Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Corn Eaters of Florida (w/apologies to Corbett)

I should also mention that while I'd love to give a lot of it to the local homeless shelter we support, they can't take it. Something about processing rules. I guess if it's not USDA they can't use it...which is really a shame.

Well, then�they're not really hungry�.

Oh, they'd eat it, Ingwe; but I think the health department would have something to say about it. "Big Government" you know.

I know�Im just grinding an axe. We are supposed to be fighting hunger in a country where you literally can't find any�.even the homeless are able to turn down perfectly good protein.
People in this country have no concept of what 'hard times' are�.

I'll grant you that. We have churches in places (I'm thinking India, primarily) where what we eat for dinner would feed a family for the better part of a week.

The privately run homeless shelter my old church used to support would take all the venison they could get.

Rev. Our local meat cutters take in deer and grind into burger, wrap and take to the local food bank, free of charge. My family generally donates at least 2 a year. OK now to the meat of the matter. I know both you and Ingwe have read all/most of Col. Corbett and Kenneth Anderson's books, as I have, and I would like to know something. What is/are "L.B." loads for shotguns they reference? I believe that it refers to a "Lethal Ball" load but are they buckshot or single ball/slug? I also expect one of you to use them on a hog (we don't have them here) and give a verrry detailed report! BTW was at a yard sale yesterday and got 200 Rem 175 RNSP's in orig boxes for the 275.-Muddy

Rev, I think I answered my own question about the lethal ball load. On another forum (nitroexpress) there is a photo from an old Kynoch catalog of a "Lethal" bullet which consists of a sphere that is separated vert. and horz. into what appear to be 4 sections above and below its equator, each triangular with one radius side and a flat base. They were 12, 16 and 20 bore dia. for choke and cyl. barrels. with the thing having a steel frame that held the sections together until it "smashed effectively on impact". Anyway our Col. Corbett history lesson for today, God speed-Muddy

Hey Muddy:

Sorry I haven't gotten back with you before today. It's been hectic around here.

You asked a really great question. I've seen "LB" mentioned as well as "LD". I figured one was probably something like a slug, the other something like buckshot. Glad you found something a bit more definitive.

I'll check out the nitroexpress forum as I'd like to see what it looks like myself.

Thanks

The only thing like that I remember from Corbett was "LG" �.12 ga. 'Large Game' loads�basically the equivalent of a 0 or 00 buck shot load. A fave for follow up on leopard.

That's it!!!

At least I didn't think he was hunting with LBJ.

Today is opening day of deer season (gun), and yesterday a bunch of us gathered at the camp to sight in guns, eat, etc., and while the guys were getting tuned up before dinner, I decided to slip down to the south feeders to see if anything was using them. The two feeders to the east fired but nothing was under either of them, so I headed to the one just to the west. As I was walking in, a couple of turkeys were heading out. It had been about 45 minutes since the feeders had fired and the turkey had had pretty well cleaned up most of the corn from under this one. But I climbed into the stand anyway just to see if a pig that I had seen twice before might show. Sure enough he did.

I wasn't in the stand more than about 15 minutes when he came out. I knew it was him because he was a copper/brown color, and had a light blaze going right down the middle of his forehead. But he wasn't alone: right behind him was another boar, only he was black and a little bigger. As soon as they got under the feeder, the brown one did something that surprised me. Instead of foraging the remaining corn, he just lay down under the feeder, while the black one stood a little behind him and off to the side.

Both pigs looked up to the stand where I was sitting, so I didn't move until they both turned away. When they did, I put the crosshairs on a spot between the eye and ear of the pig lying down, but just as I squeezed the trigger he moved his head a little. It was still a good shot, though, as the bullet entered just to the right of his right eye. He dropped and pumped a few times, and that was it. He was the first thing I've killed with the Zastava.




I sure do like cleaning them while there is still a little daylight left!



Sorry about these being upside down on an iPhone. I'll figure it out and fix them later.

Wednesday, my BIL and I went out to see if we could scare up a pig or two. We sat in the stands till dark and neither of us saw a thing, with the exception of a few squirrels and turkey nibbling the corn. It was a full moon, and since the pigs are almost exclusively nocturnal right now, we figured they would probably be feeding at night. But the feeders are still firing at 5:00, giving us about 45-50 minutes of shooting light should the pigs decide to show.

Since we didn't see anything Wednesday evening, we decided to go back out yesterday (Thursday) to try a couple of stands that hadn't been shot for several weeks. I dropped him off on the path leading to a stand overlooking a right-of-way and drove to another stand about a half-mile north. We were in the stands by about 4:30 and the feeders fired at 5:00, right on schedule.

It was warm, about 75 degrees, and I sat watching a few squirrels and a couple of cardinals nibbling at the corn. I was also glad I had my ThermaCell since the mosquitos and gnats were out in force - was very little breeze.

At about 5:20 I caught a glimpse between the trees of something dark moving just to the right (north) of the feeder. I was sure it was a pig heading towards the feeder along a game trail that leads to it. A minute or two later, a nice young boar came into the corn. I could tell he was young from the way he approached the corn on the ground: not very cautiously. As a matter of fact, he didn't seem to be paying attention to much at all, just concentrating on the corn.

I waited a few more minutes to see if anyone was going to join him, but it looked as though he was going to be dining alone; so I put the crosshairs on a spot just behind and below his right ear and pulled the trigger. As usual, he dropped at the shot, pumped his legs a few times, then never twitched again. I sent my BIL a text and we loaded him up and took him back to camp. He was a nice healthy young boar, about 130 very compact pounds. He'll cook up just fine.



Sorry about the fuzzy iPhone pic, but I was sort of in a hurry as I was losing light quickly and I wanted to get him back to camp to get him dressed and on ice. The rifle is a Montana Rifle Company ASR (American Standard Rifle), 7x57, the load was a factory Prvi 139gr., and the scope is a 3-9x40 Leupold VXR. The sling is a Butler Creek V-Grip, which I highly recommend if you're doing much climbing because it absolutely stays put on your shoulder. This was the first animal taken with that rifle. I think it's a keeper.

Deer season is in full swing right now, so yesterday several of our lease members and guests went out for a weekend hunt. I don't deer hunt, so I thought I'd sit in the stand overlooking the same feeder from which I shot the young boar pictured above. My BIL went as my guest, and he sat in his usual place about half-mile to the south of me, along the same gasline right-of-way.

As soon as I left the right-of-way and got on the trail leading to the stand, I heard a couple of faint grunts and saw the head of one very small pig and the backside of another. They were part of a sounder that came in the other evening as I was sitting in the same stand. It was late and a sow, followed by 6 or 7 young shoats, came to the feeder to pick up whatever corn the turkeys had left behind. I watched them through the scope but didn't take a shot. The shoats aren't piglets anymore, but I figured they are still young enough to need "mama," so I left the family alone. They'll grow. The two young pigs I saw yesterday afternoon were definitely a part of that family.

As they scooted off, I walked towards the stand and about the time I got there, I looked back to see of anything was under the feeder. We had a pretty good rain the other day, and the ground around the oak tree from which the feeder hangs was mostly under water. I know the pigs don't mind, but evidently the turkeys don't either as there were 5 or 6 picking up the corn that some of the fellows spilled earlier in the day as they were filling the feeders. Once the turkeys saw me climbing the stand, they didn't stay around long.

I got into the stand at exactly 4:45 p.m. The feeders still fire at 5:00 and since shooting light is entirely gone by 5:45, I figured I had about an hour to hunt. At just a few minutes before 5:00, I heard something walking through the woods behind me. Whatever it was was making a lot of noise, so I figured it was either a turkey or pig coming towards the feeder. Since deer couldn't care less about the corn we scatter, I knew it wasn't that. Sure enough, two hens walked in, took up positions directly under the feeder, and waited for it to fire. Their internal clock is amazing. When the feeder fired, they never spooked. The sound of the motor spinning the pan is nothing other than the dinner bell for them.

They spent a few minutes eating some of the corn that landed on the dry ground, then moved off. A couple of squirrels foraged a few kernels as well, then a few minutes later another hen arrived. She ate for a bit, stopped, and looked off towards my left while the squirrels scampered up the tree. That's always a telltale sign: something was on its way.

Sure enough, from my left a nice size boar came walking in. As soon as I saw him, I recognized him. A couple of weeks ago, as I was waiting for my BIL to arrive to help me load the pig in the picture above, I could barely make out a form against some palmetto about 15 yards to the north of me. All I could see some lighter spots, but it was far too dark to see anything else. I knew it was a pig, though, since it popped its jaws at me and growled a few times. Most people don't believe that a pig will growl, but they do. It's an eerie sound, especially when you can't see well enough to know from where it's coming, but after a few seconds of growling, it moved off. The light spots I saw that night was the light copper color on this pig.

He headed straight from my left towards the feeder, and once he got there he started foraging the corn that was under both it and the water. I was hoping that he would eventually work his way out of the water, or that another pig would come, but he never did. Neither did another pig show. I knew it was going to be a mess, but I put the crosshairs of the Burris just behind his ear and squeezed the trigger. It was exactly 5:15 when I shot, and I'd been in the stand for exactly 30 minutes.

Sometimes they fall in some pretty inconvenient places.



I knew I couldn't load this fellow by myself, so I drove down to pick up my BIL to help. Our agreement with one another is this: since it's generally near dark when a pig is shot, once a pig that is too big for one person to handle is on the ground the hunt is over. We try to get them cleaned as soon as possible since it's generally dark and hot when we're doing so, and there are always other days to hunt. It works out well for both of us.

We didn't have a scale, but our "heft-guesstimate" was that he weighed around 175 or 180 pounds. Even though he was big and had a few battle scars, he wasn't a very old boar since his cutters were only about an inch long and he hadn't lost much hair along his spine. Nor were his teeth worn down. His markings, though, were pretty.



When I got back to the house this morning, my wife said, "Let me have those backstraps. I have some mojo sauce, and those will be good for dinner."



Not a bad way to spend a "Black Friday" if I do say so myself.

Oh, and by the way, the rifle was my Zastava Mauser, 7x57, with the Burris 3-9x40 (illuminated "German" reticle). It generally stays on 3x and I have yet to use the illumination feature. I have nothing against it; I just never think to turn it on. The load was just the standard factory Prvi 139 grain PSP. I'm going to buy a few boxes of the new Hornady .275 Rigby ammo just to see how it shoots. I might just have to start wearing a pith helmet as well.

Im still almost three months away from cutting a swath of swine destruction through the sate of Florida....

You realize they're taunting you, do you? They have natural defenses: heat, mosquitos, bugs, snakes, marshes...did I say heat and mosquitos? You're half defeated before you even enter the fray. But bring it on, they're ready!

Light clothes for heat, Thermacell for skeeters. Snakes don't skier me, I LIKE them!

I feel sorry for those pigs, Im gonna unleash the .223AI on them with some Barnes TTSXs...

That oughtta work fine. Just remember to post pictures, otherwise....

Rev, It's 20 degrees here and to be minus 1 tonight, but I got my Bombay bowler ON. BTW a friend of mine used that ammo in our Veterans Day military rifle match 2 weekends ago in a pristine 1908.-Muddy