Decided that yesterday evening might be a good time to go and “sit” the hog stand I put along the creek bed.
The lay of the land (steep banks of creek) required that I put the stand almost parallel with the creek and only 40 yds. distance from the bait site.
As mentioned in a previous post…the location of the stand makes playing the wind (and thermals) critical. A late afternoon storm was brewing and along with it…South Easterly winds. Those conditions were advantageous on two accounts.
1. The wind direction would be blowing (slightly quartering) toward me….giving me the “downwind” advantage.
2. The cooler (than normal) air would help me reach my stand without working up a soaking sweat. I park about ¼ mile from the stand and walk in.
Got on stand about 7:30 p.m. roughly an hour before sunset. My hope was that the storm would quickly pass through (which it did) and the cooler temperature would encourage hogs to move earlier than normal.
While that may have been good strategy…. it didn’t play out that way in “real life”.
My last game-cam pics showed the hog had been coming in earlier each day (the last two sessions). I knew that by the time it got dark (after 9:00 p.m.) the storm would have passed and the winds settled, making conditions ideal.
I fully expected the hog to show up about 10 p.m. Figured I would take the shot and be back home before midnight. You know where this one is going….right?
I managed to make it to the stand without sweating, settled in and waited until dark before actually watching the area with any seriousness. I admit…..I was feeling a bit smug, the entire “set up” very much to my liking.
Not long after dark….the mosquitoes found me, how they do that so quickly is a mystery to me. Carbon Dioxide in your breath….I am told, but personally…I think they have perfected Social Networking because one mosquito turns into three and from there… their numbers grow exponentially. Anyway, they will take the smugness right out of you!
10 p.m. came and went, no hog. O.K. no big deal….its early and I still have a couple of pints of blood left.
12 midnight comes and goes, have enjoyed watching a raccoon eating the corn, but still no hog.
2 a.m. arrives and passes, no hog….but the mosquitoes have left.
3 a.m. and I am pretty sure I’ve become paralyzed from the waist down. Sitting in that hard seat has left my Gluteus Maximus and my legs mostly numb! BUT…….I think I see movement just beyond the hog light.
Sure enough…I can just make out the head of a hog slowly approaching the bait site. I turn on the lighted recticle on my scope, move my rifle up onto the rail on my stand and wait to see what the hog is going to do.
To my horror… the hog turns around and starts walking straight away (like it has decided not to come in after all), I find the hog in my scope and put the cross-hairs at the base of its tail. If this hog takes two more steps I am going to have to either let him go….or break him down and finish him with a quick follow up shot.
Thankfully….he turns around again and presents a shot quartering to me. I prefer broadside shots…but the whole reason I have a purpose built hog gun is so I can have shot angle options. The SOCOM (with proper bullets) will shoot through a hog stem to stern.
At the shot…the hog went down (CNS shot), he was dead before he hit the ground.
The movement was enough to trigger the game-cam and it recorded the event at precisely 3:00 a.m. (long night).
I immediately flipped on my white light, placed my laser on him and watched for movement…..but there was none.
I was able to pull the hog through the mud hole by hand…but had to use a rope and my truck to get him up out of the creek bed.
Took a Heart Girth measurement (have been comparing for accuracy), it was 49 inches (not able to hold the tape tight and take pic at same time)
Hoisted the hog on analog scale (see pic in previous post) and it closely matched the formula @ 290 lbs.
Hauled the hog off this morning….for “recycling” (Buzzards and Coyotes mostly).
This boar had a fairly thick “shield” at the point the bullet entered, (about 1-1/2” thick). Though nowhere near as thick as some I have seen…. it was tough nonetheless.
I won’t post pics of the wound channel or discuss bullet performance here…as I don’t think this thread is an appropriate venue for it. But…suffice to say, it was extensive.
But… no matter what you use, one thing to remember when hunting hogs is:
Shot Placement is key!
