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I headed down to Bosque County (central Texas) this week for some predator and hog hunting. Little did I know it was going to turn out like it did.
I tried calling coyotes for a while with no luck in an area the landowner had said that he heard them behind his cattle pens. No joy. So I headed down to the oats field. On arriving, I spied one hog in the field and after I got over the fence, there were three. The only problem was that I had to circle around to in order to get in a safe direction of fire.
Several cool/bizarre things happened during the hunt, the most beneficial being that for 7 minutes, hogs remained in the field or kept coming into the field despite my limited shooting. Next, I almost got a twofer. The front hog of that pair just did not want to die. It was really weird.
I had no idea how large the hogs were that I was shooting as they were mostly hidden in the oats. The big boar was a real surprise when I found him. He is the largest boar I have taken by myself and the 2nd largest I have take, the other being a 322 lb boar taken with HuntTXhogs on this same property, 2 or 3 years ago.
That I was unable to locate 3 hogs says nothing bad about the ammo I was using. Except for Hog #1 (220 lb boar) and the 140 lb sow, the hogs I shot all seem dropped in place. According to the landowner, the three additional hogs that he found were all boars about 200 lbs. I am sure he was eyeballing it, but I think it is safe to say that they were large boars. The Speer TNT performed well.
Where things got weird with the TNT was on the first hog I shot. I was trying for a twofer. The opportunity just developed right in front of me and the two hogs aligned. I apparently shot the first hog just behind the ear, missing the skull and missing the spine. It went right down. The bullet passed through and peppered the Behemoth behind it. The wounds to the Behemoth were not significant and he ran. I caught him on the run with a quartered away shoulder shot to the back of the head. That dropped him for good. Not bad for a 90 gr. varmint round. Meanwhile, Hog #1 is going crazy. He is up. He is down. He is kicking his legs in the air. He is up..... etc. Finally, he is up and still long enough that I put a shot into his head between the eye and ear and he goes down for good, but 30 minutes later when I find him, he is still breathing. His brain is ruined. He shows no blink reflex when I touched my shooting sticks to his eye. So nobody is home, but the lights are still on. I double tapped him twice to the chest cavity to stop him from breathing.
Assuming the owner's assessment is correct, there over 1200 lbs of mature hogs hit the ground.
FYI, for the sake of comparison, I weigh a bit over 250, probably a good bit more with all my field gear on and I look fairly small compared to the big boar.
I tried calling coyotes for a while with no luck in an area the landowner had said that he heard them behind his cattle pens. No joy. So I headed down to the oats field. On arriving, I spied one hog in the field and after I got over the fence, there were three. The only problem was that I had to circle around to in order to get in a safe direction of fire.
Several cool/bizarre things happened during the hunt, the most beneficial being that for 7 minutes, hogs remained in the field or kept coming into the field despite my limited shooting. Next, I almost got a twofer. The front hog of that pair just did not want to die. It was really weird.
I had no idea how large the hogs were that I was shooting as they were mostly hidden in the oats. The big boar was a real surprise when I found him. He is the largest boar I have taken by myself and the 2nd largest I have take, the other being a 322 lb boar taken with HuntTXhogs on this same property, 2 or 3 years ago.
That I was unable to locate 3 hogs says nothing bad about the ammo I was using. Except for Hog #1 (220 lb boar) and the 140 lb sow, the hogs I shot all seem dropped in place. According to the landowner, the three additional hogs that he found were all boars about 200 lbs. I am sure he was eyeballing it, but I think it is safe to say that they were large boars. The Speer TNT performed well.
Where things got weird with the TNT was on the first hog I shot. I was trying for a twofer. The opportunity just developed right in front of me and the two hogs aligned. I apparently shot the first hog just behind the ear, missing the skull and missing the spine. It went right down. The bullet passed through and peppered the Behemoth behind it. The wounds to the Behemoth were not significant and he ran. I caught him on the run with a quartered away shoulder shot to the back of the head. That dropped him for good. Not bad for a 90 gr. varmint round. Meanwhile, Hog #1 is going crazy. He is up. He is down. He is kicking his legs in the air. He is up..... etc. Finally, he is up and still long enough that I put a shot into his head between the eye and ear and he goes down for good, but 30 minutes later when I find him, he is still breathing. His brain is ruined. He shows no blink reflex when I touched my shooting sticks to his eye. So nobody is home, but the lights are still on. I double tapped him twice to the chest cavity to stop him from breathing.
Assuming the owner's assessment is correct, there over 1200 lbs of mature hogs hit the ground.
FYI, for the sake of comparison, I weigh a bit over 250, probably a good bit more with all my field gear on and I look fairly small compared to the big boar.
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