Big landowner I have known a long time, calls me the other night. He asks, "You want to go shoot pigs tonight?" My answer, "When do you want to leave?"

It was supposed to be just a quick trip to go check 2 fields he was having lots of problems in but turned out to be a longer trip than planned. That part of the county is infested with pigs. We get out there and no pigs are in field #1, but we stalk out towards the pivot point anyways. Lots of skunks and several coyotes in the field. We wait for a while hoping pigs will show up, but nothing. Didn't have any calls with me but started lip squeaking and pulled in one coyote from 400 yards to 120, and shot him. Another coyote that was out about 225 took off running and I got it stopped, but it was right behind one of the drops on the pivot when it did, so no shot.

https://youtu.be/3ufdxCHA0L0

Second coyote stopped out about 400 and went back to eating peanuts so we stalked it. Got to a little over 200 and shot it.

https://youtu.be/pVRA8ed8jJA

Landowner is really wanting to kill pigs so we walk back to the truck, get my Convergent caller and drive out to the pivot point, lights off, using truck mounted thermal to drive. Leave his truck there and walk a couple hundred yards closer to the edge where we think the pigs should come from, and start calling with pig sounds. No pigs come in but we call up a third coyote, and I shoot it.

https://youtu.be/OTKtxoKvz5A

So we leave that field and go over to another one. This field was irrigated cotton that has been picked, not stripped. Tall thick stalks, very hard to see into. There is a sounder of pigs on the far side in the sandy road, rooting up the nuts from nutgrass and eating them. LOOOOONG stalk around the outside edge of the circle to get to them with the wind right. We get set up, I am shooting my Grendel with my XQ50 Thermion, he is shooting an AR10 in 308 with a Trail XP50 LRF. We count down and shoot, dropping two on the initial shots. Follow up shots are fast, with 3-4 more hits, but they disappear in the cotton very fast. We catch a glimpse or two of them running away but nothing to shoot at. Looks like they are headed towards the field we just left.

https://youtu.be/v2IUVYOkLDc

We double time back to the truck and drive back over to the field we just came from. Now there are 2 sounders of pigs out in it, far side. Another long stalk across open ground and bright moon. Sounders are about 100 yards apart, our stalk line takes us on a path aiming between the two, so we can try and shoot both groups. We get up around 60 yards from the close group, a little over 100 from the second group. Problem is the first group is feeding to us, second feeding away. While we are discussing what to do the situation gets taken out of our hands. An outlier pig from the first group is getting close. He gets to 36 yard and sees us, and starts coming to us to see what we are. Very quickly we have to pick targets, initiate shot countdown, and start shooting. In the confusion I forgot to hit record so I didn't get that series on video. Two more big pigs down, and 6-8 more solid hits. One good size pig I got two good hits on, I'm sure it didn't make it.

Fun exciting night though. Was using my new Hogster R 35 as a handheld scanner, and it worked great. Very happy with how that worked out.

You need to get back out there ASAP !!!

Sounds like a productive hunt and you’re running great gear as well.

Sounds like a fun night!

How is the Convergent caller working for you, JP?

Glenn is a friend of mine, but I'm not sure how it works on "cold" calling fields, etc.

To be honest I have not used the Convergent much yet. Just got it last fall but have been busy. I mainly use my old CS-24 for calling coyotes, I wanted the Convergent for pigs. I plan to give it a workout the next few months though, so I will let you know.

Something worth saying though. We called that field and weren't far from the truck when we quit. we were gone pretty quick after stopping. We did not use lights going out, but drove with the truck mounted thermal. When we came back an hour later those two sounders of pigs were not but about 300-400 yards from where we had been calling earlier. So who knows if that had something to do with them being there or not?

Gotcha!

I have all the FoxPro hog sounds on my caller, but I think you pretty much need the Convergent to use the Glenn Guess sounds that come on that app.

Well, overall that appears to have been a successful night.

Keep After 'Em!

👍👍

You don’t need the convergent call you can use any Bluetooth speaker