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.
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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