I headed down to Bosque County, Texas, this week for some predator and hog hunting. Little did I know it was going to turn out like it did.
I tried calling coyotes for a while with no luck in an area the landowner had said that he heard them behind his cattle pens. No joy. So I headed down to the oats field. On arriving, I spied one hog in the field and after I got over the fence, there were three. The only problem was that I had to circle around to in order to get in a safe direction of fire.
Several cool/bizarre things happened during the hunt, the most beneficial being that for 7 minutes, hogs remained in the field or kept coming into the field despite my limited shooting. Next, I almost got a twofer. The front hog of that pair just did not want to die. It was really weird.
I had no idea how large the hogs were that I was shooting as they were mostly hidden in the oats. The big boar was a real surprise when I found him. He is the largest boar I have taken by myself and the 2nd largest I have take, the other being a 322 lb boar taken on this same property, 2 or 3 years ago.
The hunt was the easy part. I moved several times while hunting and lost situational context for what hogs were down where or in what direction. I searched for 2 hours and only found 3. I figured 2 more were in the field and 1 in the trees (bottom land). Apparently, all three of the others were out in the field, one close to where I found the 2 boars. In the oats, it is so high that thermal is useless if you are more than 10 feet away and so I walked transects with my headlamp, looking for 'craters' in the oats where the hogs and gone down and done their curly shuffle. That is how I found the three I found. I also found several places animals had bedded down previously and places where we had killed hogs the previous week. Fortunately, the landowner came in with his tractor and a map to the hogs I found and solicited help from the Turkey Buzzard Preservation Society to locate the others.
I tried calling coyotes for a while with no luck in an area the landowner had said that he heard them behind his cattle pens. No joy. So I headed down to the oats field. On arriving, I spied one hog in the field and after I got over the fence, there were three. The only problem was that I had to circle around to in order to get in a safe direction of fire.
Several cool/bizarre things happened during the hunt, the most beneficial being that for 7 minutes, hogs remained in the field or kept coming into the field despite my limited shooting. Next, I almost got a twofer. The front hog of that pair just did not want to die. It was really weird.
I had no idea how large the hogs were that I was shooting as they were mostly hidden in the oats. The big boar was a real surprise when I found him. He is the largest boar I have taken by myself and the 2nd largest I have take, the other being a 322 lb boar taken on this same property, 2 or 3 years ago.
The hunt was the easy part. I moved several times while hunting and lost situational context for what hogs were down where or in what direction. I searched for 2 hours and only found 3. I figured 2 more were in the field and 1 in the trees (bottom land). Apparently, all three of the others were out in the field, one close to where I found the 2 boars. In the oats, it is so high that thermal is useless if you are more than 10 feet away and so I walked transects with my headlamp, looking for 'craters' in the oats where the hogs and gone down and done their curly shuffle. That is how I found the three I found. I also found several places animals had bedded down previously and places where we had killed hogs the previous week. Fortunately, the landowner came in with his tractor and a map to the hogs I found and solicited help from the Turkey Buzzard Preservation Society to locate the others.