I hadn't killed a pig since April. Combine 30 inches of rain and then looking at corn stalks all Summer and a 3 day hunting trip that was planned in April couldn't come fast enough. My guests are an old Arizona buddy, Mike who works on an A-10 flight line and his brother, Alex who is a WSO on a BONE.
Our property is 30 minutes from Shreveport. We rented an RV so we didn't have to make the trek between town every day and this worked out great. They also rented thermal scopes, a Reap IR and a Zeus 640 Pro to mount on 308's. Buddy has a Sig with the Reap and his brother had a fancy billet rig that looked the business but was quite heavy for stalking and glassing with the Zeus. I had my trusty Vampire on the PSA 6.8 using SSA, Barnes TSX 95's.
Day #1
We got to the farm around 5 on Friday from Dallas and unpacked our gear. They needed to sight in and I was excited to try out the 95 grain TSX rounds because, up until now, the Hornady 120's and 110's had not been consistently accurate. Problem #1, Mike had neglected to remove his EOTec before he left home and did not bring the allen wrench that is required. I had a set of standard size but, naturally, not the in the size he needed. Being the gun snob that he is, he refused to mount the Reap on the extra 223 AR I had. Something about the pew, pew of the 223 wasn't manly enough for him. It was determined that we would use the Reap to spot and share guns this night and trek to town the next day since Problem #2, a drained wheeler battery also needed to be dealt with.
Me and Alex got up to speed pretty quick and the 95's seem to have been the ticket. Dead on from the start, I now am a happy 6.8 convert.
Our place is all in trees and not great for pig hunting but is surrounded by corn fields that are. Our neighbor has corn fields to the north, east and south of us with some fields bordering the WMA. Driving in, I noticed the corn fields to the east had been harvested and was relieved since I had not confirmed that fact prior to leaving. This relief was a little short lived cause the small field north of us still had standing corn. WTH? A sticky wheeler transmission also had me quite concerned especially since this was night 1. The 3 previous times its happened, the problem only gets worse to the point of immobilization and a trip to the dealer to fix it.
With guns sighted in and loaded with spare ammo we jumped in the wheeler and got under way about 8:30. I decided to first check out my normal big fields to the North so headed that direction. BUMMER! Fields are still are not harvested. This wasn't catastrophic since we still had the 2k acre fields to the South but I was not as familiar with them. Out of the comfort zone, we head to the south.
We arrive and scope the field. Bingo, one lone pig preoccupied with his evening snack. My usual technique is to idle up within about 2 or 300 yards and then stalk in to about 100. So we did. We gave Alex the honor of taking the first shot and he dropped him with one to the noggin. He wasnt exceptional but we had the first pig in the books. These fields are huge and the Reap was up to the task, picking up warm objects, for what seemed like a mile. We took shots at several more but none were dropping for any of us. Plenty of thuds but they just kept going.
Our property is 30 minutes from Shreveport. We rented an RV so we didn't have to make the trek between town every day and this worked out great. They also rented thermal scopes, a Reap IR and a Zeus 640 Pro to mount on 308's. Buddy has a Sig with the Reap and his brother had a fancy billet rig that looked the business but was quite heavy for stalking and glassing with the Zeus. I had my trusty Vampire on the PSA 6.8 using SSA, Barnes TSX 95's.
Day #1
We got to the farm around 5 on Friday from Dallas and unpacked our gear. They needed to sight in and I was excited to try out the 95 grain TSX rounds because, up until now, the Hornady 120's and 110's had not been consistently accurate. Problem #1, Mike had neglected to remove his EOTec before he left home and did not bring the allen wrench that is required. I had a set of standard size but, naturally, not the in the size he needed. Being the gun snob that he is, he refused to mount the Reap on the extra 223 AR I had. Something about the pew, pew of the 223 wasn't manly enough for him. It was determined that we would use the Reap to spot and share guns this night and trek to town the next day since Problem #2, a drained wheeler battery also needed to be dealt with.
Me and Alex got up to speed pretty quick and the 95's seem to have been the ticket. Dead on from the start, I now am a happy 6.8 convert.
Our place is all in trees and not great for pig hunting but is surrounded by corn fields that are. Our neighbor has corn fields to the north, east and south of us with some fields bordering the WMA. Driving in, I noticed the corn fields to the east had been harvested and was relieved since I had not confirmed that fact prior to leaving. This relief was a little short lived cause the small field north of us still had standing corn. WTH? A sticky wheeler transmission also had me quite concerned especially since this was night 1. The 3 previous times its happened, the problem only gets worse to the point of immobilization and a trip to the dealer to fix it.
With guns sighted in and loaded with spare ammo we jumped in the wheeler and got under way about 8:30. I decided to first check out my normal big fields to the North so headed that direction. BUMMER! Fields are still are not harvested. This wasn't catastrophic since we still had the 2k acre fields to the South but I was not as familiar with them. Out of the comfort zone, we head to the south.
We arrive and scope the field. Bingo, one lone pig preoccupied with his evening snack. My usual technique is to idle up within about 2 or 300 yards and then stalk in to about 100. So we did. We gave Alex the honor of taking the first shot and he dropped him with one to the noggin. He wasnt exceptional but we had the first pig in the books. These fields are huge and the Reap was up to the task, picking up warm objects, for what seemed like a mile. We took shots at several more but none were dropping for any of us. Plenty of thuds but they just kept going.
