This is a long story, so bear with me.
What a great day.
ATTT (armedtotheteeth), my hunting buddy, and I were at his folk's ranch, shooting at the 100 yard target range.
They have feral-pig problems. Big time.
ATTT had purchased a new set of scope rings and needed to sight in again, before our hunt.
After about a half hour playing around, ATTT is in the third shot of another string of ten. His ear plugs are in. Mine are not.
I'm pretty much already deaf, and a tad stupid.
So, unless ATTT is shooting the AR-30, I tend to go without. With earplugs in, I truly hear nothing but my own permanent ear-ringing.
ATTT is squeezing on his third shot and I hear pigs scream and snort.
I mean it was unmistakable, and loud. I figured about 400 - 600 yards away.
ATTT, turned away from firing, sees me turn and grab my rifle.
"What was that?" (He HEARD them thru his earplugs!)
"Pigs!", I said.
He grabbed two thirty-round mags he keeps loaded, and caught up to me about 300 yards away, toward the sound.
No pigs.
We get about 500 yards from the range-bench and we are at the fence.
No pigs.
There is such a hole in the fence that it reminds me of an igloo entrance.
We heard them fight again... on the other side of the fence.
We jumped it.
It's not that ATTT's family doesn't get along with the neighbor. It's just there are issues involved with the guys donkey's. Everyone wants the pigs under control. The damage hogs do around there is incalculable.
So, we go traipsing thru the neighbors property.
It is Natural. Trees, brush, wild grasses... Nothing in that plot is altered from the way it looked before 'white man' showed up.
You could walk up to a pile of oaks and not see the pigs in the shadows.
We took it rather quick since it was obvious that it was well more than a pair of pigs. We found a small pond/tank that was nearly dried up. That's when we lost the sound of them.
Did we spook them?
Were they in the stand of trees and underbrush, just up the hill?
We sat there for a few minutes and ATTT heard splashing water.
"They are at the South Tank," he said.
That's back on his family's property, where it wraps around the corner of the neighbors.
It was relatively in-line with our path. Just a 15 degree shift to the right.
We split slightly, and head the 380 yards to the tank. Crossed the other fence and we spot a rather large skunk.
Finally sneak up on the tank, and cows with calves look us over.
A deer sprinted out from the trees to our left, up on the top edge of the tank and disappeared over the far side of the tank.
It was the cows splashing around.
We sat there for a while, waiting and listening.
No pig sign.
I keep remembering the phrase, "Being Skunked."
It happens quite often. Head out pig hunting and see nothing but skunks.
There was one other time we heard pigs fighting, last October.
We tracked that Mafia family for a mile and nearly passed them in the overly tall brush.
There was alot of rain last year, and I kept walking thru cactus hidden under the grasses. ATTT saw them after I passed them and opened up from 10 yards away.
I had a 30-30, and ATTT was using his trusty Bushmaster.
He dropped his first one and went into "UmGawa" mode.
All I saw was pigs backs like whales humping thru water.
More than a dozen. Who knows if there were piglets.
A 180Lb'er charged me and I shot it in the face with a LeveRevolution... from ten feet.
I did stop its charge, but it didn't DRT (die right there). It turned and ran away, faceless and screaming.
I decided right there that I needed more gun.
I went around the 'folly' to try and find more pigs that John hit. Didn't find anything but my pigs flesh, in strips, like worms, hanging from the branches of a large mesquite bush.
Only one pig was harvested that day.
ATTT's first pig-hit, pre-"UmGawa". A sow.
I ended up purchasing a AK to pig-hunt with. "If I can't get bigger bullets, I'm gonna throw more of them."
It's a Saiga 308, I named 'Kindness'.
Sorry. Back to the more current hunt...
Depressed that we got skunked again, we headed back toward the range. We were hoping the pigs didn't get our scent from our passing thru their 'yard'.
We got near where we crossed the fence previously and...
Sure enough, they screamed out again.
Man! They must have a sow in heat.
That's too much fighting for just bickering over grasses or a teet.
ATTT wanted to go up the fenceline to where we crossed it before.
I was hesitant. I wanted to follow the sound directly. Straight-line it.
The pigs screamed again and ATTT was over the fence before I was.
Second pass thru the neighbors property...
We took several breaks, to wait for sounds this time. Sitting took us maybe twenty minutes, combined.
We were downwind again.
The had no clue we were there.
That's when we came up on a huge oak stand and no sounds of fighting.
Then, even I could hear scruff. Like something was moving.
I looked at ATTT and made vocal note of the fact that I didn't have a bayonet.
These trees were perfect for pigs. They were large and full of leaves. The brambles and briars were slanted like a tent to form a second canopy about three feet high.
We slowly grew balls, and slithered our way in.
It was a pig family home in there.
No leaves. No twigs. Soft beach sand that was deep and cool.
But no pigs.
We found ourselves walking in pig beds.
We slowly swept thru the trees, using the pig 'hallways'.
That's when ATTT spotted them. About 15 of them.
They were 300 yards out into a straw field that butted up against, what we could now see, was a treeline along the fields edge.
We were in that treeline.
One hundred yards to our right was ATTT's family property.
The pigs were out in the field, about 10 yards away from the same property fenceline.
They were only 315 yards from the South Tank. We didn't hear them then, because we weren't downwind of them at the Tank.
Turns out, we were hearing them from a total of 1300 yards away. Nearly three-quarters of a mile, from the range to their fighting area.
ATTT started toward them, cutting straight thru the field.
I went for the fenceline because there were trees along the fence, and they would cut loose for it first, to try and get away.
We walked right up on them.
ATTT got within 50 yards and stopped dead still.
I got within 25 yards of them along the fence and knelt down.
I didn't see it but ATTT had a 60lb boar, 30 yards in front of him, trying to figure out what he was.
That was the first one to go down.
Five pigs turned and swung for the fenceline. The rest cut for the field, to our left.
I shot the lead sow running for my fence in the head. 140Lbs.
The others that were headed for the fence turned again and headed out into the field.
ATTT went into "UmGawa" mode, again, and emptied his magazine.
I was too busy holding back my laughing, and trying to aim.
A cousin of ATTT's has the same "UmGawa" sense. He describes it as, "Shooting as fast as you can, until the dirt explosions catch up to the pigs."
I fired 7 shots with Kindness, recovered two brass.
Five of my shots hit, total. Only one of those 'hits' dropped another pig.
ATTT's 'Poodle-Shooter' is handloaded with 55gr V-Max's.
I shoot 110gr V-Max's from my AK.
It was interesting listening to the reports of the weapons 'hit' the targets.
ATTT's 'hits' sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a ripe melon.
Mine sounded like a "Sledge-O-Matic" slapping watermelons in midair.
It was astounding to me that these pigs were taking so many hits and still running... except two.
ATTT had dropped a second pig, a 100Lb boar.
I had dropped a second pig, a 244Lb boar.
ATTT walked out into the field, after he overcame his "UmGawa" episode, and was worried about his ammo supply.
He forgot he had a second Mag.
The large boar was trying to get up and run away.
I had hit it in the high stomach area and destroyed 8 inches of vertebra, et al.
ATTT finished it with one to the head.
I checked my first pig, the sow, and she was twitching. I couldn't see an entry so I added another to her head. Half her head disappeared.
It turned out I didn't need to do it. She had fallen on her first wound. A shot in her neck, just behind the head, liquefying it.
WHAT A FUN DAY!
We donated the boars to some needy rednecks and kept the sow.
We figure that nearly all of them took off with extra perforations. No biggie. There are several hundred more in the area.
We hunt for food, as well as extermination.
Here is pics of what we harvested.
My sow is on the right. The one with the misshaped head.
Notice the amount of dirt in this field? It is supposed to be hay all the way to the trees.
The big boar, me, and our rifles.
Weigh-in of the big boar. That's ATTT's cousin on the wench.
ATTT was taking the pics.
P.S. This was one week ago, on Saturday.
What a great day.
ATTT (armedtotheteeth), my hunting buddy, and I were at his folk's ranch, shooting at the 100 yard target range.
They have feral-pig problems. Big time.
ATTT had purchased a new set of scope rings and needed to sight in again, before our hunt.
After about a half hour playing around, ATTT is in the third shot of another string of ten. His ear plugs are in. Mine are not.
I'm pretty much already deaf, and a tad stupid.
So, unless ATTT is shooting the AR-30, I tend to go without. With earplugs in, I truly hear nothing but my own permanent ear-ringing.
ATTT is squeezing on his third shot and I hear pigs scream and snort.
I mean it was unmistakable, and loud. I figured about 400 - 600 yards away.
ATTT, turned away from firing, sees me turn and grab my rifle.
"What was that?" (He HEARD them thru his earplugs!)
"Pigs!", I said.
He grabbed two thirty-round mags he keeps loaded, and caught up to me about 300 yards away, toward the sound.
No pigs.
We get about 500 yards from the range-bench and we are at the fence.
No pigs.
There is such a hole in the fence that it reminds me of an igloo entrance.
We heard them fight again... on the other side of the fence.
We jumped it.
It's not that ATTT's family doesn't get along with the neighbor. It's just there are issues involved with the guys donkey's. Everyone wants the pigs under control. The damage hogs do around there is incalculable.
So, we go traipsing thru the neighbors property.
It is Natural. Trees, brush, wild grasses... Nothing in that plot is altered from the way it looked before 'white man' showed up.
You could walk up to a pile of oaks and not see the pigs in the shadows.
We took it rather quick since it was obvious that it was well more than a pair of pigs. We found a small pond/tank that was nearly dried up. That's when we lost the sound of them.
Did we spook them?
Were they in the stand of trees and underbrush, just up the hill?
We sat there for a few minutes and ATTT heard splashing water.
"They are at the South Tank," he said.
That's back on his family's property, where it wraps around the corner of the neighbors.
It was relatively in-line with our path. Just a 15 degree shift to the right.
We split slightly, and head the 380 yards to the tank. Crossed the other fence and we spot a rather large skunk.
Finally sneak up on the tank, and cows with calves look us over.
A deer sprinted out from the trees to our left, up on the top edge of the tank and disappeared over the far side of the tank.
It was the cows splashing around.
We sat there for a while, waiting and listening.
No pig sign.
I keep remembering the phrase, "Being Skunked."
It happens quite often. Head out pig hunting and see nothing but skunks.
There was one other time we heard pigs fighting, last October.
We tracked that Mafia family for a mile and nearly passed them in the overly tall brush.
There was alot of rain last year, and I kept walking thru cactus hidden under the grasses. ATTT saw them after I passed them and opened up from 10 yards away.
I had a 30-30, and ATTT was using his trusty Bushmaster.
He dropped his first one and went into "UmGawa" mode.
All I saw was pigs backs like whales humping thru water.
More than a dozen. Who knows if there were piglets.
A 180Lb'er charged me and I shot it in the face with a LeveRevolution... from ten feet.
I did stop its charge, but it didn't DRT (die right there). It turned and ran away, faceless and screaming.
I decided right there that I needed more gun.
I went around the 'folly' to try and find more pigs that John hit. Didn't find anything but my pigs flesh, in strips, like worms, hanging from the branches of a large mesquite bush.
Only one pig was harvested that day.
ATTT's first pig-hit, pre-"UmGawa". A sow.
I ended up purchasing a AK to pig-hunt with. "If I can't get bigger bullets, I'm gonna throw more of them."
It's a Saiga 308, I named 'Kindness'.
Sorry. Back to the more current hunt...
Depressed that we got skunked again, we headed back toward the range. We were hoping the pigs didn't get our scent from our passing thru their 'yard'.
We got near where we crossed the fence previously and...
Sure enough, they screamed out again.
Man! They must have a sow in heat.
That's too much fighting for just bickering over grasses or a teet.
ATTT wanted to go up the fenceline to where we crossed it before.
I was hesitant. I wanted to follow the sound directly. Straight-line it.
The pigs screamed again and ATTT was over the fence before I was.
Second pass thru the neighbors property...
We took several breaks, to wait for sounds this time. Sitting took us maybe twenty minutes, combined.
We were downwind again.
The had no clue we were there.
That's when we came up on a huge oak stand and no sounds of fighting.
Then, even I could hear scruff. Like something was moving.
I looked at ATTT and made vocal note of the fact that I didn't have a bayonet.
These trees were perfect for pigs. They were large and full of leaves. The brambles and briars were slanted like a tent to form a second canopy about three feet high.
We slowly grew balls, and slithered our way in.
It was a pig family home in there.
No leaves. No twigs. Soft beach sand that was deep and cool.
But no pigs.
We found ourselves walking in pig beds.
We slowly swept thru the trees, using the pig 'hallways'.
That's when ATTT spotted them. About 15 of them.
They were 300 yards out into a straw field that butted up against, what we could now see, was a treeline along the fields edge.
We were in that treeline.
One hundred yards to our right was ATTT's family property.
The pigs were out in the field, about 10 yards away from the same property fenceline.
They were only 315 yards from the South Tank. We didn't hear them then, because we weren't downwind of them at the Tank.
Turns out, we were hearing them from a total of 1300 yards away. Nearly three-quarters of a mile, from the range to their fighting area.
ATTT started toward them, cutting straight thru the field.
I went for the fenceline because there were trees along the fence, and they would cut loose for it first, to try and get away.
We walked right up on them.
ATTT got within 50 yards and stopped dead still.
I got within 25 yards of them along the fence and knelt down.
I didn't see it but ATTT had a 60lb boar, 30 yards in front of him, trying to figure out what he was.
That was the first one to go down.
Five pigs turned and swung for the fenceline. The rest cut for the field, to our left.
I shot the lead sow running for my fence in the head. 140Lbs.
The others that were headed for the fence turned again and headed out into the field.
ATTT went into "UmGawa" mode, again, and emptied his magazine.
I was too busy holding back my laughing, and trying to aim.
A cousin of ATTT's has the same "UmGawa" sense. He describes it as, "Shooting as fast as you can, until the dirt explosions catch up to the pigs."
I fired 7 shots with Kindness, recovered two brass.
Five of my shots hit, total. Only one of those 'hits' dropped another pig.
ATTT's 'Poodle-Shooter' is handloaded with 55gr V-Max's.
I shoot 110gr V-Max's from my AK.
It was interesting listening to the reports of the weapons 'hit' the targets.
ATTT's 'hits' sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a ripe melon.
Mine sounded like a "Sledge-O-Matic" slapping watermelons in midair.
It was astounding to me that these pigs were taking so many hits and still running... except two.
ATTT had dropped a second pig, a 100Lb boar.
I had dropped a second pig, a 244Lb boar.
ATTT walked out into the field, after he overcame his "UmGawa" episode, and was worried about his ammo supply.
He forgot he had a second Mag.
The large boar was trying to get up and run away.
I had hit it in the high stomach area and destroyed 8 inches of vertebra, et al.
ATTT finished it with one to the head.
I checked my first pig, the sow, and she was twitching. I couldn't see an entry so I added another to her head. Half her head disappeared.
It turned out I didn't need to do it. She had fallen on her first wound. A shot in her neck, just behind the head, liquefying it.
WHAT A FUN DAY!
We donated the boars to some needy rednecks and kept the sow.
We figure that nearly all of them took off with extra perforations. No biggie. There are several hundred more in the area.
We hunt for food, as well as extermination.
Here is pics of what we harvested.
My sow is on the right. The one with the misshaped head.
Notice the amount of dirt in this field? It is supposed to be hay all the way to the trees.
The big boar, me, and our rifles.
Weigh-in of the big boar. That's ATTT's cousin on the wench.
ATTT was taking the pics.
P.S. This was one week ago, on Saturday.
