Missed my regular Wednesday night at TBR in Montague County and so I made it out there on Friday night, Friday the 13th. I had not been there in about 10 days and nobody had checked game cameras in that time so I went ahead and checked while taking a long walk around the property to look for sign. I could see that hogs had been around, various sizes, and even found a wallow that I had not noticed previously, but the camera for the area I would be hunting only showed two hogs, one of which had not been there in 10 days. A much larger, black hog had been there at midnight the previous night and so he is the one I expected, but that is not how it turned out.
Spent several hours watching deer, raccoons, rabbits, and armadillos. I had put out extra corn at the feeder in hopes that there would still be corn around by midnight. The deer seemed to be going after the corn pretty hard and I feared that I had not added enough extra corn.
Just about 10:00 pm, the 3rd or 4th group of deer were hitting the feeder again. So I scanned out to the left and then back around to the right and saw nothing, but when I returned to the deer at the feeder, they were gone!
Figuring they got spooked by a predator, I scanned all around again and saw one of the deer up the hill north of the feeder. As I looked for the other deer, I notice a very stocky deer through the brush that turned out to be a hog. The hog did not go to the feeder, but stayed inside the woods and headed north and away from me. I got the rifle up, scope turned on, recorder turned on, found the hog, tracked the hog until the recorder said it was ready, and about this time the hog had moved into the open. "Open" is relative. I could see him through a narrow window between the trees much like the one where I shot the hog back over the Christmas holidays. He had stopped and had apparently started to root. Rooting is a no-no.
He taped out to be 210 lbs and shot at 115 yards. The bullet entered the left side of the neck, but did not exit. That is unusual for the Hornady SST ammo and so I assume that the round probably hit the vertebrae. While he did have a decent whetter and cutter on the right side, the left set was quite short. Check out his coloration in the color images in the video. He blends in very well, though he was quite easy to see on thermal.
As this was not a keeper, I figured on a lot of time schlepping the hog to where I could pick it up with the cart but the landowner graciously volunteered to scoop it up with the tractor in the morning and deposit it into the bone yard. All in all, things worked out very well for me on a Friday the 13th, not so much for the hog.
Hope you like the video...
Spent several hours watching deer, raccoons, rabbits, and armadillos. I had put out extra corn at the feeder in hopes that there would still be corn around by midnight. The deer seemed to be going after the corn pretty hard and I feared that I had not added enough extra corn.
Just about 10:00 pm, the 3rd or 4th group of deer were hitting the feeder again. So I scanned out to the left and then back around to the right and saw nothing, but when I returned to the deer at the feeder, they were gone!
Figuring they got spooked by a predator, I scanned all around again and saw one of the deer up the hill north of the feeder. As I looked for the other deer, I notice a very stocky deer through the brush that turned out to be a hog. The hog did not go to the feeder, but stayed inside the woods and headed north and away from me. I got the rifle up, scope turned on, recorder turned on, found the hog, tracked the hog until the recorder said it was ready, and about this time the hog had moved into the open. "Open" is relative. I could see him through a narrow window between the trees much like the one where I shot the hog back over the Christmas holidays. He had stopped and had apparently started to root. Rooting is a no-no.
He taped out to be 210 lbs and shot at 115 yards. The bullet entered the left side of the neck, but did not exit. That is unusual for the Hornady SST ammo and so I assume that the round probably hit the vertebrae. While he did have a decent whetter and cutter on the right side, the left set was quite short. Check out his coloration in the color images in the video. He blends in very well, though he was quite easy to see on thermal.
As this was not a keeper, I figured on a lot of time schlepping the hog to where I could pick it up with the cart but the landowner graciously volunteered to scoop it up with the tractor in the morning and deposit it into the bone yard. All in all, things worked out very well for me on a Friday the 13th, not so much for the hog.
Hope you like the video...
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