Kudu Hunting Story

I know I'm pulling this thread up from the dead but I'm stuck in a hospital with my wife and felt Ive read the entire contents of this whole website so Ive been way back.

Here's one of my hogs that won't die stories.

My son, who was 15 at the time, decided we needed to split up and stalk through some nasty briars at about dark one night to look for pigs. So he goes one way with his rifle and I go mine. We were to parallel each other until we met on the road about 200 yards apart.

Not two minutes into the walk he shoots, I hear the bullet hit and he shoots again, again I hear the bullet hit. My son is a very good shot and very successful hunter for 15 having killed close to 50 animals I was sure he had killed two hogs because he normally is very good with the rifle.

I continued my walk to the road and he brought the truck around to meet me. I ask the normal questions and he said that he had hit a big hog walking through the briars and it turned still on its feet and he shot it again but couldn't tell in the low light if it was facing straight away or straight on but it went down.

I was relieved that it was only one hog because I was not up for cleaning two that night. As we got to the hog its very close to dark and I noticed that the pig was laying on his stomach with his head between his front feet. Ive hunted enough pigs to know this ain't good and this pig ain't dead. I did what you should never do and left the gun 50 yards away in the truck so I sent the boy to get it but in the mean time big nasty opened his eyes and there I am trying to hide but it didn't work.

He charged out chomping his teeth but I just side stepped and let him by. He went down again but the same way. Anytime a hog is on his belly and not his side he has fight left in him.

Anyway my son gets there with a pistol, a nice Springfield XD .40, and says I got him. I said no he's well alive let me go in. He did not like this idea at all and argued that it was his he should go. Had this pig been smaller I would've but it out weighed him by double and I wasn't in the mood for a fight in the dark with a 250 pound pissed off hog so I went in.

I didn't want to ruin the hogs skull and didn't think it would take more than one bullet so I slowly angled in to about five yards from the rear, it was thick I had to crawl and a shot much farther wouldve surely been deflected by brush so I put one in his side. This did nothing but give him reason to get up and when he turned and found me he came hard. I scooted around a tree and gave four down the side as he went by chomping his teeth. I could see the holes the bullets were making as he went by. Convinced that was it I turned to look at Alex and he was gone. Remember he wanted to go in and do this now he's left, thanks buddy, I got this.

Much to my surprise as I look back big nasty ain't done with the fight, he starts chomping his teeth and comes again. I panic and fire what I found out was my last bullet and it don't phase him. The slide on the gun stays back and I think its jammed because I counted my shots at 6 and thought the magazine was full. Not wanting to take my eyes off him I try to unjam the gun that's not even jammed and I drop the magazine. Now me and big nasty are about five feet apart and eye level but he's bleeding out his nose bad and every breath he takes is making bubbles so I know I got him. He staggers toward me but I just try to get as little as I can behind a tree about the diameter of my leg. I stand 6'4 and weigh 190 this tree ain't helping much. I figure my next choice is whoop him with the gun if I have to because I can't stand up in the jungle of thorns.
Finally he goes down on his side and its done.

I start to crawl out and what do I hear but my son, he says I hope you got him with all that shooting Quigley. I might have threw in an explisitive term or two but ask, where were you I thought you were my back up? He said I was, I was back up at the truck. You know sometimes you wanna choke your kids but you can't its too damn funny.

Skinning the hog we discovered the first shot was not bad but hit heavy bone in the front shoulder and the bullet only got one lung. The shot he said was either head on or away was directly in the right testicle. I've never felt bad really for a critter but man I felt bad about this one. The little .22-.250 bullet just exploded the right testicle and the sack was just sagging. I told the boy I know its just a hog but man not in the nuts, damn your old enough to know that's a sacred area for males of all species.

We got him cleaned up and a few weeks later smoked a quarter and the skull is in my sons room now.