23 September 2021, 00:30
Bobby Tomekmoonlight bruiser
Late Monday evening, the south wind brought about the unmistakable scent of an old, rank boar. He was likely traveling the creek bottom, though, so we never saw him.
Tonight, with pre-frontal conditions in place, I had a hunch he may surface. Just after midnight -- on what was only my second attempt to look outside -- he did.
When I spotted the group of five hogs in the moonlight, the wind was from the east, and they were moving towards a lighted feeder. That set-up was absolutely perfect. But as things tend to go, "perfect" turned into "oh, crap!" as the wind changed to the north and carried my scent directly to them.
The hogs scattered like a covey of quail, but I was fortunate enough to pick up a dark blob as it ran parallel to the creek -- some 100+ yards from where I originally spotted them. He stopped on a small knoll, giving me just enough time to get the small, red dot of the BDC-3 reticle of the 2-12x50 Meopta onto the vitals. It happened so quickly that I don't even recall tripping the trigger. Even the gentle nudge of the little 6.5 Bullberry made me lose my sight picture in the moonlit conditions, so I grabbed the thermal out of my shirt pocket and did a quick scan. I saw one heat signal disappear over the steep embankment and could only hope that wasn't my hog as retrieval would be all but impossible.
But I was lucky. My hog made a short 25-30 yard run and dropped. He was out of sight from my vantage point but made for the simplest of retrievals as the tractor could be driven right up the the hog.
The 123 grain Hornady SST, which exits the 24" barrel at 2536 fps, broke a rib upon entry (the foreleg was apparently forward at the moment of impact), wrecked the centers of both lungs, ruptured some critical plumbing and then drove through both a rib and the scapula before exiting the hog. The view of the exit beneath the hide and shield was impressive. The hole through the hide, as is often the case, was rather small and bled only minimally.
To be honest, I was shocked to see an exit considering the size of the hog and the course of the bullet's path.
As you can see in the photo, the cartilage shield, while not as impressive as on some boars, was still substantial. With the consistency of very hard rubber, it can test the mettle of an inappropriate bullet in a hurry and slow an arrow or bolt rather significantly as well.
