I went up to my place this afternoon. I went alone as wife and son will be sleeping over at in-laws place where all the kids are coming to spend the weekend. I went up there to get a pig as I planning on cooking one on the grill for the families on Sunday at my in-laws place.
When I got there I took a walk over to my stand to replace some of the straps used to tie on to the tree. About half way there I saw some very fresh hog tracks on one of the side trail. I followed to see where it went. I had just gotten off my truck so I was still in my shorts, t-shit and my Crocs and only had my 45ACP on my belt holster. About 100 yards down the trail there is a grassy field where grass is about up to my thigh height these days and I can clearly see the track going in there along with some grass that were pressed down. I laid down my straps on the ground and grabbed my pistol and slowly approached the field. When I was about 10 yards away I could hear a hog grunting somewhere in the grass field. I stood up and I can see the top/back of a hog about 25 yards away but not his head. Based on what I could see, he didn't seem large, maybe 100 lb., and it seemed he was busy feeding and wasn't aware of my presence so I decided to go after it with the pistol. I moved about 15 yards down the trail so I was in a different angle from the hog to have the breeze in my face and slowly went into the field. I was moving as slowly and quietly as possible for few minutes until I was about 20 yards from the hog. The hog was still feeding and rooting with his head in the grass and slowly coming in my direction. I was going to wait there until I could see his head and then fire between his eyes. When he was about 15 yards away he changed directions to the left a little and lifted his head just enough for me to see his right eye. I aimed halfway between his right eye and ear and squeezed the trigger. Just as the pistol fired I got a very quick sight picture and the aim was off... a little lower than I aimed. When I recovered from recoil I was ready to double tap the hog.. I thought he may charge me.
Well, the hog dropped on his side and he didn't squeal or anything... but his four legs were jerking like he was running. I missed my mark but I hit him in front of his right eye and bullet travelled towards his left ear. After a minute or so the hog was still so I approached and made sure it was dead. When I tried to roll the hog over on to his other side he felt a lot heavier than I thought. I tried to see if there was an exit would but there was none. The bullet had entered just in front of his right eye and the bullet should have exited just behind his left ear but there was no hole. The bullet was somewhere inside the head. Another thing that surprised me was lack of blood. There was very little blood at the entrance hole and some in his left ear and some from the mouth but that was it.
The hardest part of the day was dragging the hogs about 150 yards down to where I could get him on my truck. It took me three attempts before I was able to lift him on to the cargo tray on the hitch of my truck. Back at the cleaning tree I found out he was 137 lb.
So by 6:30 I was back home with the hog in the ice chest... short trip. Oh yeah, while driving back I remembered that new straps that I had put down on the ground are still there.
For those of you who are interested, I used a full size Government model in 45ACP loaded with my handload of Hornady 230gr XTP and enough Unique to get a little more than 900 fps from this pistol. It is a warm load but works well in my pistol.
Here is a pic of the hog when I got him out of the gassy field.
Congrats!
