First West Texas Hog Hunt

[Double Naught Spy]

https://youtu.be/2_XM_Q68swU

I spent two fun days out in Hall County, just east of Amarillo and Lubbock. It was quite and experience following hogs around and, even getting to shoot at a few.

Do not laugh too hard of me going rookie. On the first set of hogs, the guide started a countdown and that triggered an adrenaline dump. You can see my sight picture deteriorate as it happened, and I jumped the shot, screwing up both of us. Sadly, that is the reality of hunting and just shows that I still find the pursuit of hogs to be quite exciting, though I try to keep that under control.

The next night, shot 3 hogs. The Berger VLD-Hunting 130 gr. round only overpenetrated one of the hogs, the smallest. It managed to run well over 70 yards despite a blood trail that could be followed without lights. Well, with lights but you didn't need bright lights. That hog managed to go over 70 yards before getting into a thicket. I tracked it into the thicket until crawling was required and that is when I gave up on the track. After encountering rattlesnakes twice already that day, I wasn't tempting a 3rd encounter while down on my hands and knees.

The larger two boars each had one lengthwise shot and one broadside shot. That the round did not overpenetrate on the lengthwise shots is not a surprise, but it should have happened on the broadside shot. On the largest hog, the broadside shot was not videoed and happened during my walk-up when I realized that the hog was trying to get up as I approached.

I still like the VLD-Hunting bullet, but the additional results do not all fit well with my previous experiences. As ever, the larger your sample size, the more apt you are to have outliers.

[Drillboss]

It's kinda borderline, but I'd have to call Hall County "Panhandle" rather than "West Texas". It's still a little confusing to me, but I spent 3 years living amongst them in Midland.

At any rate, good shooting and another great video.

[jawbone]

forgiving the first shot, and who among us hasn't had some of those, that was some excellent shooting. good that you still get excitement from these hunts, too.

[chillypepper]

Yes the names of the areas of Texas is a bit confusing. They call Cottle Co. west Texas, yet there is a whole lot more Texas west of here than there is north of here. North Texas is south east of here. Yeah, I don't get it either, just the way it is.

Nice with the hogs. I haven't had the chance to get one in about a year now. I lost most my hunting land when I changed jobs from tractor driver to tractor mechanic. I still have a small couple hundred acres to hunt, I just don't get to as much being at the shop all day, instead of out in the fields.

I didn't get to see your earlier results with the same bullets. Are you having second thoughts about these?

[Double Naught Spy]

Second thoughts about the Berger VLD-Hunting bullets? I have always had second thoughts give the price relative to performance for hunting typical hunters who are generally shorter range hunters (<200 yards). This is a good bullet and Precision Firearms does an excellent job of loading it.

Of the videoed hogs I have shot previously, the only time the Berger did not overpenetrate was with the front chest shot, lengthwise on the body. All broadside, quartered, and nearly head-on shots have managed to exit. I shot a quartered 270 lb boar and the bullet took out several ribs and penetrated some 20-22" before making pronounced exit. My experience/impression so far is that this round has a very good potential to overpenetrate while doing lots of damage to surrounding tissue.

For hogs, I like a round that does this. I don't like it when hogs run. I made a quite reasonable boiler room shot on that hog, through the shoulder, causing significant vascular trauma resulting in a dramatic loss of blood and that hog ran very well and far enough that I could not recover it. That is what can happen when there is no significant damage to the central nervous system.



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LOL, "west Texas" was meant as a general directional descriptor and not a specifically named region or the town of "West, Texas" for that matter. However, if that is y'all are questioning, I can live with that.

[Heorot]

Your hog hunting videos are still entertaining and professional quality, regardless of what part of the "great state" you may be in. Thanks for the inspiration!

[kmon]

Another great entertaining video DNS

It often is entertaining hearing the different opinions on what is West Texas. Though I was going to see a fight one night when a guy from Midland told a guy from El Paso that El Paso was not West Texas.

[Double Naught Spy]

Well, El Paso is in a different time zone as it is so far west, so it doesn't count, LOL.

Sheesh.

[chillypepper]

Hey I don't even pretend to understand how the locals work out the details of geography. I simply came here to visit some friends for a week or so and got offered a job. That was 4 years ago.

FWIW, Cali isn't any better about where actual locations are.

I enjoy the good people, laid back surroundings. Farming and doing some hunting from time to time. It's real easy to live here. And I'm hoping my old boss is ready for me to go out and see what I can do with the heard of hogs that keeps tearing up the haygrazer fields. There's at least 60 of them, and apparently I'm the only one that ever gets to see 'em to shoot them. Like most of the land here, there is hunting leases. Most the land owners make more money from the hunters than they do the farmers so it's really strict on the rules of hunting private land. I don't need permission exactly, from the land owner. I need it from the hunting lease holder. Most are very good about hog and yote hunters using their leases.

[Drift]

One of your best videos ever! I really liked seeing arterial blood pump out of the one that got away. My thoughts on bullet selection go something like this. " Most any caliber/bullet combination is an instant kill shot if you hit them in the CNS; the test of a hunting bullet is in the damage done when you hit them in the center of mass." That arterial pumper showed great bullet performance. Maybe the hog was just hypertensive..and so was able to keep its brain perfused a little longer then expected.

[Double Naught Spy]

Right Drift. Somebody in a previous thread had asked me to please start shooting boars in the shoulder as that was the true test of a hog hunting bullet. One of the concerns I mentioned about doing this was that if the bullet doesn't hit CNS and do significant damage, the hog may run and that means the hog may not be found. That was the case here.

It should be pointed out that the animal did not collapse due to hydrostatic shock (an advertised feature of the Berger VLD-Hunting bullet). The reason why it apparently did eventually collapse was from exsanguination from actual bullet trauma. It is just plain silly to rely on hydrostatic shock to deliver sufficient indirect neurological damage to immediately drop an animal. Sometimes it happens, which is great, but not always.

Another point that Berger also advertises is that if the animal does not drop in place as a result of being shot with one of their bullets, it won't run far. "Far" is relative. "Too far" is whatever distance it takes for the animal not to be found. This hog ran some 70 yards in an arc to get to a fence line and I followed the blood trail another 20 yards into the brush before it got too thick to follow safely.

I still think this is a good bullet for hogs. I just don't buy into the hype.

[kmon]

Really good video. On the bullet performance agree about the only way to be sure of DRT critter is a CNS disruption. I have killed a few that dropped dead on the spot from broadside double lung shots. 3 of which I could see their breathing well enough to shoot them when the lungs were about empty. Those 3 dropped as quick as if you had dismantled the brain. Think that kinds relates to a sucker punch where you are hit in the stomach after exhaling.

[Klem]

Yes, a fantastic moving shot but what I admire most is your patience in all these videos. Waiting for the right moment and then coordinating the sight picture with trigger.

On the topic of a running boar with it's heart shot out I'm thinking that lack of perfusion (I had to look that up) is not an immediate thing. Shooting out the heart stops blood pressure and flow to the brain but like the old guillotine stories the brain might take up to 2-3 seconds to lapse into a coma, even with complete head separation at the neck. With the heart disrupted and a longer intact blood system lack of perfusion might take up to 10 seconds, with the signal to run heading down a CNS which is still intact.

I'm going to add something that may be controversial but I'm wondering if this animal is predisposed to flight then it might concentrate less on it's own organ failure and more on fleeing danger. While other animals might concentrate on the profound damage and lie down to die.

[JASmith]

...'m going to add something that may be controversial but I'm wondering if this animal is predisposed to flight then it might concentrate less on it's own organ failure and more on fleeing danger. While other animals might concentrate on the profound damage and lie down to die.

Controversial?

Perhaps, but there is a whole lot of evidence to support your observation.

Moving from hunting to the hunting and law-enforcement worlds, we see evidence that the mental and emotional state of the target makes a huge difference. Certain drugs enhance the effect.

[Double Naught Spy]

I am not sure anthropomorphising animal behavior will be likely to provide an accurate explanation. While humans may look at their wounds, assess the graveness, and lie down to die, I have my doubts as to animals understanding the significance of their wounds and how such trauma affects their mortality. Some types of animals tend to do certain things when injured. Coyotes will attack their own wounds and rip out unfamiliar flesh thinking that the tissue is something causing them pain. Many animals certainly tend to run, perceiving the pain and noise as a threat. I am more inclined to believe that if an animal voluntarily lies down, it does so to garner some relief, not because it intends to die.