pig hunt report

remmber trip report?
actual hunting trip to report!

WEnt Pig hunting in southern indiana saturday. Took Luke!
We walked up and down some serious ridges. We thought we'd bumped a herd of 20 or so deer, but realized a few minutes later that we'd stumbled on some pigs coming from the other directions- that made the deer nervous.

We saw in the valley below us 4 or 5 mature hogs, and about 20 little uns running on an angle up the hill. Luke and I both had shot guns with slugs, these pigs were 100 plus yards away, so the guy guiding us took a shot with his 30-06. He connected. We waited a little, then began the tracking phase. We followed the spore for atleast a mile, if not more. Blood dried up.
We lost it.
Sooo we headed back the other direction (straight up), and tried to catch up to the otehr 19 or so hogs. At the top of the hill, a power line went through. This created the thickest, nastiest briar patch I have seen. We worked our way through and around the briars, and back down to a lower elevation. We had about 4 miles on our boots at this time.
We had one cut valley to check before we called it a day. 10 yards from me, the wounded pig from earlier jumped up with a grunt, and high tailed it away from me.
I hit it with a shotgun slug. found blood again- trailed it up sometimes on hands and knees through the briars, hacking at them at times so I could get through. Luke stood watch over the entrance to the cut valley. We tracked it for another 100 yards up dan down, under logs, through 7 foot tall briars. Never found it. tough to kill!
great day.... Luke loved it. He fell asleep on the way home after about 15 minutes. He kept up the whole time and not 1 complaint.

Well, at least it sounds like you had fun ... and that's the important part!

Hogs ... especially big boars, are TOUGH critters. The biggest mistake "deer hunters" make when hog hunting, is determining the "kill zone". The shoulder shot is always the best IMHO. If you go for a "lung shot" ... you're most likely gonna end up with a gut-shot pig. The lungs are way forward ... basically in the shoulder area. So, a broken shoulder will not only knock them down, but as long as you get good penetration, you'll take out the lungs also. Good penetration is imperative as they have a hard "plate" around the shoulder area and a lesser bullet will just bounce off the dang thing. Head shots can even be iffy, they have a pea-sized brain. I'd ALWAYS go for the shoulder if possible ... 'course that's just MHO. ;)

A 22 mag in the head will usually do the trick best. They are hard to break down I'll grant you.

What happened to those hog dogs? Sounds like you and the youngun had to cut some brush!

BKB

The guy with the dogs was called into work. I was looking forward to the dogs and stab method!
But we ended up stomping brush.
I did learn that a pair of leggings I made for my classes when I taught American History (native american legings from deer leather), worked very well as brush guards. Not a thorn went into my legs. arms- another story!

We're the hogs heading towards you? If so, I'd be pissed that the guide took a long shot instead of giving me a chance ata shot.

No away from us. They were angling up the opposite side of the ravine and towards a power line clearing with nasty sticker bushes 6-7 feet tall. I told him to shoot.