There was a huge oak tree that was taken by a storm a several years back. It was in a place that it was simply easier to cut off what limbs were in the pasture and on the fence than to mess with the rest. After doing what we could to clear for the fence repair, I shoved what was cut up right in on top of the main trunk with my tractor and we moved the fence over a little and repaired it.
Since then most of the smaller limbs have broken down, and honey suckle, blackberry vines, along with some wild grape have taken it over. As a result the main trunk which was close to 4' in diameter has become a favorite haunt for boar hogs and even a sow or two with a littler. Being it is still up off the ground a couple of feet it makes a great place for them to hole up under all the brush and stay put when you come and go through the gate some 50-75yds away. On more than one occasion however, I have walked up to within a few feet of the fence only to have the hogs blast out the other side.
Well the week of Christmas, the grandsons and I were out and about on the farm. I had my rifle and told the oldest to walk around the far side out in the pasture while I set up on my pond dam and covered the open woods which is their escape route. This allowed for, if they were there, a shot straight away from him as he walked up to the other side of the fence. Well nothing shook loose, so we eased up to the old tree on my side where we could see up under it. I was showing the younger two how and where they would lay up from time to time.
Sure enough when we got up close I saw something and told the boys to stop. Up under the tree in a hole in the brush I could see what looked exactly like the head of a hog up under the trunk just holding tight to cover. I had the oldest grandson look it over with the bino's and he whispered hog, I eased up where I could put one right in the ear hole and blam. I could see that black eye and ear laid back against his head just as plain as we were standing there.
So after a high five grandson crawled through the fence to retrieve out bounty. When he got to the hole under the trunk he started giggling and walking back to me. I first thought, well I must have made a mess of the hog, but then he said, "well you killed that limb dead a a nail".
So yea I know what your talking about. Been there done it on more than one occasion down int eh darker areas of river bottom and even standing right out in open woods. This however was one time where I made the decision to fire since it looked so real to both of us. There has been way more than one time when things were different though and I let a REAL good hog slip right out form under me.
I crawled up on a sounder of hogs holding tight to a cane thicket. I knew they were there cause I could see the cane wiggling and hear them. I got up close enough I could see black but had use my bino's to see which direction the hair was pointing so I knew which end to shoot. Then had to crawl a little bit more to get a shot through 5-10' of cane. Talk about a hoot, as soon as I fired the whole cane break erupted in hogs going every which a way and me laying there on my belly hoping I didn't get run over.
