This was a rough night to start. I spent four hours on the first property (high fence) hoping to encounter their hogs. Nada. Next I spotted coyotes on my second property but they were 600 yards out and did not respond to the call. I did a quick walk through on the third property with no luck. However, in less than 15 minutes of getting to my observation point on this last property, I was seeing hogs. The only problem was that there was a bright moon and all open terrain between the hogs and me. So I opted for a relatively long distance shot after hog calling seemed to seriously spook the hogs.
Shooting longer distance was not my first choice, but the Hornady SST 123 gr. bullet had no problem blasting through the first hog and completely through the skull of the second hog before the last bits of bullet came to rest under the skin on the opposite side.
In thermal, I actually thought the first hog was much larger. It looked filled out to me and I would have guessed 200 lbs. She turned out to be much smaller, only 155 lbs. Can't say that I am surprised. It can be very difficult to assess such aspects accurate with thermal at distance. I am a bit disappointed she wasn't bigger, but could not be any happier with getting a 2-fer!
Shooting longer distance was not my first choice, but the Hornady SST 123 gr. bullet had no problem blasting through the first hog and completely through the skull of the second hog before the last bits of bullet came to rest under the skin on the opposite side.
In thermal, I actually thought the first hog was much larger. It looked filled out to me and I would have guessed 200 lbs. She turned out to be much smaller, only 155 lbs. Can't say that I am surprised. It can be very difficult to assess such aspects accurate with thermal at distance. I am a bit disappointed she wasn't bigger, but could not be any happier with getting a 2-fer!
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