Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 2015 Pig Hunt-With Pictures

We swung back to the South along the ridge and looked over the feeding sows in the wheat fields. After glassing for a while we identified a couple of smaller hogs. Nothing special. So we headed further south. From here we glassed a pair of boars that had moved in to feed.
We planned our initial approach--coming down a ridge and approaching from a small hollow at the base of the field. When we arrived at the field, we found pigs (mostly sows, shoats, and piglets) in groups. More pigs had moved into the field as evening came on. The groups were North, South, and adjacent to the boars we were after. The wind was from the South, so our approach was limited. The guide quietly glassed, glassed, and glassed some more. Finally he whispers, “Trying to figure out how to approach them”.
After about ten minutes of this he says: “I guess we’ll try to approach when the drop down into the swale.” The field is not level. It has a slow, easy, rolling contour. The pigs stay close together and will eventually wander into a depression and out of sight.
So we crossed the fence and started walking in slowly. Eventually the boars and the herd grazing with them, dropped into a swale and out of sight of the pigs to the North -- who were going to smell us had moved farther North. Now that “our pigs” could not see them bolt, we moved in. The North pig herd bolted, but ours stayed put.
We hurried across the field and down into a small creek bed. We came up the other side slowly. The herd of sows had grazed Northward. The boars moved East and were at the far side of the field. One was big, young and FAT! Bob dropped to prone for the shot, but the rolling field blocked his view. The guide got out his shooting tripod (very nice). Bob was going to have to shoot from standing but the range was only 100 yards. We waited for the Boar to turn and show some shoulder. He did. Bob fired. The boar went down. He struggled to get up twice and fell back down, then kicked, and lay still. The guide says, “Heart Shot.”. Autopsy (ok gut pile) showed that Bob had center-punched the shoulder and tore the top off the aorta.
It still Friday night, we had one pig in the rig, and we moved out toward the skinning shed and to put the pig in the meat locker.

On the way, we spotted a small herd and the guide asked if I wanted a look. I said “OK”. Here is a picture—this also shows the rolling nature of the fields.

We stalked from upwind, and looked them over—small sows and shoats. We stood still and a few grazed to within 30 yards of us. They eventually saw us and moved off. We hopped back into the rig, finished the work on Bob’s pig, and headed to the cabin for dinner.
After dinner, but before the sun had gone down, the guide notices a larger pig in the east pasture, “Let’s go take a look.” Back into the rig. It was “Three-Legs”. Three-Legs is resident boar. He was born there, and had started growing into a good huntable boar when Blondie showed up. Three-Legs challenged Blondie. Three-Legs lost most of an ear and had the right rear leg severely injured.