Last evening I left the house about 6:30 with an idea to possibly intercept a coyote just starting his evening shift. I'd pretty well decided where I wanted to try, and set up on a knoll overlooking a pretty field that was liberally dotted with turkeys arrayed in standard junior-high dance formation: six toms trying to look impressive on one side, six hens looking coy and aloof on the other. One of the toms was decent, four were very good; one was simply impressive...and really tested my resolve for a while! Before long, the hens drifted to the south with their suitors posturing at a respectful distance in their wake.

By a few minutes of 8:00 the sun was behind a ridge to the west and the gathering gloom had me scanning seriously for a coyote to make an appearance from the thick brush edging the field. When movement finally caught my eye, it wasn't a coyote...it was a big, black bruiser of a boar casually emerging from the thick stuff. I brought up the little Sako AI in 6x45 that I'd carried with me and, when he was about 150 yards out, leaned on the trigger. At the shot he bolted straight ahead for a little ways, then turned left and I watched him dive into the thick greenbriar. I wasn't concerned; I'd called the shot as a winner...just a matter of following him up, right?

Well, I gave him a few minutes, gathered my gear and walked down to where he'd been when I shot...and promptly got reminded of how bad my aging eyes are really getting! Up on my knoll, the light had still been decent...down here it was already tough for me to pick out detail and rapidly getting worse. I stooged around for a few minutes without finding any blood before deciding to follow him up in the morning.

After taking care of some odds and ends around the house this morning, I opened the case of my SIACE .45-70 double and snapped it together. Buckling on my ammo belt and dunking a pair of hard cast 350 grain loads into the chambers, I hiked down to the scene of last evening's crime. On the way, I teased myself about my Capstick-esque follow-up...knowing full well that I'd either find a very dead pig or have to come up with a reasonably plausible explanation about why I hadn't!

Buzzards make follow-ups a lot easier (especially since I can't afford proper trackers!); they brought me to my boar without any skill at all on my part. Rolling him over proved that the little 100 grain Hornady RN had bitten him tight behind the shoulder, and his 70 odd yard run was textbook lung shot performance.

I just gotta start finding and shooting them earlier!

Mark

THAT is a really nice boar!

That's a heck of a boar...congrats!!! I, too, wished they moved in better light, but that is rarely the case around here.

The little 6x45 is an amazing round. I first had it in a custom XP back in the 80s and later in a couple different formats, from Contender to customized 788. All shot exceptionally well, and my projectile of choice back then was usually the 80 Sierra Single Shot Pistol. bullet.

Thanks Larry!

Bobby, I completely agree about the 6x45...it's a dandy. I started playing with a 6 TCU but shifted to the 6-.223 to dodge the case-forming hassles. I found that running it about 2500 fps let's me take deer out to about 200 without much worry and it doesn't savage turkeys (the lower velocities REALLY cut down on secondary projectile bone fragments). And their accuracy lets you put 'em where they're needed...as this old boy proves!

Mark

That is an outstanding hoglet.

What are you going to do with the head.

Some might fine tushes there!

ya!


GWB

quote:

Originally posted by Geedubya:

What are you going to do with the head.

GWB

I'll let the buzzards and ants do their job; then pull the tushes and add 'em to my collection!

Nice teeth! I am jealous. My warriors have had at least one broken off, others are small. I am still thinking about a Seek thermal to find em.

But would'nt it have been better to have him charge you so you could have blasted him with both barrels?

Nice work Mark when another crop destroyer bites the dust.

Nice bruiser hog Mark.