Finally got away from the house and hunted yesterday morning. I was in the double bull by 5:45 a.m. and got settled in. It was but only a few minutes later that I could hear pigs off to the NW squealing and carrying on, and every few minutes I could tell they were getting closer. It took them about 15 minutes and I could tell they were within 100 yards. I could smell them, but as I sat there, they continued to the east and did not stop by the Golden Kernel Cafe.
Daylight finally arrived and soon a doe with a button buck and a doe fawn arrived to feast. They were very skittish and after several minutes they left, all the while looking behind them. Ahh I thought, pigs must be coming. They never showed.
By now it's past 9am and I decided I need to go put a battery in another feeder that is about 600 yards due east of me. I grab the battery and leave my blind and decide the wind is perfect for still hunting. Off I go and after covering about 200 yards, I catch movement.
Of course I left my Binoculars in the blind so I start slowly working my way towards the movements. Minutes later I'm looking at a sounder of at least 20 pigs. There is one big black pig and I decide I want to take him and start stalking that way. The problem is he will not stay still as he is chasing every other boar and picking a fight. He runs a black and white boar and this guy comes my way. I finally have a shot and send a 20" Black Eagle Executioner, topped with a 125 Slick Trick his way. As you can see from the pic, I'm shooting a crossbow , but not just any crossbow, but a Excalibur Matrix 380 that is slinging this arrow at approximately 350 fps. The arrow is to fast for me to follow but I hear a loud smack and he runs to the fence line and turns and is out of sight.
Now a lot of people think, and I'm there with you sort of, that crossbows are loud, but I was surprised to see no other pigs run and were still rooting around. That is, all but the black bully. He is still chasing other boars and pushing them around. I recock the bow, load it and start my stalk again.
Now the bully, he had looked at me a couple of times while I stalked Whitey Black, and tried to catch my scent, but the other pigs were a distraction. I crept closer to him and again he was trying to catch my scent, and when I took my eyes off of him for a second to check locations of other pigs, he must have stepped behind something because when I looked back he was gone. I scanned the area and saw him at 15 yards, staring right at me. I start to raise the Matrix and this is when he decided to come investigate and figure out what I was. Now he was not charging nor was he running, but more of a quick step and pounding the ground with his front hooves. I can't say I was not nervous but with nowhere to run to or go, I quickly lined up for a head shot and fired. I missed the head but hit him just about 2 inches to the right of dead center of his chest. He stopped, turned and stayed stumbling away in what appeared to be a drunken stupor. The arrow did break when he bumped a tree but there was about 15 inches buried in his chest.
The other pigs did not run, but did start walking away. I went to retrieve what was left of my arrow and found a nice spray of red.
I found the first pog with no problems as the arrow had taken out both lungs. I looked for more blood on the bigger one but it was not present. After about an hour of grid and pattern searches, I located him about 75 yards from the initial shot. His cutters were worn down, but could probably inflict damage as they were as big around as my thumb.
