It seems that the previous night a new sounder of hogs had their way with portions of my quail habitat project! As luck would have it I had just finished my work with my "heavy bullet" out of my Rossi 92 so I set about planning a run in with them.
I had just finished sighting in my R92 with the 190-grain TLC359-190-RF bullets, thank goodness, because dark was soon upon us. My wife and I spent our typical evening and I decided I would start looking for trouble about an hour after moonrise. It was pitch black out there but with the moon up I figured I would not need a light. At 10:00, I walked outside and stood in the dark with my dog but she saw a fox on the other sided of the picket fence and barked. I was looking down the road to the highway, a white gravel road, and at her bark I saw at least a half dozen hogs run across the road about 100 yards out, high tailing it to safer ground. Not a problem.
I have the ability to wake myself up at set intervals so I set the internal clock to a 2 hours check. I looked at midnight and at 2:00 am but there was nothing. At 4:00 am, I almost didn't go out the door as there was a beautiful barn out on the gate post. I slipped out and he didn't move so I just glassed out across my lower food plot and immediately saw a group of hogs on it.
Not wanting to disturb the owl who was still checking me out, I slipped around house and walked straight away from the hogs. It is pretty open and it was so brilliant outside, I thought the hogs would see me. I walked straight back to the brush line and then started to follow it all the way around the house, not a short distance, to get back in front of the house near them. Some thirty minutes later, I was getting close so I stopped and checked things out with the peepers (binoculars), there were all kinds of hogs around me! There were four large hogs still on the food plot but I would not be able to get to them as there was about 18 between them & I in the remnants of a pecan orchard. I continued to slowly move forward.
As I closed the distance, I sat down to see if I could shoot over the younger hogs but it was just too flat so I decide I needed to get closer. As I continued to move in I noticed to my left a group of about six hogs was going to soon flank me and probably see me. I didn't like the shot angle on them so quietly positioned for an offhand shot, looked back ahead at the hogs scooping up pecans, picked the lead hog, let the Weaver's crosshairs overlay the his heart, and touched the trigger. Boom!
The sound of that bullet hitting the hog in still night air was awesome!
