The hogs will soon begin hitting the peanut fields and this little beauty is the perfect device to help find them. It's a night vision Night Quest PVS-14 monocular with 3x magnification. Its uses are virtually unlimited. Should be in by the end of the week and I'll report back after extensive field testing this weekend.

Hogs fattened up on peanuts should be pretty tasty.

Good luck with the new gear.

Now the thing to get is an infrared spotlight an AN/PAQ4 laser.

sweetness

For anyone interested in this sort of thing, the ITT PVS 14 is an excellent night vision monocular. It has a generation 3 tube and I got a 3x eyepiece to go along with it.

We tested it out early Saturday morning and immediately thought we hit the jackpot. The range on the monocular is very good but when you get out to 400 yards or so it's difficult to discern the difference between hogs and other animals that might be out at night. I walked the dogs out to what I thought was a big loner boar hog but when I got to that spot I realized that I had walked up on an black old bull. I underestimated his size because half of his body was covered up by waist high weeds in the field.

Sunday morning we tried it again and spotted what I knew was hogs in a peanut field about 300 yards out. The problem was that there was no way to get dogs to them because of the way the wind was blowing so we just ended up running them out of the field without ever turning the dogs loose.

We hit 5 more fields and none of them had any hogs in them and then I spotted 2 hogs about 200 yards out with the wind in our favor. I turned 2 dogs loose and walked them out into the field while my dad stood on top of the truck and watched with the night vision. The dogs zig zagged back and forth, obvious that they could smell something and then they left me. After only about 30 seconds, I heard one let out a small bark and then the chase was one. By this time I was close enough that I could barely make out the black figures running across the field and it wasn't long before I heard a hog squealing. When I ran up to them, one of the dogs, Pete, had caught a 175 lb boar by the nose and was holding on for dear life. The hog spun around when he saw me and was able to shake the Pete off before running at me briefly. Pete then caught him by the nose again and I was able to get in position to shoot him in the head, ever cautious about Pete's position.

While all of this was happening I could hear the other dog, Belle, barking in the brush just on the edge of the field. Pete and I ran in to give her a hand. By then, other dogs had been turned loose and they joined in the fight. The 200 lb boar had his butt pinned up against a fallen mesquite tree and was trying to fight the dogs as they came at him. But as soon as the dogs saw me come in there, they got brave and decided to take some chances and catch the boar. Once they had him caught, I easily dispatched him with a blade behind the shoulder.

In short, I am very pumped up about the ability of the nightvision to find these nocturnal hogs without having to turn the dogs out and walk the fields, hoping that they would pick up a scent. We were able to hunt 6 fields in only 3 or 4 hours.

I really like that picture -- the lighting and composition are just right. The coloration on the one hog is interesting as well.

The pictures always look a little better before they're reduced down in size and quality by photobucket. But I guess it's tough to complain about a free service, right?

This camera that I took pictures with is a canon powershot S410 and I think it's a great camera for carrying around when I'm hunting. They only downside is that it doesn't have a very good optical zoom but I really never use it for that anyway.

I bought a canon digital rebel that I'm excited to use with a zoom lens for taking pictures of deer this season. I just need to buy one of those telephoto zoom lenses and start practicing. That camera takes some really great pictures.

quote:

I bought a canon digital rebel that I'm excited to use with a zoom lens for taking pictures of deer this season. I just need to buy one of those telephoto zoom lenses and start practicing. That camera takes some really great pictures.

Same here with my Nikon D70. I have a zoom lens that I used quite a bit in Namibia. I still need to work on the different camera modes and correct use of auto and manual focus. I may also tweak the the picture mode a bit as well. It get you a lot closer than my old digital and has much higher resolution -- I just need more practice with it.

Rattlesnaker: What sort of blade are you using on these bad boys?

Cold Steel OSS is mainly what I use but the carbon steel is failry rusted out from all the pig blood on the blade. All I do with this knife is use it as a sticker.

Rattlesnaker
"Polish" the blade with steel wool, and either cold blue it or paint it with Krylon spray paint.