One Big Mother.....

[Tra3]

Great hunting story! That is an impressive animal. Was it good eating?

 

[Dr Ray]

Back in the glorious days before the pandemic (2020, to be exact) a couple of my friends happened to mention that they had a huge pig problem on their dairy farm hunting lease. Neither of them having a minute's interest in shooting at anything that doesn't have antlers or a fan-tail, they asked whether I'd be interested in helping them with their issue.

Being the rabid hog-botherer that I am, I couldn't really refuse! I asked about the general layout of the property, boundaries etc & went a scouting.......

3 days I tramped up & down Tennessee hills, crossed creeks, glassed, watched, sniffed & scoured the entire 800 acres for the slightest sign of sounders of pigs. I found, in that time, absolutely nothing. No rooting, no tree rubs, not a single track. Nothing but cows.

"Hahaha.......bastards. Nice joke guys!"
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"We have trail camera photos, I'm not kidding! Massive hog problem! "
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"Nnnnno....no you don't. There are literally zero hogs here."
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"No, there's not a lot of pigs. Just one."
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"Massive hog problem?" I asked again....
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"Yeah. One massive hog"
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"Bollocks" I replied, slipping back into my native, English vulgarity
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"Hang on..... here"
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"Oh. Oh wow! Kinda hard to scale it with no frame of reference, but he certainly looks big enough"
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"Gimme a couple of nights, I'll put a camera on some feed"

Fast forward about 3 weeks & I receive a text:
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I'll refrain from posting my reply verbatim. I'm new & don't want to get banned, but it ran along the lines of:
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"Good golly! Oh my! I'll be! Gosh, that's got some size!" Etc....

I ended up being indisposed for a couple of weeks following the message, but you can be sure, that photo was etched into my brain. Several other photos followed & one thing was certain, this pig was nocturnal. Not a single picture of it during daylight. I spoke with my guys & they confirmed it. They'd only ever seen or heard the thing at night & all the photos were in the dark.

Now, that presented me with a bit of an issue. As a non-citizen I'm not legally able to possess or even use any night vision equipment. Neither IR nor thermal (stupid ITAR laws) & my only rifle equipped with a light is my .300blk AR.
Now, I've shot a LOT of pigs with that rig & I'm incredibly comfortable with it. It's silly accurate & I know I can put 4 shots into a 2" ring in under 2 seconds at 50yds. I load Barnes, 110gn TacTX bullets over H110 at 2400fps & I know they'll go rooter-to-tooter through an average 100lb pig at 100yds so I figured, if I keep it close, broadside & in the CNS, I'll probably be OK (although I'd be happier still being really close to a climbable tree....)

The night of, I set up my plan. I updated the cattle feed pile (which my mates had been refreshing weekly) & figured out the wind vs possible approaches. I decided against using a blind or hide because I thought that if things didn't go to plan, I didn't want to be trapped. I've never actually been intentionally charged by a hog, but I've been in their escape route a couple of times & having once lost a fight to a chipmunk (that's a whoooole other tale) I know I can't take a pissed off pig in a fist fight.
So, I set myself on a small seat pad, on the ground, at the base of a small tree with lots of back cover & nothing in front of me. 32yds from the bait pile, mostly corn & white cattle feed, I figured I'd be able to see the pig outlined, aim, hit the light & shoot all at the same time.

So I sat. I sat & watched cows. I sat & watched rats, raccoons & squirrels. I sat and watched more cows. I hissed at cows. I threw rocks at cows. I threw freaking bricks at cows. I realized that cows are really, really hard to get away from food.
I considered shooting a cow......
About 6pm & well into the dark, the cows finally decided to leave. By now, I was concerned that either I, or the walking burgers had scared everything away.

Then I heard footsteps. Coming from the opposite direction & I braced myself. All I saw was a huge, black backline moving towards the bait pile (coming from my 7 o'clock about 15 feet from me)
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"Jesus!" I thought to myself.

The form moved towards the light background of the corn pile & just as it became recognizable as an actual pig, the wind that'd been so steady for 3 straight hours, dropped. Then swirled.

The next segment happened over the space of maybe 3 seconds.....

The hog stopped like it'd run into a wall as it caught my scent & faster than I thought possible, spun end to end, facing back along is own path. It gathered it's feet & took off. In the space of time it took to cover 23yards (a second, maybe) I flipped of the safety, pulled my knees up, braced, pushed on the light's tail cap & instinctively decided on a neck shot. I don't remember seeing the crosshairs in the 1.5 power scope & I may have used the light as an aiming device! But my brain figured out lead & pulled the trigger without my body or finger having a damn thing to say about it.
Between the intense green light, muzzle flash & recoil in an awkward & hurried shooting position, I lost sight of my target.

My instinctive though was that as quickly as all that had happened, I'd just flat out missed. No way on earth I'd made an, estimated, 9 yard, running shot, at night on a freaking pig. No way. Nuh-huh. You can't do that.
But I went to check for blood anyway. Leaving the light on & the safety off, I walked up to the last tree I remember seeing before I blinded myself. There was a small drop on the other side of it. Maybe only 6 feet, but almost vertical.
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"How the hell did I not see that?!"

That explained how she (she was a she) managed to not appear until she was so close.
I shone my light down the defile & to my utter amazement, she lay wedged under a fallen tree. I just stared at her for what seemed like minutes, reluctant to drop down the little cliffette, knowing that I wouldn't be able to quickly get back up. My brain, again, independently from the rest of me went:
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"Nah, eff that mate!"

And slapped another 110 grains of gilding metal through the back of her neck, then jumped down the hill. My brain is a lot braver, or dumber, that the rest of me.

Shock, doesn't really cover it. Like, from 10 feet away, I knew it was the biggest hog I'd ever seen, let alone shot. But once I laid hands on her, the adrenaline really kicked in hard. I'm not going to lie, I was shaking like a dog shitting bottle caps. I finally mustered the wherewithal to call my buddies & let them know I'd got her.
They both showed up on their ATVs to help me get her out of the woods & thankfully, Dale brought a chainsaw. Stone me, it took 3 of us, none of who are small lads, nearly 4 hours to get her the 3/4 of a mile back to the truck. Then another hour to find a tractor & chains to load her onto a trailer. All the while, we're trying to guess her weight (closest wins a 6- pack from the other 2)
I don't even remember what our estimates were, but I know mine was around 300 pounds. I lost. By a long way.

Back at Dale's, we used his tractor & scale to haul her up & get an actual weight.......

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My jaw hit the floor. Mostly because I do all the game processing & butchering in my friends group *facepalm

So there it is. The story of my biggest ever hog & probably the nearest I'll ever get to hunting a buff!

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For comparison, here's her skull next to my previous record, 278 pounder......
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Nice
Very nice

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

Massive. Here we have a white pig variety that grows that large, but they are all domestic.

 

[robtattoo]

Great hunting story! That is an impressive animal. Was it good eating?

She was excellent! The chops,ribs & roasts were better than any wild hog I've ever eaten.
It tasted much closer to wild than farm- raised pork, but had the fat content of domestic.
I shared it out with the 2 guys who let me on their lease. I cured them each a small ham & there was enough fat to be able to cure both sides into bacon. The landowner had half a side donated to him.

 

[sgt_zim]

Interesting back story on the explosion in feral hog populations in the US.

Swine cholera had been a problem for swine farms for a long time. Mortality rate for it is high, 90% or higher, and frequently 100%. Transmission from domesticated swine to feral swine was common, and that high mortality rate combined with the relative rarity of feral swine back then, it didn't often spread from sounder to sounder in the wild.

By 1978, we eradicated swine cholera from the domestic hog population. I'd guess it took the feral hog populations 15 or 20 years to reach critical mass after that.

There are other theories, but I think this one is the most plausible.

 

[crs]

Sgt Zim
Another comment on big hogs.
A few years back, the Dallas Cabelas had a framed pic of a feral hog that was taken in rugged back country in Russia. The beast weighed around 1200 pounds and the hunting vehicle was equally brutish - a WW2 Half track.
When in high school, I took Vocational AG for two years and raised pigs: Durocs one year and Hampshires the second. The best pork came from pigs around 100 to 150 pounds and it was delicious. With two teen age brothers, all good food went quickly!

 

[steve white]

Sgt Zim
Another comment on big hogs.
A few years back, the Dallas Cabelas had a framed pic of a feral hog that was taken in rugged back country in Russia. The beast weighed around 1200 pounds and the hunting vehicle was equally brutish - a WW2 Half track.
When in high school, I took Vocational AG for two years and raised pigs: Durocs one year and Hampshires the second. The best pork came from pigs around 100 to 150 pounds and it was delicious. With two teen age brothers, all good food went quickly!

The picture was in Cabela's men's restroom--what a monster--I thought at the time that the world record was supposedly smaller than that but I know not the stats. Killed in Siberia/Mongolia border area I believe it said "cracker swamp". BTW, the longer you cold hang them, the better they taste!

 

[CoElkHunter]

Sgt Zim
Another comment on big hogs.
A few years back, the Dallas Cabelas had a framed pic of a feral hog that was taken in rugged back country in Russia. The beast weighed around 1200 pounds and the hunting vehicle was equally brutish - a WW2 Half track.
When in high school, I took Vocational AG for two years and raised pigs: Durocs one year and Hampshires the second. The best pork came from pigs around 100 to 150 pounds and it was delicious. With two teen age brothers, all good food went quickly!

I would hunt giant Russian/European boars from the back of a WW2 halftrack. I don't know how one would get close to them as I'm sure the tracks are noisy as all get out, but I would try it. Might have to use the mounted .50 for suppressing firing into the forest at distance? LOL

 

[TNDave]

Nice pig! Also greetings and welcome from a fellow Tennessea, I’m about 3 hours from Tullahoma but have a lease in Rhea county.

 

[crs]

CEH,
The terrain in the Russian picture was a combination of forest and swamp and it looked to be difficult terrain to traverse afoot - especially with 1,000+ pound hogs running around. Their shooting was done from the vehicle.

 

[crs]

Steve white - good memory! It was in the men's room.
Picture may still be there as it was for years.
I have not shopped that Cabelas since moving to the country. Who knows, maybe that photo is in all the Cabelas mens rooms?

 

[robtattoo]

Steve white - good memory! It was in the men's room.
Picture may still be there as it was for years.
I have not shopped that Cabelas since moving to the country. Who knows, maybe that photo is in all the Cabelas mens rooms?

Same Cabelas restroom, last time I stopped in there......I nearly fell off the seat laughing!

 

[CoElkHunter]

Steve white - good memory! It was in the men's room.
Picture may still be there as it was for years.
I have not shopped that Cabelas since moving to the country. Who knows, maybe that photo is in all the Cabelas mens rooms?

Maybe someone can take a photo of the picture with their phone and share it here? Now, I'm dying to see that WW2 halftrack! LOL

 

[sgt_zim]

Same Cabelas restroom, last time I stopped in there......I nearly fell off the seat laughing!
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Not ashamed to say that at 0300, I pee like a woman. No way am I turning on the lights and fiddle farting around with aiming. My goal is to get back to bed without pissing all over my feet and the bathroom.