Tag Team Smack Down

#0036

Greg and I conducted a tag team smack down last night on the hog in the picture. This is the first hog that came on the camera when this program began.

As Greg suggested, we planned to camp out at the city’s fire station to wait for the hogs to come to the camera. Lately, they have spooked and been gone before we arrived.

(Our fire station building is no longer in use as the neighboring town’s volunteer fire department took over responsibility for our area and took all the gear. So, the building is nearly empty, but there is a refrigerator and other essentials.)

I picked Greg up at 2100, and we drove to the fire station. We unloaded all the gear and got settled in. At about 2245, I decided to have a look into the pasture. (A couple of nights the hogs came to the camera at about 2230.) Peter Parker has spider sense, maybe I have something similar. There they were, I had thermal images of two hogs moving our way straight toward their fence crossing location.

Greg took over the thermal scanner, I brought out the rifle and tripod. We were in the shadow at the front door of the fire station. We were in a good spot. Greg got locked on and was updating me on their movement. I got on the tripod and began my scan with the night vision scope. As they neared the fence, I saw them: a black and a brown boar hog. We have seen these two before, they are the regulars at the pig pipes lately.

Through the night vision, I thought they were through the fence (five strand barbed wire that the hogs walk under). In actuality, they were still on the other side. Gauging their body language, they were just a bit nervous. I could see them both and opted for the brown pig since I assumed that this was the first hog we had on the camera when we began.

As you know, I normally recommend a broadside neck shot to anchor the beast. This situation was more tenuous. The pigs were nervous, a car might come by at any moment, they might scent us. All that to say, I took a head on shot. As the smoke cleared, there was nothing to be seen. Greg assured me that he could see the hog twitching but not going anywhere. In just a minute or two, the twitching stopped.

Done.

We made our approached on the downed hog and quickly confirmed that it was dead.

The reason that I could not see it immediately was that it was on the far side of the fence behind a small bush.

Now the backslapping could begin.

Greg held the light, I gutted it. Greg had brought a tarp and some jugs filled with frozen water. We drug him over to the fire station where we hosed it out. We placed it in the fire station garage overnight.

Next morning, we delivered it to our local taxidermy/processor shop where Greg will turn it all into breakfast sausage.

This was a 70 yard shot. I estimate the hog’s weight at about 100 pounds. The rifle was my 25-45 Sharps shooting a 117 grain Hornady round nose bullet.

I delivered Greg back to his front door by midnight.

Monitoring will continue. If we get more pictures, I’ll try to get a shot. If they come back in force, we will man the fire station and make our stand there.

Porcus Hogrelius
Make Yourself a Better Hog Hunter