After 3 months of pursuing a rather portly porker who’s been stealing from my deer protein feeder and tearing up my back yard at night, I finally managed to nail him with my crossbow. And, from my back porch while in my pajamas and slippers!

During deer season I had not seen a single hog, which was rather unusual. However, once deer season ended and the neighbor’s feeders ran out of corn, this joker decided to cross the fence and start snacking on the protein feeder by my house, which I keep filled throughout the year. Then, he started rooting up my back yard. Of course, I was having none of that. However, despite my best efforts, I was never able to catch him in the act of protein feeder theft, so I tried putting some corn back in one of my deer feeders and sitting out in the blind for a couple of hours each night with my crossbow. For the next several weeks, I sat out there, night after night, waiting for him to show. But, he seemed to know what nights I was out there, and he would never show up.

Anyway, fast forward to last night. I was sleeping peacefully when I started to hear a strange noise around 2 AM outside my window over by the protein feeder. It sounded like the banging of a stick or some solid object against metal pipe. I hurriedly put on my slippers, loaded my crossbow, and sneaked out onto the back porch, flashlight in hand. I was expecting a raccoon or something like that, but when I turned on the flashlight, there was the purloining pig, right in the act of thievery! He was so big, he was up on his hind legs trying to shove the feeder with his front hooves hard enough to make some food fall into the ground. It reminded me of someone trying to shake a vending machine because their potato chip bag got hung up while it was dispensing. The banging noise I had heard was the sound of his front hooves contacting the metal pipe frame holding up the feeder. He was so intent on nudging some food out of the feeder he didn’t realize there was a flashlight shining on him. I immediately aimed my crossbow, and let a bolt with one of my trusty Spitfire broadheads fly. I heard the satisfying “thunk” of a lung shot, and he went tearing off towards the back of the property. Since he was pretty big and I wasn’t sure how hard I hit him (or exactly when he would expire), I decided to go back to bed.

This morning, I woke up and went trailing him. Thankfully, he had not gone too far (about 135 yards), but unfortunately the coyotes had gotten to him before I did, as they had already eaten part of his hindquarters. Oh well, at least I had gotten my revenge for all the frustration this swine had put me through. Hope you enjoyed my story and the picture!

Great story and photo! Glad you got him.

Nice! Are you going to euro his skull?

Nice job

Nicely done.