Near San Saba on my nephew's place.

The night of the 5th was a bust. I chose the wrong blind for the wind conditions, and I was pretty ripe by the time I got out there. I saw one hog on the neighboring property where I can shoot with the owner's blessing, but brush along the fence line has grown the last month or so and kept the pug concealed until he decided to depart in a hurry. I never got a shot.

The night of the 6th was much better. I chose a different blind and didn't stink to high heaven myself. A single hog showed around dusk while I was using a rifle equipped with a conventional optic. Nailed him to th ground. I didn't think he was that big, but later when I recovered him I saw he was at least 180, and maybe more. When I shot him I thought the spot was probably ruined for the night but I let him lay and stayed in the blind. After dark I switched to the rifle that has a thermal mounted. The feeder has a green kill light that stays on and about a half hour after dark I noticed movement. A peek through the monocular confirmed it, and the hog looked rather small but he was a hog, so I took him down. This one turned out to be about a 130 pounder, larger than I expected. Again, I thought the spot was used up for the night but I stayed in place.

My nephew had told me there were several lone boars coming around and a couple of them are bruisers. Sure enough, about an hour later I happened to pick up the monocular for a scan when I saw a large pig investigating murder number two. I muffed the shot somehow and he was off to the races. I fired several more times but he made it into the trees and escaped unharmed. I figured that surely I'd see nothing else, so I walked over to admire the two corpses. I decided to stay in the blind a little while longer, and within the hour a fourth hog showed up and I dispatched him. Three outa four ain't too bad.

What I find odd is that everything I've seen this trip have been loners. We've got plenty of hogs...my nephew tells me we're covered up with hogs, but I have yet to see a sounder this time out.

Tomorrow night I'll be out again and may try yet another blind, but I might go back to the second blind and hold out for a sounder. We'll see how it goes.

Way to go!

I went out this morning, but my lone boar was there an hour before me (per the camera). Wasn’t unpleasant, temp wise. I’ll try again in the morning.

I've been killing pigs for about 24 years in the Texas hill country. Started way back with green kill lights. Do not know if you are shooting suppressed, but reflecting on the last year that I have been using a suppressed Sig Cross, 308 Win., I some times will have the opportunity to shoot 3, even 4 lone boars if I sit out long enough. That almost never happened before. In fact, two weeks ago tonight I had two boars and a coyote show up between 8:30 and 11PM.

I have one spot in a remote location where I have set the feeder to go off at 8PM, 9PM and 11PM. for just such purpose.

ya!

GWB

Geedub, no suppressor here. It did not seem to matter here, last night. I'm at the same blind tonight but only because of the wind direction. Maybe Big Boy will try me again, maybe not. I may see nothing, but I intend to find out.

These feeders are set for 8 pm also. These hogs won't come to it like a dinner bell, and sometimes won't show at all until just before sunrise...this based on what the trail cams tell us. I have seen the deer respond like it is a dinner bell, and I've seen them show up ten minutes before it drops corn. At this same blind I saw a pair come in early, and when the feeder tripped they jumped about four feet straight up ad come down running but then they stopped and came back. It was comical as heck.

Friday night did not work out so well. Shortly acter my last post above, I texted my wife. she doesn't demand a LOT of attention, but if she doesn't get any at all she gets bent outa shape. So, as I was having a two or three minute exchange with her, I looked up to see another loner hog had shown up. They come onto us from the property to the north, and this one (who may or may not have been Big Boy) was just our side of the fence line. He was looking around trying to decide and by the time I had my rifle shouldered he had just crossed back onto the property to the north...something bothered him enough to skip going to the corn. I thought for sure he'd come back for corn but he never did, and I sat until midnight and never saw another thing except for an armadillo and a couple of racoons filling up on grasshoppers. I figured that a sounder would surely show up, but if one did it was after I left.

That's okay, though. I'll take a three-hog hunt over a no-hog hunt any day.

I call those Lone boars "Cruisers." We have 3 feeders with hog logs set up on 320 acres. Those Cruisers show up out of nowhere and run everything off the feeders except maybe the sows that are ready to bread. I have seen them in with a sounder. They eat at every feeder and generally spend hours at the logs. If I don't get out there in a timely manner to shoot them they disappear for a while and then show up again later.

I've always wondered and would like to know more about how hogs' social behavior works. Maybe I should take the time to look it up. I have preconceived notions about it...could be right or not.

Last time I was out at the ranch I had a loner at the feeder. Not unusual, of course, but this one was no more than about 25 pounds, if that much. I wonder why he was out there alone.

Another time (or maybe on the same trip) I was out in a wheat field collecting bodies, trying to wrestle a big one into the basket on back of the Polaris. I was having little luck and had to stop and catch my breath. Three of four piglets were wandering around out there and passed right through the floodlight I had turned on. Maybe the mama was one of the bodies I was collecting. I was too winded to care to make an effort to shoot them. After I finally got the last one loaded up I was on my way out of the wheat field when they crossed my path again. I was not too winded to shoot them, that time.

Oh, and now that you mention it, maybe these loners are the reason I did not see a single sounder the whole time I was out there, from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday morning.

Maybe we should accelerate our efforts to kill the loners.