TEXASLAWMAN
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This weekend I went back to the ranch where my hog hunting addiction all started. Before this I primarily hunted coyotes. After witnessing the destruction caused by the hogs on this ranch I switched gears and well the rest is history.
We had pretty much decimated the hogs on this property with a trapping and shooting strategy. Now almost two years has past with minimal pressure and they have reared their ugly heads again. I mostly used the LWRC Six8 Razorback, Vortex Razor 1x6, and Apollo 640 thermal clip-on combo. But the ************** rifle DaveABQ built me got some action also, its topped with the Zeus 640 3x 75mm. I used it for the longer range coyote shots since the video on the Apollo is only 1x. I found the Zeus with digital 2x zoom to be very nice for the longer range shots and I nailed several coyotes in the 150 yard range.
There is a large pecan orchard on this property so there were piles of corn under all the feeders no need to visit them yet, so I hit the orchards. Most of what I encountered were sounders of 5-20 hogs, with a higher than normal percentage of white or white and black spotted hogs (Obama hogs per Wassman). The only thing I can attribute this to is they blend in almost perfectly with regular night vision and are hard to see with even a full moon. Basically the white becomes a shade of green and blends in where a black hog is black and pops with night vision. And we have hunted this place hard with night vision so the white or lighter colored hogs had a higher survival rate. Of course with thermal this is not a issue and their camouflage had no effect. I did drive right into a sounder of them in the wide open thinking they were calves because none were black DOH!
First blood came from a group of about fifteen I shot the sow closest to the treeline trying to drive them back into the open but it failed this time and the rest disappeared into the trees. She measured 240 pounds and was one of the smaller ones in the group. After that a couple of sounders made bad decisions and ran into the open and are no more. The largest hogs for the weekend were the 240 pound sow above, and a pair of boars a respectful 240lbs and 230lbs, every thing else was in the 100-140 range.
All coyotes were target of opportunities taken by spot and stalk. Here are a couple of pics.
We had pretty much decimated the hogs on this property with a trapping and shooting strategy. Now almost two years has past with minimal pressure and they have reared their ugly heads again. I mostly used the LWRC Six8 Razorback, Vortex Razor 1x6, and Apollo 640 thermal clip-on combo. But the ************** rifle DaveABQ built me got some action also, its topped with the Zeus 640 3x 75mm. I used it for the longer range coyote shots since the video on the Apollo is only 1x. I found the Zeus with digital 2x zoom to be very nice for the longer range shots and I nailed several coyotes in the 150 yard range.
There is a large pecan orchard on this property so there were piles of corn under all the feeders no need to visit them yet, so I hit the orchards. Most of what I encountered were sounders of 5-20 hogs, with a higher than normal percentage of white or white and black spotted hogs (Obama hogs per Wassman). The only thing I can attribute this to is they blend in almost perfectly with regular night vision and are hard to see with even a full moon. Basically the white becomes a shade of green and blends in where a black hog is black and pops with night vision. And we have hunted this place hard with night vision so the white or lighter colored hogs had a higher survival rate. Of course with thermal this is not a issue and their camouflage had no effect. I did drive right into a sounder of them in the wide open thinking they were calves because none were black DOH!
First blood came from a group of about fifteen I shot the sow closest to the treeline trying to drive them back into the open but it failed this time and the rest disappeared into the trees. She measured 240 pounds and was one of the smaller ones in the group. After that a couple of sounders made bad decisions and ran into the open and are no more. The largest hogs for the weekend were the 240 pound sow above, and a pair of boars a respectful 240lbs and 230lbs, every thing else was in the 100-140 range.
All coyotes were target of opportunities taken by spot and stalk. Here are a couple of pics.
