I put up a deer feeder a couple of weeks ago in the woods behind my house. Basically in my backyard. It will be bow season in a week or two and gun season the first weekend in November.No activity on the feeder for about 6 days, now the hogs are cleaning it up every night, then rooting around in the pasture when the corn is gone.
Tonight my B92 and Ruger SRH in .44 mag and I took to the woods and sat in my stand.
Holy stuff, batman! Deer everywhere! I had at least 4 legal bucks and a total of 6 or 7 bucks all around me. Not what I wanted. I wanted to bust the little hooligan hogs that were stealing the corn. One buck was a heavy 10 point. Come deer season, I'm sure I'll never see him.
The bucks and mature does were very skittish. They would look up at me occasionally, but as long as I wasn't moving, no problem. A little button buck bogarted all the corn. I guess the very fresh hog smell made the wiser deer too nervous to come in to the feeder (which is why I want to shoot the hogs). About dusk most of the deer had moved over into my pasture.
Now it's dark and here comes the pig storm. It sounded just like you'd think a mob of pigs would sound. They were more skittish than the deer. As they came into sight (about 20 of them) I thumbed back the hammer on my levergun as quietly as I could CLICK
Hogs full stop...then ever so carefully back towards the corn. Then something spooked them (maybe a deer???) and they headed back to the deep woods. I picked out one about 40 yards away and let him have it. Pigs ran off. No pig left for me.It was dark enough I couldn't tell for sure where he was when I shot, so I picked up the blood trail at the fenceline (yes, I have the neighbor's permission) and followed it for a distance through the briars and brambles. The trail stopped and started, but as it continued it became more solid. At its heaviest point, it stopped. I was searching with my light trying to see which direction it went, when I looked into a heavy berry vine stand (stickers!) to find this young boar lying on the ground. I poked him with the gun barrel and pronounced him dead. Then I crawled in after him.
I was using Magtech 240 gr JSP ammo. Maybe an XTP would have done a better stop. Maybe not. Bottom line is I shot too far back in the dark and with the pigs starting to run. It was a through-and-through, entering just behind the diaphragm, through the lungs, and out the ribs. I wish I could have gotten more, but they ran off too quick.
I'll see how he tastes one day this week. Maybe compare him to his brother if I can find time to sit out again. When archery season starts, it will be hard to get a bow shot as skittish as the deer are with these hogs around.
