Went out Wednesday afternoon to my usual hunting spot and met up with the property owner. We started out together but he thought we might increase our chances of finding hogs by splitting up. Okay, he's probably right and it's his property, so whatever he says, goes. Anyway, he went off into another part of the property where there's a seasonal creek (wet right now) and where we often see hogs or signs of hogs. I stayed by a neighbor's pasture where we have permission to hunt. This pasture offers a nice, unrestricted view of probably 100 acres and it's been a real honey-hole lately.

Sure enough, not more than 15 minutes after he takes off, I spot a sounder across the pasture. They're over a half-mile away, but near the property line so I drive halfway and then walk the rest of the distance. There are about a dozen smaller hogs and 3-4 larger ones. A couple of the larger hogs meander away from the rest of the sounder and come a little closer to my position in some trees along the fence line. By doing this they become targets! At a range of about 100 yards I take aim at the neck of one that's slightly quartering away and shoot. I hit her low in the left shoulder just above the elbow joint and break the bone. The bullet exits creating a 2-inch wound, after which the bullet enters the lower part of the neck, creating another 2-inch wound. I guess the bullet drove the bone fragments along with it because it really made a hole in the neck! She went straight down and never got up.



Normally I'd put my rifle or something in the photo to give some sense of scale, but recently I've gotten tired of dragging hogs out of the fields. I now bring a hand truck (two wheeled dolly) and just load the hogs up and roll 'em back to the truck. This means I leave my rifle in the vehicle while I take the hand truck out to the hog. Anyway, the heart girth measured 33" indicating a weight of about 130 Lbs.

The landowner and I split the meat, and as I write this one of the shoulders is in the oven. I had planned to try smoking it but we're getting rain already here in Central Texas which is forecasted to last a while and be potentially heavy. The oven will do nicely for today, I'll smoke a shoulder another time.

Outstanding!

Great job!

Another victim of the Sightmark Photon???

Not this time. The hogs keep showing up before sundown, so I've been using a Browning A-Bolt II with a standard Bushnell 3-9X50 scope on it. I'm shooting Hornady 150 grain SP bullets. The Photon is mounted on an AR-10, and I always bring it along in case nothing shows before dark. As the daytime temps get warmer I expect that the hogs will soon begin to delay their appearances. As the weather begins to get nicer I believe I'll be more amenable to 'relaxing' in the truck, or maybe I'll even just drag out a lawn chair and stay out into the wee hours waiting for them hogs. I have a 'driveway alert' remote sensor that I plan to put out so that I can get a little shut-eye while I'm waiting for the hogs to show. More on that in the coming months, I hope.

Good job! Enjoyed the story...

Well good job regardless of optic used, enjoy dinner

Good job Sir!

One less hog in Centex!

Keep after them. Great story as well.

Flint.