Without the golf course gig I had the previous two years, this Summer has been pretty quiet. Of course the fact that I broke my foot back in July did not help. And even though the cast has been off for over a month, I'm still limited in what I can do. Fortunately, hog hunting is not one of them, especially if I can do it from my truck, which is what I've been able to do for the last three weeks since finding a new hunting ground.
It's a gorgeous piece of farmland with rolling hills and plenty of open fields to glass. Most of the property can be seen from one vantage point, ranging out to almost 700 yards. It's really serene. I like just sitting there watching the hawks and waiting for the hogs to appear.
I didn't take pictures of the first two I shot, but I do have ones of the last three. The first just stuck his head up from the green unmowed hay. He was about a 140 yards away. I was rusty and missed. Shooting hogs in my backyard as 20 to 40 yards with a 22 isn't much practice for the long shots with the 22-250. I ended up sniping him from inside the barn at 50 yards.
The next one was way out in the open field that had been cut a number of weeks earlier. The grass was still short and I spotted him from the main house at about 620 yards. I drove the truck down the rutted road along a hedgerow to within 200 yards, stood up on the running boards and shot him off the roof at 190. Took the left side of his head off.
The third one was just up the hill from the first. Again, all of a sudden he was just there, head sticking up out of the 6 inch high grass. I parked the truck behind one of the barns and peeked around the corner to make sure he was still there. Yup. Got the gun, set up the distance and power, peeked around the corner again, gone. So I just got into a prone position and waited. About twenty minutes later, there he was. I gave him plenty of time to relax and move around and then center punched him at 140 yards. I believe this was the biggest hog I ever shot out of the 200 or more I've taken in the three years since I started hunting groundhogs. He was just huge!
Number four and five came today at 2 and then 2:30. I actually saw number two first in the same field where I got the first hog. But I had my sights set on the other one that I seen twice before in a different uncut field. So that's the one I went for. I drove the truck to a point just before the crest of a hill that overlook the field from about 80 feet above, parked and crawled about thirty yards until I could see where I knew his burrow was, but no hog. It took an hour of laying in the open field under the hot sun for him to show, but during that time I started questioning my decision. You know, one in the hand vs one in the bush. Well, I gave it plenty of time for him to graze and me to get ready. My 160 yard shot was a little high, but it severed his spinal cord right at the neck. He didn't move and hardly even a tail wag.
Now that he was taken care of, I went after the other one. Drove over to the access point to the field (the same one where I shot the very first hog) where I'd seen him earlier and sure enough, he was still there. And just like number one, I ranged him at 190 yards, stood up in the running board, rested the gun on the roof and let go the 32 grain hollow point. The shot caught him right across the neck and he dropped from his upright position with grass still in his teeth. That was a good day. Two shots, two kills.
Anyway, here are the pictures. Enjoy. It's good to be back.
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