27 November 2013, 21:46
gbaxScottish Wild Boar
I made a trip to Dumfriesshire on the 19th of September year to try and shoot a UK Wild Boar. These are free ranging animals and you sit up a high seat over baited spots at night and wait for them to come in. The 19th was the night of the full moon but i had a night sight fitted to the .308 as a back up. As it turned out this was required as it was a cloudy night and the bait spot was surrounded by trees.
Twice during the course of that evening my heart was sent racing by the sounds of snuffling and feeding. On both occasions it turned out to be badgers!
More than once I felt a slight breeze on the back on my neck and suspect that was the reason I saw no Pigs
I returned just over a month later on the 25th of October and found myself sitting in an incredibly comfortable high box in a comfortable leather chair. The whole box was well lined with carpet inlay or similar to deaden any noise and was very cosy once I shut the door. I was in the high seat about 17-00 and slowly the light started to fade; although I was a week after the full moon there was a surprising amount of ambient light and I could check the bait site with my binos and save the battery on the night sight. We had put a bucket of mollasses stewed wheat out when we arrived by the bait site also had a feeder that was timed to go off at half six every night. The wind was perfect, a nice steady breeze coming straight down the valley towards me. Now i forget whether it was before or after the feeder went off but i started to feel that awful tickle in my throat and needed desperately to cough to clear my throat. Sipping water from a bottle didn't do it and i had to allow myself a couple of coughs, although i muffled them as best I could against my shoulder. I was so annoyed with myself but sitting for boar when you have just had a cold isn't ideal.
It must have been 20 mins or so since i had heard the whir of the feeder going off and i lifted the binoculars gain for another check. Now as much as i had tried to memorise the shadows etc I couldn't for the life of me remember if the black shape to the right of the feeder had been there before or not. I convinced myself that it merited a check with the night sight, so I eased the rifle into an upright position carefully. I had a soft fluffy dog bed placed underneath it to remove any chance of making any noise but I had to be careful not to snag the trigger as I had been instructed to sit with the safety catch on fire as the pigs had running on hearing that click on previous occasions. The rifle was aligned on the based of the feeder already so I could see a prominent dark shape as soon as i switched it on and after a couple of seconds the shape moved - Bingo we were a go. I quickly identified three pigs, one much larger then the other two. I lined up on one of the smaller pigs as it was perfectly broadside and steadied myself, putting the crosshairs on the head I waited till the last second and switched the Infra red illuminator on (some of the older and wiser pigs can spook off this i was told), with that on the cross hairs were perfectly visible and the eye of the pig glowed brightly; settling myself I placed the bullet just behind the ear and was greeted by the welcome sight of a pig on its side with its legs kicking frantically.
I had ticked off another one in my quest to take every UK quarry species !
The 155 grain bullet had entered just behind the ear on the ear on the right side and exited a little further back (the boar must have been quartering a little more than i thought)
The boar was a yearling sow and dressed out at 46kg with the skin on
I now have a whole lot of wild boar in the freezer !!
2 x legs
2 x racks
8 packets of chops in 2's
8 packets of stew steak in 1lb's
8 packets of mince in 1lb's