OK, well I am not impressed but that may be due to this particular hunt and not the sport of hog hunting. I took my new 7mm Weatherby Magnum that I hadn't hunted with for a main gun and a 4" S&W 29 for a backup. I haven't had a chance to work up loads for the rifle yet so I bought some factory Remington 175 gr corelokt(seems to be a few years old, it chrono'ed 3156 fps out of my 26" barrel!!!) and I carried Winchester 240 gr softpoints in my revolver. The only sensible shooting gear I had was the Leupold VXII 2-7 scope which stayed on 2X the whole time. I just picked up another scope for the rifle so I sighted in at 75 yrds which put me plus/minus an inch or so past 150, since we were told shots would be 15-45 yards and I could only shoot to 75 yards the day I sighted in that worked out fine. If anyone is interested my hunting gear also included a camelback for water, and old military assault pack for raingear, snacks, a book, headnet, first aid kit, binoculars, other misc. kit and Peltor Tac6 electric earmuffs.
Curt, my buddy, and I showed up about 10 pm Monday night, filled out waviers, watched a video on the rules of the place and hit the hay. We got up at 5 am, got ready, ate breakfast, and were ready at 6 am when the guide, Dale showed up. We loaded up in a pick up and went up the mountain to our stands. We were put in different areas and the guide left (I think to grab breakfast and give us a chance to get any hogs passing by). A bit before 8 am I heard rustling behind me and turned slowly to find 6 deer (all small, spikes and does) come over the rise and sit down not 20 yards from me! I know they had to see me but I guess they figured I wasn't a threat and we kept each other company until 8am when I heard two shots from Curt's 30-06. The deer then moved on past me down the hill. We were told that around 8am Dale was going to start pushing the hogs our way so I prepared for them to come over the rise as well. I sat there maybe another hour or hour and a half and saw at least another dozen deer pass by, again not bothered by my presence, but no hogs. I did see Dale at the bottom of the hill (I guess looking for hogs to scare my way) which meant even if he had pushed some hogs up the hill I would have been afraid to fire because I might not know where he was in the heavy brush!
Maybe at 10:30 or so Jerry, the owner, shows up on a 4 wheeler and tells me to hop on, he had just seen a big one and we would try to catch it. We drove around for 10 mins or so looking under rocks and such for hogs but didn't see any. We then met up with Dale and Curt and the put me on top of another hill and were going to try and puch hogs up (along the fence ) to me. Well after a few minutes of this Jerry calls Dale on the radio and tells him to get me down there as he has one holed up. So I eased down the hill to where they were and we went to find this hog. I was told to make sure I didn't shoot one of the rams (they weren't bothered much by our presence either) on the other side of the fence and to be very quite as we didn't want the hog to hear me. Well, we sneak up to a little hill and Dale tells me he is right over the hill, be very careful and be ready for him to bolt as they have very keen eyesight. I was tempted to low crawl up the hill but resisted, so I hunched over and snuck toward the top. I shouldered the Weatherby peaked over the top of the hill and say a black hog laying next to the fence and yes there were some ram on the other side of the fence. The hog was 15 yards or so away so I threw up the rifle and squeezed off a shot at his shoulder, it felt like it went high so I fired another immediately. Curt said the second shot was off before the brass of the first hit the ground, I doubt that but I was as fast as I could which is pretty fast, especially at 15 yrds! Well needless to say the hog was anchored in place and that was that. He was still kicking a bit when we walked over but with a softball size exit hole he bled out very quickly. The 1st shot was a bit high but it was still good and the second probably wasn't needed. The shoulders were demolished.
Curt later told me he actually got a shot at one running down a hill 50 yards away, he was using handloaded 165 Nosler Ballistic Tips and it totally destroyed the heart, his second shot was also unneeded. In the 2-3 hrs between the kills his hog (which was gutted immediately) was already almost full of fly eggs! We were amazed at how fast they got to work. Of course a good hosing down at camp fixed that and after we washed them off we took some pics. We never got a chance to actually weigh the hogs but we figure his was around 220 lbs and mine a bit less. The meat fit in a cooler per hog with a few bags of ice and we also kept the heads for Curt to do "european mounts" at home. After taking showers, paying and tipping the guide we took off for home not 15 hrs after arriving the night before.
Since we were under a time crunch (we both had to get back home) and this was my first hog hunt I listened to the guide and shot the pig. Next time I will be a bit more demanding. Curt had a good hunt and got to shoot a running hog, but the whole 15 yrd shot at the hog laying there was pretty anti-climatic for me.
I am having problems with my photo server if anyone wants to put up my pics until I get it fixed I will be happy to email them to you.

Congratulations wild boar hunting is one of my favorites sports and i hunt them with every kind of weapons ,mostly knives, with horses ,dogs ,boats etc its very intersting to dedicae some time to hunt hogs and peccaries .Juan

Sharps54 -- sorry you are disapointed with your first hog hunt. Like any and all hunting, sometimes it comes easy and sometimes it doesn't. I too have experienced Ëshooting fish in a barrelË, but I've also had hog hunts where I've had to work very hard. Where did you hunt?

Let us know how the meat tastes.
Personally I like sneaking up on them and shooting them at 15 yards or less.

Sounds like you did good to me.
Next time you get that close use your 44 Mag.

Sometimes if you throw some black pepper on the hog after it is gutted it will keep most of the flys off.
Do not skimp on the black pepper.

Thanks for the black pepper idea, I'll try that next time. I have to be honest I never thought about the .44 while I had the rifle in my hands. Hindsight being what it is if I was in that situation again and had to shoot I would just go for the head with the rifle to maximize the meat!

We hunted at Chestnut Hunting Lodge in Taylorsville, NC. It was probably 11 am or a bit later when I got mine and after being chased all morning I'm sure the pig was tuckered out!

We are waiting to get the meat back now, is 0.45 cents a pound a good price for processing (deboning, cuts, saugage, and vacuum sealing)?

While this wasn't ideal for me it was good for my buddy Curt. I will definately go hog hunting again.

Glad to hear that you are not discouraged. For me at least, hog hunting is the best bang for the buck hunting in the US. They can be quite tough, but they are good eatin'! Would love to see the photos.

Here's the pic

Nice hog -- let us know how he tastes!

I've been on a couple hunts where I passed on shots for various reasons, such as the hog being smaller than what I set out for, etc. It is my money and the guide had better earn it by doing things my way ( within reason ).

The price you mentioned for processing and packaging is fair.

Borealis Bob,
Yeah I know. I am just telling it like it is, I never have been to flattering to myself! We'll try to do it right next time, to include finding something a bit less devastating then the 7mm Weatherby Magnum to hunt with!

Glad you got one.. and yeah, 15 yards is interesting... too bad you didn't get to spot and stalk, which is my favorite way to hunt hogs.

if those are the pics of both hogs taken, yours is about 120-130, the larger 150-160.

good eating.

the guide should be SLAPPED for leaving a hog for 2 hours.

jeffe

jeffeosso,
The guide guessed at the first weight and we went from there. When I get back home I will let you know how much the meat we finally got. I have to admit I was really suprised at the guide leaving his pig out, heck they could have thrown it on a 4 wheeler taken the whole 5 mins back to the lodge and dropped it off. I am currently looking for a place to lock in for next year. Maybe I need to head out to Texas! If anyone knows of any good places(preferably closer to me like SC) I am open to PM's, I could see us coming to Texas for the right hunt.

When you get the meat, if you sent to a processor, you are looking at 1/4 to 1/5 the live weight of the critter.

i had "cottage cheese" on a little bitty football in the time it took me to walk 400 yards to get the rest of the guys (all newbies, never seen a pig) and back.. was sneaking around in the heat of the day, while all of them were laid up in the shade.

jeffe