I finally got my first pig today.

I finally got my first pig this evening... a 160+ lb. sow from my property.
I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing but it turned out well.

I arrived at my property on Friday evening and noticed last three weeks of rain had washed away all the corns I had tossed on the trail three weeks ago. I found some tracks but most were older and had mostly washed away.

I placed my ladder next to a tree on the middle trail Saturday morning and spent almost 3 hours up there but I didn't see anything except a lone hen turkey about 200 yards away. Saturday afternoon I went up on my ladder again around 5 and about 30 minutes later I saw a sounder of about 10 pigs coming into my property from the WMA direction. They trotted across my property without stopping and went into the orange grove. I sayed until dark and didn't see anything else except a giant coon that I walked into while walking back to the camp... damn thing scared the piss out of me in the dark and I almost shot it with my 45ACP pistol.

This morning I went back to my ladder at 6 and for the first time I had my rifle with me. About 3 hours later I had seen nothing and it was quiet so I came down and spent about an hour checking parts of the property I couldn't see from the ladder. On the north side next to the drainage ditch I saw a fresh track of a lone hog that had come out of the grove and gone towards the WMA direction. After breakfast I moved my ladder to the other side of the tree and trimmed couple braches so I had a clear field of fire all the way back to the drainage ditch.

This evening I went up the ladder at 4 with my rifle and planned to stay until 8. I loaded my rifle with 4 rounds and chambered a round and checked my safety. A little after 7 I saw sounder of about 14 pigs about 300 yards away in the grove walking and trotting towards my property. I realized that if they continued in their direction they would come inside my property and I would have a shot at one of them. At that point I automatically stopped thinking as everything went into auto pilot mode just as I had planned many many times in my head for past few months. I knew the distance to my property line where the sounder most likely enter was 170 yards and the little clearing where I was most likly get my shot was 130 yards away. My rifle was sighted to hit the point of aim at 100 yards and at 130 yards the impact was going to be pretty much right on the cross wire of my scope. I slowly raised the rifle and braced it against the top step of the ladder and changed the magnification on my scope from 2X to 6X.

I started to track and scan the sounder through the scope as they came closer. I noticed that the sounder included couple of smaller pigglets (about 25 lb.) and some larger ones (about 50 lbs.) out in the front and three larger ones that looked to be between 125 to 170 lbs. in the rear. As they were crossing into my property line I noticed a lone pig behind the sounder that looked to be over 200 lbs. I pushed forward on the safety. I also noticed that the light breeze had changed direction towards the sounder. I followed the sounder as they trotted accross the clearing so I didn't get a shot but as they moved through the palmettos I saw one larger pig head towards the drainage ditch giving me a shot. Just then I noticed the entire sounder came to a total stop... not even a twitch so I aimed at the large pig near the ditch and fired one shot from my rifle. I aimed on the head halfway between the ear and the eye hoping to hit the brain. When I recovered from the recoil I cycled the bolt immediately and looked through the scope to where the pig was standing. The pigs was down on the side and one of the rear leg was twitching a little and then stopped few seconds later.

I noticed rest of the sounder had run back towards the grove. I kept my eye on the pig for about 2 minutes but I didn't see it move so I came down the ladder and approched it with my rifle. It was a large sow and it was not the large 200 lb. pig I had seen earlier. I went up to the pig and tapped the ear and top of the head with the barrel, prepared to shoot it in the head if it moved, but it wasn't necessary. There was a pool of blood on the ground collecting beneath the head and neck. I took a picture of the pig laying there with my phone. I looked carefully and I could see the small entry hole halfway between the ear and the eye and when I rolled it over there was a larger exit hole below the ear with blood and small bone chips.

I called my wife and asked her to bring the truck to the ditch. In just few minutes my wife was there with my truck so after a lot of huffing and puffing I dragged the pig up on to the cargo platform and was headed back to the camp. I told my wife we would be a little late heading back home tonight. I knew I had to work quick so I went to work to skin and quarter the pig. I moved the pig under a tree and I got a rope over the thickest branch and using some rope I got the pig lifted off the ground with a scale above it using my truck to pull it. The scale read 165 lb. the first time and 162 lb. on the second. Next I positioned a short length of 2x4 with notch on both end and using some duct tape I spread the rear legs so it would be easier to access the gut. I tied off both hind legs with rope and got the pig off the ground again with the truck. I got out my rubber gloves, two knives, a box cutter and a branch lopper and got to skinning the pig. It took me 90 minutes to skin and remove two front legs, two rear legs, two back straps, two tender loins and some neck meat. It was daunting task as it was first time I had done it but it seemed pretty logical and I recalled my old high school science class where we dissected a frog and a cat. The most difficult task was cutting out the rectum from the pelvic muscle and tying it off with a string before removing the gut. I took the head, skin, bones and guts out back near the drainage ditch and left it there in a shallow ditch I dug.

I stopped on the way back home to buy couple bags of ice and salt. At home rinsed all the meat and then filled the ice chest with enough water to cover all the meat and then I sprinkled about 1 cup of salt on the water/meat and then added lots of ice. I'll replace the water/salt tomorrow night.

So here is a picture of my first pig. The dark/black spot between the eye and ear you see is the entry hole. It was shot with Remington Model 7 rifle in .260 Remington. I used Remington 130gr bullet and at 120 yards it was a one shot kill.

I'm really tired but still very excited with the whole event.
I'm not sure when I'll shoot another one but I'm sure I will do it again.
We are looking forward to eating the meat.