful. Woo-hoo.
Pigs are gone. The turkeys have fled the scene. It's finally quiet again. Just the brush snapping as Slim digs through the thicket.
And I try to figger out where I'm going to bury him. Holding that damn turkey.
He finally emerges, triumphantly waving a shoat like the Stars and Bars at the Battle of Bull Run (Civil War aficionados, take your pick).
Not bad...one for two with a revolver and a flashlight.
At a moving dark target.
In the brush.
Just another night in the Hill Country.
A good night - we took three off the spinning ball.
But I must confess my admiration for that brave little shoat who took a bullet to save a turkey.
About a mile down the road, I had built a brush stand near a ravine. It's as close to a forest as the hill country gets.
During a big rain, flash floods take it from bone dry to about seven feet of water. The setup has two hog tubes, a small feeder, green feeder light from Elusive Wildlife (old version) and a Covert Black Ops game camera with a phone card.
(Slim and I had worked on this site during a previous couple of visits; he had rigged up solar power for about the feeders and the camera. Used plastic pistol cases sealed with silicon to keep the batteries and connections dry - pretty impressive).
We stop the truck about 200 yards short of the brush blind to walk in. The tight space at the blind allows room for only one shooter.
(At that time, my night gear was 30.06 with a red scope light). Slim offers me his .308 with a Zeus thermal. Probably out of guilt - see Part One.
I take it.
Even before we get to the blind we could hear them knocking around the tube and grunting.
It's a narrow shooting lane between the trees and brush to the ravine, about 45 yards away.
Of course, at that distance they could easily hear us so we ease in as quietly as a church mouse pissing on a Q-tip.
There are about six hogs knocking around the tube - two average size hogs and about four shoats.
Although unnecessary at that range, I lay the rifle down on my Primos trigger stick bipod. I wait about a minute to see the two larger hogs would line up for a potential double, but they aren't coming close to each other.
I'm getting concerned that they would wind us soon with the shifting breeze. I take a guess on the lead sow, drop the crosshairs of the thermal on the sweet spot and touch the powder off.
With the muzzle blast, the silence erupts into sound – squealing hogs scrambling through the brush and a cacophony of protest from the turkeys bursting from their roost in the nearby trees on their unscheduled ballistic wake up alarm.
I don't bother racking in another round; there is no point in trying to reacquire at such close range and in fairly thick cover. We are done here.
Apparently not.
Suddenly, a very bright white light goes on next to me. I see Slim with a flashlight in his left hand and clearing leather with his Judge in the other.
I immediately think he has mistaken the turkeys for pigs, I holler, "They're turkeys!"
Too late. Starsky has already slid across the hood of the '75 Gran Torino, and is moving into the brush.
Leaving me trying to recall how many tags the standard Texas hunting license has for Rio Grandes.
In April.
With a handgun.
And a spotlight.
The Judge goes off. And it's LOUD.
So now we've got pigs squealing, turkeys blaring, brush snapping, lights flashing and muzzle blasts – the only thing missing is chopper wash from Uncle Ted Nugent manning the fifty for air support.
I hear another boom and see a muzzle flash from thirty feet away - Slim is crouching in the scrub with some kind of further modified Modified Weaver, waving his light.
"Woo-hoo! I got him!"
Wonderful. Woo-hoo.
Pigs are gone. The turkeys have fled the scene. It's finally quiet again. Just the brush snapping as Slim digs through the thicket.
And I try to figger out where I'm going to bury him. Holding that damn turkey.
He finally emerges, triumphantly waving a shoat like the Stars and Bars at the Battle of Bull Run (Civil War aficionados, take your pick).
Not bad...one for two with a revolver and a flashlight.
At a moving dark target.
In the brush.
Just another night in the Hill Country.
A good night - we took three off the spinning ball.
But I must confess my admiration for that brave little shoat who took a bullet to save a turkey.
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