So with my wife ready to give birth any day now with our second son, she gave me the green light to go out one last time until the kids born. I hit up the same spot I been hunting since opening day of A22 but I didn't have really high hopes because of the full moon. Now a few weeks back I spotted a group of hogs here so I have been packing my 308 in my truck. Well the morning was uneventful wit only two does coming out into the field so I decided to sit up on a ridge overlooking the field and just waited.
About 5 minutes of glassing, I noticed 6 black dots on the opposite side and they were moving quite a bit, PIGS! I run back to the truck, get my rifle and run after the hogs. Well at first I thought I lost them but I ended up in the honey hole of wild hogs. As I got closer I noticed a whole mess of hogs with probably 3 dozen footballs running around. I saw a nice fat dry sow so as she came to 25 yards I put a round in her. She got up ran and went down so as I approached to claim my prize, two boars come running out of the brush. I yelled to try and get them to stop but one would not and I ended up shooting at it at less then 10 feet
The boar ran off with the entire sounder and I could not find the boar. I load the sow up (took about a hour and a half) gut it out and run home to get my brother and my pig dogs. As I get back and get out of the truck, we spot 7 hogs on a hill side with 6 boars trying to mate with a single sow. My dogs catch the scent and off they go after the group of hogs. My lead dog Taro singles out a boar in the 180lb range and my young dog in training gets right in the mix with Taro. As they work to bay the boar up, the rest of the hogs come to help their friend out and eventually the dogs back off as a large boar throws Taro around as Taro grabs hold of the smaller boar. Once the dogs come back, we head toward the area where I last saw the boar I fired at.
As we get closer the dogs run into the brush and again I hear barking and squealing. The dogs end up finding two wet sows with a crap load of piglets. I backed the dogs off and leashed them up. We start searching the area and back track the hogs moves. No blood and nothing within a 1.5 mile radius, we search for over 4 hours with and without dogs and we just could not locate a hog. I felt horrible but I may have missed the shot so I think the hogs is OK although I have this bad feeling in the back of my head. :-[
Soooooo it looks like our hog population is super healthy and growing at a fast rate.
About 5 minutes of glassing, I noticed 6 black dots on the opposite side and they were moving quite a bit, PIGS! I run back to the truck, get my rifle and run after the hogs. Well at first I thought I lost them but I ended up in the honey hole of wild hogs. As I got closer I noticed a whole mess of hogs with probably 3 dozen footballs running around. I saw a nice fat dry sow so as she came to 25 yards I put a round in her. She got up ran and went down so as I approached to claim my prize, two boars come running out of the brush. I yelled to try and get them to stop but one would not and I ended up shooting at it at less then 10 feet
The boar ran off with the entire sounder and I could not find the boar. I load the sow up (took about a hour and a half) gut it out and run home to get my brother and my pig dogs. As I get back and get out of the truck, we spot 7 hogs on a hill side with 6 boars trying to mate with a single sow. My dogs catch the scent and off they go after the group of hogs. My lead dog Taro singles out a boar in the 180lb range and my young dog in training gets right in the mix with Taro. As they work to bay the boar up, the rest of the hogs come to help their friend out and eventually the dogs back off as a large boar throws Taro around as Taro grabs hold of the smaller boar. Once the dogs come back, we head toward the area where I last saw the boar I fired at.
As we get closer the dogs run into the brush and again I hear barking and squealing. The dogs end up finding two wet sows with a crap load of piglets. I backed the dogs off and leashed them up. We start searching the area and back track the hogs moves. No blood and nothing within a 1.5 mile radius, we search for over 4 hours with and without dogs and we just could not locate a hog. I felt horrible but I may have missed the shot so I think the hogs is OK although I have this bad feeling in the back of my head. :-[
Soooooo it looks like our hog population is super healthy and growing at a fast rate.
