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Bosque County Hogs and Coyote - Watch for storms, snakes, and shooting your eye out!

Posted By: Pig_Popper

Bosque County Hogs and Coyote - Watch for storms, snakes, and shooting your eye out! - 07/11/18 03:43 AM

Double Naught Spy and I geared up and headed to Bosque Co. Texas yesterday to check on the HEFS (feeder) and look for hogs and other predators.

Much of the midday in town was spent intently watching the radar machine at the job hoping that scattered showers meant anywhere but the Land Owners property at the later stages of the day. It sucks because we always want and need the rain but it'll make for a cancelled hunt real quick so you hope it rains just enough but leaves the ground hard enough to let you get access to where you need to go.

Thankfully the storms did dissipate by the time we got into the first stand.

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Game Cam indicated a lone boar visited the feeder in the early hours of the day we were on property, no other footage in the days prior to that photo so this boar certainly wasn't "patterned" in fact he looked solid in color but that's just my opinion. Anyhoooo , DNS and I both agreed that we should begin the hunt by giving a concerted effort at the feeder to see if he returned earlier than the photo time from the night before. We sat from 8pm to 1130 pm with no sign of the porker. We watched a very young raccoon stuff his face with as much corn as he could for an hour and at one point Brian says "there is a snake" in the water.

I attempted to view through my thermal spotter and riflescope but couldn't see the snake as DNS was calling out very specific locations of its position (by the pig shaped rock, now by the rock 5 feet to the right, now I lost it). I sort of hoped DNS would give me a pass on putting the SD card back in the camera which was on the other side of the snake but as we packed up and looked to head to the fields he says, I'll get the truck started and you put the card back <GULP>

I went in with every light on full bright and if it weren't for the bugs dive bombing the LED on my forehead or the infinite number of spiders weaving webs in the area of approach, or the threat of hogs or other predators deciding to show at the time I have my head up the Game Cams you know what I now have to contend with the fact that a verified spotting of a snake just occurred in the area. Good stuff - I figured the kids college would be paid for via life insurance and the wife could turn my reloading section of the garage into a craft room and these thoughts of my possible demise actually lifted my spirits to get on in there and put the card back in the camera woot

Upon arrival at the fields we crept up on a small sounder of hogs who were busy rooting for whatever they find appetizing in a harvested oats field. The stalk itself was not difficult however the hogs seems to be getting smaller as we approached which indicated they were on the move in an opposite direction from us. There was one pig of larger size than the rest, well call this the easy target, and I'm not sure if DNS took pity on me because of the snake thing or the fact that he knows I struggle with hitting small targets - either way I'll cash that pity check - so he told me to go for the bigger hog. Instantly I felt relieved at increasing my chances at taking the hog, oh by about 7 inches by 12 inches!

I had a bit of difficulty getting my sticks steady and DNS encouraged me to get my butt into gear, I believe it was something to the effect of "Sometime this week, maybe?" This is one of the common areas where hunting teams really show their true collective spirit and drive, communication isn't always easy and clearly DNS had spent enough time watching me walk to a neighboring field and back and fiddle with my sight and gear and he let me know - LETS GO. It's the nature of doing this in teams and I appreciate how we get the job done - and now was the time to make that happen.

I wobbled the pip onto the target, letting off the trigger a bit more towards center and lower than I would like but the hog went down and stayed down. I fixated on the downed hog because I wasn't losing it while DNS connected with another shoat off camera view. As we made our approach to assess the dead pigs, DNS' hog decided to kick it in to high gear and boogie on out of there - problem was his wheels weren't operating correctly so a quick couple of shots rendered him stationary for good.

We didn't bag a mess of pigs this go around but I'd say we made the best of the opportunity at hand.

A short while later a decent sized coyote came charging in to investigate the rabbit caller being operated by DNS. I cleared the reticle off my screen to get clearer footage and said "This is your yote". The shot was on target and effective and for the second time in a month we completed a Hog/Yote successful hunt.

Everybody is happy and the drive home is always easier when your cup of accomplishment is full.


Posted By: Bar-D

Re: Bosque County Hogs and Coyote - Watch for storms, snakes, and shooting your eye out! - 07/11/18 11:46 AM

up
Posted By: Double Naught Spy

Re: Bosque County Hogs and Coyote - Watch for storms, snakes, and shooting your eye out! - 07/11/18 01:41 PM

A lot goes on behind the scenes that often doesn't make it into the videos. When we arrived at the property, we initially discovered a couple of cattle that were out of the fence and about 3/4 of a mile from where they should have been. We lost a bunch of the little remaining daylight keeping an eye on the cattle until we could get the landowner to arrive. While a good deed and the landowner was pleased, that sort of set the tone for everything that didn't go right for the evening. Nothing went critically wrong, but we were plagued with little issues. To compound matters when we got to the hogs, the hogs were continually moving away from us and were getting to the point where it would be no longer prudent to shoot. Combined with multiple aborted countdowns due to sticks problems that drew out the delays even longer, I thought we would completely lose the opportunity to shoot at this sounder. These various little issues were would have been inconsequential had we not been strapped for time. In the end, Ben got video of the shoot and I didn't, LOL.
Posted By: der Teufel

Re: Bosque County Hogs and Coyote - Watch for storms, snakes, and shooting your eye out! - 07/11/18 04:48 PM

Originally Posted By: Pig_Popper
I had a bit of difficulty getting my sticks steady and DNS encouraged me to get my butt into gear, I believe it was something to the effect of "Sometime this week, maybe?" This is one of the common areas where hunting teams really show their true collective spirit and drive …

Yeah, friends talk smack to your face and say nice things about you behind your back. cheers
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