Finally got some commitments out of the way and everything was pointing towards a hog hunt. About a month ago my wife and I spent a few days at Vermejo Park, New Mexico. We took some time to shoot rifles. The ranch provided a .308 on an AR frame. The guide started me out at 200 yards, then we moved to 500, and soon I was banging away at 1,000 yds. The gun had a Vortex scope with a BDC reticle and I fell in love with the holdover simplicity. So much so, that I decided to buy a Vortex Crossfire ll in 6 – 24 X 50 with the Dead-Hold BDC reticle.

I called Randy after I returned home and he said they were seeing hogs. The Heat Index had fallen off. There was no rain in the forecast. It sounded perfect.

I found the scope I wanted at four different places. Three (Scheels, Cabela’s, and Academy) had an identical price and Amazon offered $10 below that. I took the Cabela’s offer. They are handy, but I felt I got a bad bore-site from them. Cabela’s mounted it on my Browning A-Bolt 300WSM. It wasn’t even on the paper. I burned up some 180 gr. finding the paper at 25 yards, then a few 150 gr. fine-tuning, and finally wrapped-up the session with the 130gr. Barnes TTSX BT that I was reloading and planned to hunt with. (I load 62.1 gr. of IMR 4064. I figured about 3300+ fps. at the muzzle.)

Hard to get too precise when you have only a 100 yard range, but I tried to extrapolate with a “zero” of +1 ¼” at 100. (Hoping my true zero would be at 200 yards.). Then shooting at each hash mark on the reticle and the top of the post to guesstimate what those holdover ranges might be.

Come Friday, I called ahead and said I would meet Randy, pick his brain a little, and hope for the best.

When we were eye-to-eye the conversation kept coming back to a feeder I had never sat over before. He said he found hogs standing there twice recently waiting for the feeder to go off. That was good enough for me. I grabbed lunch, gas, ice, and was on my way.

Twenty minutes later I arrived at the ranch, dropped my gear off at the bunk house, cranked Randy’s 4-wheeler and headed out. I had been told the feeder would fire at about 5:45pm. I wanted to be in the elevated stand by 4:00pm.

The stand was a great shot for a lefty, not so hot for a righty, but it was what it was. I sat with my right leg through the right arm rest. A good way to get a broken leg if I got in a hurry, I figured. (I lasered the feeder at 115 yards.)

A little after 5:30pm three sows and some piglets suddenly stepped out of the trees near the feeder. I set my sights on the biggest of the bunch and when a smaller hog cleared my line of fire, I dropped it in the dust. No chance for another shot as the scattering hogs made the tree line easily as I worked the bolt.

The shot had hardly quit echoing when the feeder tripped and threw corn on my dead hog.

I sat tight another hour but nothing new came out. I chained my hog behind the 4-wheeler and drug it back to camp.

It was too dark to see much. I hung it and pulled my SUV around to get the headlights on it, skinned & quartered it, took the backstrap, and finally got it in the cooler on ice. (That 130 gr. bullet had left a hell of a wound channel.) She weighed about 125 pounds.

The plan for the next morning had already been set. I had spoken to Randy earlier about being in the stand in “The Bottoms” long before daybreak Saturday, but that plan yielded nothing other than a lone doe leisurely feeding at 185 yards.

I enjoy “Walk, Spot, and Stalk” anyway, so I wasn’t too disappointed in the early absence of hogs. At about 9:00am I was forced out of the stand by red wasps, and headed towards the “Northwest Corner” on the 4-wheeler. (The hogs don’t get harassed much back there.)

Long before getting to “Charlie’s Stand”, I parked the 4-wheeler, dialed the scope down to 6X and crept slowly down the road through the hardwoods, passing Charlie’s Stand, and the second and third ground stands after that. I never saw a thing. I then turned around and slowly walked the same route back. At “Charlie’s Stand” I looked up the first cut, and there they were, about a dozen hogs of all sizes, feeding out in the open between two tree lines.

I moved quickly to a nearby oak tree, pulled out my range finder and captured 364 yards. My first inkling was, “No way!”, but I didn’t have time for do-overs.

I had another new purchase in my arsenal, a Primos Trigger Stick Gen3 Tall Bipod Shooting Stick. I dialed the scope from 6X to 20X, spun the adjustable objective (image focus / parallax adjustment) to match the range, and set the sticks. I even had a three-point stance with my elbow on a solid branch as I settled the 2nd hash on the shoulder, mid-way up on the largest hog I could find.

He seemed to hesitate as he fed, and I squeezed a round off. Hogs panicked, and I could see one trying to drag himself to the trees, I immediately thought “spine-shot”. When I got back on him, I couldn’t see anything to shoot. I started moving quickly up the edge of the timber, and then slowed as I thought I got to the area. Nothing! I was looking for blood; anything really. I decided to keep going.

Almost 100 yards further I saw his outline ahead in the grass. He was deader than hell, shot in the base of the head. Blood streamed out of his ear and mouth. I missed where I was aiming by about a foot; lucky miss.

Relieved, I took my laser from where he lay and aimed back to the oak tree; 362 yards. Crazy!

On the walk back to get the 4-wheeler, I shot the distance again in two stages, to a tree part way back to the spot of the shot, then back to the spot itself. Adding those two figures together, I came up with 367 yards. (I shot a pronghorn about forty years ago at 325 yards, and that’s the farthest kill I had made on a game animal before.)

It was a little past 10:00am. I figured Randy would be at the ranch by then and sent him a text that I was dragging a large boar. He met me at the skinning pole. He did most of the hard work on a boar we guesstimated at 250+ pounds. He was a bruiser. We dulled three knives on him.

I was done. I had seven friends that would share in the meat back home.

The hunt ended over a dinner of medium-rare ribeyes cooked over coals that night, a cold beer, and good conversation.

Good times. Good memories.

What a great recap of your hunt. I enjoyed it immensely and felt like I was right there as well. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

Thanks for sharing that. Well written. Be Well, Packy.

Sounds like it all worked out as planned.

Did you say: Vermejo Park? AND hogs there?

Planted?

First I've heard of hogs in that area.

Any pictures?
Thanks for sharing your hunt with us.

George

quote:

Did you say: Vermejo Park? AND hogs there?

No, I didn't.

Nice hunt, Ken. Reminded me of your hunts at Gato's place, God rest his soul.

I could have written "Gato's Stand", after all, it was his. His stand, and I still follow his rules.