fanninland
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Caution: This is the long-winded "campfire" version intended for those of us who like to read & have nothing to better to do (aka the over 50 crowd), may be experiencing long flight delays, or suffer from insomnia...
My son & I headed out to make the rounds on the Ranger at the ranch Sat night. Right away, under a rising full moon we jumped a boar. I killed the utv and jumped out before it had rolled to a stop. Followed the trail in a circular path in the direction the hog had taken off. I heard him a few times from thick undergrowth to my right. After about 200 yds, I stopped on a hilltop clearing and just a minute later he emerged from the brush about 50 yds away, heading straight towards me. He was lined up directly with the moon rising over the treeline, causing my pvs14 to bloom a little. At about 30 yds he stopped and turned sideways, resulting in a 120SST thwack. He ran about 20 yds & piled up in a neat little hidden cedar thicket that I will remember come deer season this fall.
We then checked a wheat field and duck slough, spotting many deer, coons, possums, skunks and even some geese with the X320 thermal spotter. On my son's suggestion we headed to a slightly timbered pasture where hogs had been active. Upon entering the pasture we spotted several hogs on the far side. I grabbed my gear and began the stalk. The air was dead calm & still, and at about 100 yds out I was making what seemed like lot of noise walking due to the leaves and branches under the big oak trees. The nearest hog stopped what he was doing and looked my way, ears perked. Afeared that I was busted, I rushed a longer than necessary shot (well 4 in fact) and missed on all counts as the pigs ran into the brush. Nothing like that feeling of blowing a golden opportunity, as I was pretty sure I could have gotten a lot closer by changing my approach. Since the moon was so bright, I was trying to stalk in the moon shadows, which happens to be under the trees where the leaves and sticks are - duh.
We headed back towards the ranch house - me sulking and my son shaking his head with a slight grin - and decided to check a large creek bottomed pasture that is overlooked by our ranch headquarters. Amongst the cattle bedded down my son spotted two dots about 300-400 yds off and moving away from us and towards a big creek. For some reason we were both certain it was hogs. I grabbed my gear for the third time and headed towards them down the hill and under a fence. As they were moving too it seemed as if I was not closing, but I could keep them in sight with the thermal. They continued across the pasture to a wheat field, where it appeared they slowed down in a brushy fence line. I slowed down this time and changed my approach angle, using the brushy fence line as a barrier since I was stalking across open field in full moonlight. When I swung back around to a more direct angle, all I could now see with the thermal was a large but thin pile of heat. Was it the hogs, or was it a couple calves bedded down? I softly whistled a couple times, but nothing moved except some deer farther down the fenceline. If I pushed them too hard, they might bolt out the back side of the brushy fenceline and be gone in a flash. They seemed to be laying in a brushy wallow - there just wasn't much exposed to shoot at. So I called my son and whispered for him to bring the Ranger around on the FM road and come in through the corrals - 180 degrees opposite my position on the hogs. Maybe this would alert them and if they flushed, they would do so towards me. I quietly gained a final position in the wheat field maybe 35 yds from bedded hogs, with the sights of my 6.8 fixed on what looked like the top of a big hog head, and steadied by my Triggersticks. In a few minutes (seemed longer than that though) I heard the Ranger approaching, and sure enough a huge head slowly raised out of the wallow. One shot and as quickly as it went down another head raised. One more shot and it too dropped.
After a fair amount of curly shuffling my son drove over and we approached the two hogs. A medium-sized boar was really wormy looking and crawling with ticks, fleas and gawdknowswhat, and therefore did not garner much attention from us...
However, the larger of the two was still moving a little and therefore required some G20 follow-up. And it was this second hog that was a looker - big, clean and incredibly fat. Glancing towards the tail end and seeing nothing protruding, we initially figured this to be a sow, when it was actually something I had often heard about but never encountered - a barr, or barrow hog. After a couple quick pics with a dying cell phone, we headed to the house to get a camera and measuring tape. We returned and taped the pig at 56" pulled tight which would put it at +360 lbs.
Since the game seemed to be active, we decided to go check a couple more spots, but shortly thereafter it clouded up and the bottom fell out of the sky on a very early Easter morning. We called some neighbors early that morning and they made it out to the muddy bottom field to take the head and make use of some of the meat. Nobody I've yet talked to locally knows who may have cut that hog - just gotta wonder if there are more like him out there.
My son & I headed out to make the rounds on the Ranger at the ranch Sat night. Right away, under a rising full moon we jumped a boar. I killed the utv and jumped out before it had rolled to a stop. Followed the trail in a circular path in the direction the hog had taken off. I heard him a few times from thick undergrowth to my right. After about 200 yds, I stopped on a hilltop clearing and just a minute later he emerged from the brush about 50 yds away, heading straight towards me. He was lined up directly with the moon rising over the treeline, causing my pvs14 to bloom a little. At about 30 yds he stopped and turned sideways, resulting in a 120SST thwack. He ran about 20 yds & piled up in a neat little hidden cedar thicket that I will remember come deer season this fall.
We then checked a wheat field and duck slough, spotting many deer, coons, possums, skunks and even some geese with the X320 thermal spotter. On my son's suggestion we headed to a slightly timbered pasture where hogs had been active. Upon entering the pasture we spotted several hogs on the far side. I grabbed my gear and began the stalk. The air was dead calm & still, and at about 100 yds out I was making what seemed like lot of noise walking due to the leaves and branches under the big oak trees. The nearest hog stopped what he was doing and looked my way, ears perked. Afeared that I was busted, I rushed a longer than necessary shot (well 4 in fact) and missed on all counts as the pigs ran into the brush. Nothing like that feeling of blowing a golden opportunity, as I was pretty sure I could have gotten a lot closer by changing my approach. Since the moon was so bright, I was trying to stalk in the moon shadows, which happens to be under the trees where the leaves and sticks are - duh.
We headed back towards the ranch house - me sulking and my son shaking his head with a slight grin - and decided to check a large creek bottomed pasture that is overlooked by our ranch headquarters. Amongst the cattle bedded down my son spotted two dots about 300-400 yds off and moving away from us and towards a big creek. For some reason we were both certain it was hogs. I grabbed my gear for the third time and headed towards them down the hill and under a fence. As they were moving too it seemed as if I was not closing, but I could keep them in sight with the thermal. They continued across the pasture to a wheat field, where it appeared they slowed down in a brushy fence line. I slowed down this time and changed my approach angle, using the brushy fence line as a barrier since I was stalking across open field in full moonlight. When I swung back around to a more direct angle, all I could now see with the thermal was a large but thin pile of heat. Was it the hogs, or was it a couple calves bedded down? I softly whistled a couple times, but nothing moved except some deer farther down the fenceline. If I pushed them too hard, they might bolt out the back side of the brushy fenceline and be gone in a flash. They seemed to be laying in a brushy wallow - there just wasn't much exposed to shoot at. So I called my son and whispered for him to bring the Ranger around on the FM road and come in through the corrals - 180 degrees opposite my position on the hogs. Maybe this would alert them and if they flushed, they would do so towards me. I quietly gained a final position in the wheat field maybe 35 yds from bedded hogs, with the sights of my 6.8 fixed on what looked like the top of a big hog head, and steadied by my Triggersticks. In a few minutes (seemed longer than that though) I heard the Ranger approaching, and sure enough a huge head slowly raised out of the wallow. One shot and as quickly as it went down another head raised. One more shot and it too dropped.
After a fair amount of curly shuffling my son drove over and we approached the two hogs. A medium-sized boar was really wormy looking and crawling with ticks, fleas and gawdknowswhat, and therefore did not garner much attention from us...
However, the larger of the two was still moving a little and therefore required some G20 follow-up. And it was this second hog that was a looker - big, clean and incredibly fat. Glancing towards the tail end and seeing nothing protruding, we initially figured this to be a sow, when it was actually something I had often heard about but never encountered - a barr, or barrow hog. After a couple quick pics with a dying cell phone, we headed to the house to get a camera and measuring tape. We returned and taped the pig at 56" pulled tight which would put it at +360 lbs.
Since the game seemed to be active, we decided to go check a couple more spots, but shortly thereafter it clouded up and the bottom fell out of the sky on a very early Easter morning. We called some neighbors early that morning and they made it out to the muddy bottom field to take the head and make use of some of the meat. Nobody I've yet talked to locally knows who may have cut that hog - just gotta wonder if there are more like him out there.
