Lawman invited me out to a soybean field that had been cut that week. This field is located near a major river and a lot of property that is owned by a company that does not allow hunting. These two things combined provide a haven for the hogs that like to venture into the soybean field for a tasty treat. When the beans are growing they are too high to see the pigs, but once it is cut you can see forever.
Lawman started hunting Thursday night before anyone else and hammered 12 hogs. He already posted a thread on it so I won't go into detail. Myself and Shooter arrived Friday night and the hunt started around 9:30 PM. We got to the spot and setup to wait for the hogs to come out. Nothing moved the first part of the night. It was still in the mid 80's around 11:30 PM and humid. I was getting carried away by the mosquitoes until the thermacell finally started to get hot and push them away. Shooter decided to call it a night around 1:30 AM even though we tried to convince him to stay. We all knew the hogs were coming it was just a waiting game.
We had an SUV come creeping down the road that runs through the soybean field. No one goes down this road unless they are farming or up to no good and these guys were spotlighting. They never spotted us and drove on by. We hopped in Lawman's rig with the nods going and got about 20 yards behind them and flicked on the blazing bright spotlights. It freaked them out pretty good and they got the heck out of dodge. We returned to our spot to wait for the hogs and Shooter called it a night.
About 10 minutes after shooter left we heard hogs squealing in the distance. I knew it wouldn't be long and they would in the field chowing down on the beans. Sure enough about 30 minutes later a sounder of 20 or so comes out in the very far corner of the field. Lawman and I hop in the truck to make the stalk a little shorter. We drive to about 500 yards and were almost out of the truck when another car comes down the road. The car stopped in exactly the WRONG spot. They were going to be in our line of fire. So we hopped back in with the nods going and drove over to them. Turned out to be a teenager and his girlfriend. We told them they needed to move because we were hunting and his response was "we'll be quiet". We laughed and said it isn't about being quiet. Its about you being in the way of our bullets when the pigs start running. He fired the truck up and took off. We returned to were the pigs were only to see an empty field so we went back to our waiting spot.
About an hour passed and the hogs were back. They were moving along the road toward our spot. We setup the cameras to record and the pigs got so close we couldn't keep them in the camera view and shoot. They walked right to us at about 20 yards! We opened fire and dropped 7 out of the group. We loaded back in the truck to drive a route and check another field. We were about to leave our spot when I asked Lawman to stop. I thought I spotted more pigs along the far fence, but it was just shadows. Just as Lawman was about to drive again he spotted a lone boar in the field. We drove to about 300 yards from him then made the stalk. He was a little farther out than our normal distance, I'm guessing 70-80 yards. As we stalked in he kept looking up and acting funny so we stopped a little farther out than normal. The moon was really bright so it was easy to see 80-100 yards without the nods, which means the hogs can see about the same. Lawman did the countdown and we dropped the hammers. BANG, FLOP! We both hit a little high on he shoulder, but we hit his spine and he didn't budge or squeal. Just went belly up and legs straight! Perfection!
We called it a night around 4 AM. We piled up the hogs for a photo and made the trek to Lawman's place. Total of 8 hogs for the night.
Saturday started off about 9:15 PM. The party consisted of Lawman, Shooter, Andy, and myself. Nothing happened for the first half of the night again. We had a visit from the local game warden who was a professional and very friendly. Lawman and Andy talked with him for a while while Shooter and I kept watch for hogs. Shooter left about 1:30 AM again and didn't get to join in any reindeer games. The hogs came out around 2 AM. This was the survivors from the sounder we encountered the night before and they came out in the same spot as Friday night. We stalked in to about 70 yards. Again, this was a little farther than normal because of how bright it was and the lead sow knew we were there. We lined up, did the count down and dropped the hammers. Boom, boom, boom. It sounded like a small skirmish as the rifles barked in the night. The good guys were winning and you could tell by the thud of the 120 sst bullets and the piercing squeal of the hogs as they were hit. The survivors made it to the brush and the firing stopped. We took a count of the dead and there was 5.
We moved back to our spot and then drove the route to check some other fields. We pulled up to another huge soybean field and we could see a black spot on the far end. Probably 1000-1200 yards away. We couldn't make out was it was with the magnifiers or the thermal from this distance so we drove closer. when we go to about 400 yards we could tell it was a pickup truck. This truck wasn't supposed to be there. We called the game warden to see if he was still working, but he was home for the night so Lawman decided to take care of it. We kept the nods on until we got to about 50 yards then fired up the spotlights! This time it was a couple fooling around on the hood of their truck. We explained to them that they were trespassing and they needed to leave. They loaded up and took off. NO PIGS, other than the big sow on the hood.
We were heading back to our spot and we saw a lone boar in a field. We couldn't stop because of other cars on the road behind us and as we drove by he made a mad dash for the tree line. No shots at this one. We went back to our spot and waited for an hour, no hogs. We made the loop again, no hogs. We dragged ones we dropped earlier for pictures and thought we would do one more loop. Lawman had to shoot #1000 before the night was over. After all, he had been letting myself and Andy do most of the shooting so he didn't go over 1000 on a small sow.
As we passed the field we saw the lone boar in earlier Lawman spotted another lone boar at the far end of the field. We pulled off the road and Lawman started his stalk. Andy and I stayed at the truck to watch the stalk. Lawman got to about 100 yards and mounted his nods on his rifle. When he did this the boar made his way into the brush and we thought he was gone. Lawman kept making his way to the brush in hopes of finding the boar again. I could see and feel his frustration from a distance. #1000 just slipped away and it was 4:45 in the morning. Just about the time Lawman made it to the brush I saw the boar squirt out of the brush about 400 yards to the left of him. I used my luna optics IR light to get Lawman's attention and them lit the boar up so he would see where he was. I saw Lawman change direction and make the stalk again. The hog kept coming in and out of a low spot with sunflowers and brush in it. It made it hard to keep track of him and he was getting close to the tree line. Lawman finally made the shot from about 70-80 yards. The I could hear the sphhht of the suppressor, the sonic crack of the bullet and then the sound ended with the SMACK like metal door slamming on a hand. HE MADE CONTACT! The rifle spewed another bit of hot lead and I could hear the SMACK of the 120 sst making contact. One more shot and it sounded like a miss. The sonic crack continually echoed through the night compared to the thuds and silence of the solid hits. The shooting stopped and I lost sight of the boar.
I fired up the truck and drove over to Lawman. We couldn't find the hog right away until Andy spotted some sunflowers that had been knocked over in the brush. Low and behold there was a big boar, dead as a door nail, laying underneath them.
We happily took pictures of Lawman with his "grand poobah" viking helmet and 1000th hog. The icing on the cake was the boar was 270 pounds and the story played out with good company.
After this weekend I kind of realized that the number of hogs killed in a person's lifetime is a significant feat, but don't lose sight of the memories and camaraderie of our hunts. If we didn't have our friends and this forum to share our experiences there would be a void in our hunting lifestyle.
Congrats on 1000 hogs Lawman! I hope to see numbers 1500 and 2000 drop just like I did #1000.
