Ocmulgee bob tailed piglet down.

chrislibby88

Senior Member
Got one this morning.
It was one of those almost too easy hunts, but a welcome break to getting my butt kicked last spring and fall.

8:15 I was about 10 minutes from the truck heading down a grassy power line row to get to a hardwood/creek bottom. There is a large young pine thicket on my left, butting up to the meadow that runs under the powerline. I caught movement in some 3ft grass right beside the pine thicket. It’s a pig’s back at 30-40 yards. The wind is good, coming from my left, and the pig is straight ahead, I ease the safety off, drop my head and shoulder, and start easing up a few steps at a time. I can barely see the pig, so I’m not super worried about being spotted. I just keep an eye on the flicking tail and go step by step. Once I get to about 15 yards I notice smaller piglets feeding in behind her so I hang tight and wait for a shot. I can barely see the lead sow, but she happens to shift enough in the grass to notice me and pops her head up with a grunt, the kind that means she is about to bolt, so I instantly shoulder the gun and jerk a quick bad shot off, it went underneath her. She bolts into the pine thicket and the piglets start to follow. I managed to get a round into the spine of the first running piglet and he starts squeezing like crazy, and I tried another shot at the pig running behind him, but missed. Mama is about 50 yard inside the pine thicket growling those deep low guttural grunts like crazy while the piglet kicks around squeeling. I backed about 20 yards downwind to see if she was gonna come back for the piglet and I hear another grunt to the right in the grass and try to move in, but I guess it slipped off. After a minute of looking for the other piglet mom has finally moved off farther so I go a few feet into the pine thicket and dig down to the crippled piglet and pop him in the head, drag him into some shade on the edge of the pines, carve the meat off and I’m back home by 9:30.

Oh, and looks like something caught him by the tail when he was younger. Thought that was interesting.
 

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chrislibby88

Senior Member
Yummy!!!!
For sure. I’m keeping the hams and shoulder whole-bone in for roasts/smoking. The only thing I don’t like about these smaller pigs is the small back straps, and the tenderloins aren’t even worth messing with. They wind up being about the size of a strip of bacon.

Wish I had connected with mom. I thought she was small at first, but I’m guessing she was 150+ lbs. I thought the piglets were only like 20 lbs since I could barely see them in the grass but this pig weighed around 50 lbs, I’m guessing, and the sow was at least 3 times as large.

One thing I do on the smaller pigs is leave the neck meat attached to the back strap and fillet them from the back of the skull to the hip bone, rather than trimming the neck seperate. You wind up with a weird hunk of meat on the neck end of the back strap, but you get a few more inches of meat, plus Om gonna have to trim out the bloodshot area that the 22wmr went throug.
 

bany

Senior Member
Congrats! Good start on the season and some tender pork too!
(you knew getting that close was risky ?)
 

chrislibby88

Senior Member
Congrats! Good start on the season and some tender pork too!
(you knew getting that close was risky ?)
Oh I know, I love the stalk and getting as close as reasonably possible. Unfortunately I was a big blob with no cover and nothing behind me, so as soon as mama sow saw a big shape sticking out of the grass it was over. Now I will take a good shot as soon as presented, but there was too much grass between us to pick a spot to shoot, and I try to avoid shooting through cover with a .22 mag so I continued moving forward. I could hear the grass roots snapping and crunching as they were rooting and digging.
 

Pig Predator

Useles Billy’s Fishel Hog Killer ?
Sounds like an awesome hunt! I like the 50 pounders better anyway. I too know that single grunt all to well. I've had them wind check me and not even look in my direction and just bolt.
 

Hillbilly stalker

Senior Member
That’s my kinda hunt. Congratulations, that’s perfect eating size. I’d be back in there for the others.(y)
 

chrislibby88

Senior Member
That’s my kinda hunt. Congratulations, that’s perfect eating size. I’d be back in there for the others.(y)
Oh I’m going back as soon as I have time. There’s decent sign in the area, and I expect there to be even more once the hard mast starts raining good. I have several other spots I need check too.
 

bany

Senior Member
You didn’t have to explain Chris, I’ve been there several times and I really enjoyed the hunt vicariously through you!
 

chrislibby88

Senior Member
I guess I'll give Oaky Woods a try after the deer season is over. On the other side of the river.
There’s a bunch of pigs on Oaky. I’ve killed several from there. In my opinion now is the best time to hunt them. There’s early hard mast and plenty of soft mass.
 

dwhee87

GON Political Forum Scientific Studies Poster
Nice eatin' size.
 

NCHillbilly

Administrator
Staff member
Nice, tender meat.
 
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