I took a guy hunting last night that had never hunted with thermal before. He is a friend of mine from the Austin area, he has bow hunted up here for 20 years, I have known him for about that long. We met a long time ago on a hunting forum and then met in real life when he was up here hunting. Good guy.

Last week I made a trade on some reloading components with another guy down that way (forum trade deal) and my friend agreed to do the express back and forth since he was coming up here this week to fill protein feeders anyways. He swung by my work yesterday to make the swap, and I set up a short hunt for him last night as a way for me to show my appreciation for the help.

I told him I couldn't stay out very late but we would make a run and see what we could see. We set up on a good overlook and I let him just sit and play with thermal where he could see a long ways and watch critters. We saw a coyote and called him in a decent ways but it just wouldn't commit. Then we saw a lone pig out in a wheat field. I figured it was a boar being alone and we went after it. We drove down off the overlook and circled around, parking the pickup down in a hole. We hopped the fence into the wheat and then had to put on a stalk of 275-300 yards. We got up 75 yards or so from the boar and he was feeding to us. I kept waiting for him to turn and give us a broadside before starting the count but he never would. Finally I decided we would just shoot him anyways. Did the count, we both shot, and he dropped like a bag of rocks. Two hard hits.

Decent young boar. Nothing crazy but a fun stalk and hunt.

My friend had a really good time and agreed that he could see how that style of hunting could be really addictive.

Video: https://youtu.be/sgcFIIMidVI

Sounds like a good night!

Good job!

I hear ya, on not staying out too late!

Every now and then we get carried away, but I like to keep it manageable without getting my days and nights mixed up.

He's hooked now!

Sounds like a great time

That's a cool story! Thermal hog hunting is addictive!

Nice story

That's awesome! Congratulations for introducing another to our sport he will have a hard time not doing it again and again now.

Good job!

Nice going!