Winding up the trip with an amazing morning spent on the mountain. We hunted one of my favorite places at Neil's. Rolling hills, steep lookouts, amazing views, and a sense of pigs being around every corner. This morning I got to spend with Neil, just him and I hunting this beautiful place.
Driving up to the property, it was raining and hailing fiercely. And the temp was just flat cold. But once we rolled up to the hunting spot, the weather seemed to calm just enough to be perfect.
As we're driving down toward the first hunting area where JP and KC were going to start hunting, we see a giant pig. Only he is on the neighbors property and we have no access. But it gave us all confidence that the pigs would be out in the nasty weather we were about to expose ourselves to. We pulled up to the first spot and made a plan at which time JP and KC were to work the West side of the area. Neil and I drove to the east end and we would push toward each other.
We took off on foot and hiked in about an hour until we reached an area up high that overlooked the entire West side of the property. We were seeing pig sign but not pigs. We started to loop back around on our decent and hit the flats. And as we were working our way back up slightly I see a single pig on the left side of an oak tree at about 75 yards (maybe closer). I told Neil "looks like a pig", and he says sarcastically "are you going to shoot it". I was already grabbing my stix and settling in. The pig started walking toward us and was only offering a frontal brisket shot. I waited a second (thinking it was going to split at any moment) hoping the hog would quarter. Time was running out so I centered up and started to squeeze and as I did the pig turned to its left as the gun went boom. The aftermath was watching the pig turn around and run while 7-8 other very nice pigs pop up out of nowhere and high-tail-it. The landscape is rolling hills, scrub bushes and old growth oak trees so these animals disappeared and reappeared over and over.
At this point I knew I had a solid shot but there was no pig piled up (I am a little concerned at this point). Well, Bolt the super Jag has been released and we are on the chase and doing a pretty good job keeping up with Bolt. It did not take him but a minute to find the group of pigs and bay them up. We came charging in and waited while that crazy devil dog pinned the animals. During this time Neil makes contact with JP & KC to try and get them in on this group of pigs. The dog did his job for about 5 minutes and then we heard him yelp. I thought the worse and Neil says "i think bolt just got run over". We quickly come to the rescue only to see the large ranch dog had come up and picked on the devil dog. The big dog ran off right after. The pigs were gone and and bolt came running up to us. I was releived he was ok, but the weirdest thing was this ranch dog was a few miles away from the ranch. Where the heck did he come from?
We headed back to the original crime scene and were no more than 50-60 yards from where the pig was shot and bolt finds it piled up next to a tree. Life is good. Turns out the shot hit the pig behind the right shoulder at a steep angle and pass through the entire length of the hog exiting its butt dead center. There was a large entrance wound and a massive exit wound. Which brings me to the next subject, copper. I was using the factory Monolithic Munitions ammo monolithicmunitions.com. And it continues to be spectacular. The .260 with the 95 grain Monolithic's has been an amazing combination for 1 shot kills on a variety of animals. Large wound channels, full penetration and laser beam accuracy has been the result.
At this point KC and JP have caught up with us and now the rain and cold sleet has too. Neil manages to get the truck to us, skin, gut and load the animal into the truck. From there we headed of to breakfast.
Fun times with some great folks. And a fantastic adventure as always.
Driving up to the property, it was raining and hailing fiercely. And the temp was just flat cold. But once we rolled up to the hunting spot, the weather seemed to calm just enough to be perfect.
As we're driving down toward the first hunting area where JP and KC were going to start hunting, we see a giant pig. Only he is on the neighbors property and we have no access. But it gave us all confidence that the pigs would be out in the nasty weather we were about to expose ourselves to. We pulled up to the first spot and made a plan at which time JP and KC were to work the West side of the area. Neil and I drove to the east end and we would push toward each other.
We took off on foot and hiked in about an hour until we reached an area up high that overlooked the entire West side of the property. We were seeing pig sign but not pigs. We started to loop back around on our decent and hit the flats. And as we were working our way back up slightly I see a single pig on the left side of an oak tree at about 75 yards (maybe closer). I told Neil "looks like a pig", and he says sarcastically "are you going to shoot it". I was already grabbing my stix and settling in. The pig started walking toward us and was only offering a frontal brisket shot. I waited a second (thinking it was going to split at any moment) hoping the hog would quarter. Time was running out so I centered up and started to squeeze and as I did the pig turned to its left as the gun went boom. The aftermath was watching the pig turn around and run while 7-8 other very nice pigs pop up out of nowhere and high-tail-it. The landscape is rolling hills, scrub bushes and old growth oak trees so these animals disappeared and reappeared over and over.
At this point I knew I had a solid shot but there was no pig piled up (I am a little concerned at this point). Well, Bolt the super Jag has been released and we are on the chase and doing a pretty good job keeping up with Bolt. It did not take him but a minute to find the group of pigs and bay them up. We came charging in and waited while that crazy devil dog pinned the animals. During this time Neil makes contact with JP & KC to try and get them in on this group of pigs. The dog did his job for about 5 minutes and then we heard him yelp. I thought the worse and Neil says "i think bolt just got run over". We quickly come to the rescue only to see the large ranch dog had come up and picked on the devil dog. The big dog ran off right after. The pigs were gone and and bolt came running up to us. I was releived he was ok, but the weirdest thing was this ranch dog was a few miles away from the ranch. Where the heck did he come from?
We headed back to the original crime scene and were no more than 50-60 yards from where the pig was shot and bolt finds it piled up next to a tree. Life is good. Turns out the shot hit the pig behind the right shoulder at a steep angle and pass through the entire length of the hog exiting its butt dead center. There was a large entrance wound and a massive exit wound. Which brings me to the next subject, copper. I was using the factory Monolithic Munitions ammo monolithicmunitions.com. And it continues to be spectacular. The .260 with the 95 grain Monolithic's has been an amazing combination for 1 shot kills on a variety of animals. Large wound channels, full penetration and laser beam accuracy has been the result.
At this point KC and JP have caught up with us and now the rain and cold sleet has too. Neil manages to get the truck to us, skin, gut and load the animal into the truck. From there we headed of to breakfast.
Fun times with some great folks. And a fantastic adventure as always.
