I shot and lost a pig on Sat evening. Hit him behind the shoulder with a 200 Nosler BT out of my 338-06 at 2800 fps distance 20 yds. At the shot he was knocked off his feet and screamed like I had never heard anything scream. He lay there for about 3 sec. then jumped up and was gone into the brush without a blood trail to follow. These Ferals are tough.

Rob,
Pigs are different than deer... their skins moves about on their hide lots more than deer do.

that is to say, when you skin a hog, look for the little muscles that are usually left on the hide... there's about 1/3 or 1/4 as many as a deer or horse... or just about anything with a "higher" nervous system.

What happens is that "shock" that just kills a deer or a cat, doesn't KILL the pig..

Oh, the critter is dead... and anywhere from 30 to 200 yards away.

here's what happens... the critter takes the shot.

the bullet hole in the HIDE doesn't line up with the hole in the muscles/body... (yes, this is correct, i've shot too dang many seeing this) and the organs are damaged...

Much like a regular person taking a punch in the jaw and get's knocked down... yeah, it hurt like hell, but it didn't know him DOWN.

the pig runs, and is bleeding, LOTS inside... his cavities will fill up with blood...

he'll run, and some of this will slosh out... if he stops to rest, quite a bit will... if he runs again, it will NOT be large amounts of blood leaving the hide... while the pig is bleeding to death...

after about 30 yards, it really start to make him "sick"... and he'll generally turn towards brush or cover... if you are tracking him with 2 or 3 mins, he's still running...

so, the next time it happens... just watch which way he ran... remember where the shot exited... mark the spot he was shot at, and put 2 branches inline with the way he went... if you have tape or some paper, put these on the "flags"...

wait 10 mins....

odds ON he's 30-50 yards the way he ran... flat as a pancake, hard to see...and again, like as not, laying on the exit wound.

if not, walk 2 steps to the side of his path... walk 2 steps forward, and scan 10-15' wide... SLOWLY....

do this until you pick up the blood trail... mark with a branch... and do NOT move forward until you find the NEXT blood splat....

if you are certain, take 2 steps forward, redeux...

oh, yeah... the hell with the scoped rifle for this part of the game... big pistol or a shotgun with buckshot is the ONLY way to make damn sure you are ready for the finisher... because, if you hit his liver, he'll be waiting for you, mad as hell, and withing 15 minutes of dieing.

I've been on my hands and knees, in thick thorns, doing exactly this, on hands and knees.... most of the time, if you waited 10 mins or more, you'll find him, his dead eyes looking right at you...

the time it doesn't, every cent you spent on a short shotgun or a 45 pistol is worth it...

because, as richard says

"if he get's past your hands, you ARE going to bleed"

btw, I have seen a COUPLE pigs, with a "triangle" blown out of the tops of their necks... healing up... since these 3 pigs were taken within 10 days of each other, and some guys had been caught poaching with softpoint 223s, it was suspected that they had tried for neck shots on most of the estimated 20 pigs they poached, and these guys lived through it...

jeffe

[ 11-25-2003, 08:02: Message edited by: jeffeosso ]

I�ll bet the hog is 10/20 meters away. They all run in a curve when wounded and usually hide in the dirtiest brush there is. I almost lost one in that way, hit with a 375 and a 270 grains bullet but fortunately found him before my lantern died.

There are a lot of them on this ranch and it was dark by the time I got down so I didn't follow him. You both were right about him heading for the thickest stuff it was a briar patch. I'll look for him this weekend and see if he was close by.

Do Wart Hogs react the same way? Should we wait to trail them too?

Feral hogs are almost reptilian in their ability to keep on "living" long after they should be dead. This doesn't have so much to do with "toughness" as it does with how their nervous system seems to be wired.

At any rate, I've killed them with everything from a .223 up to a .338, and a shot in the vitals seems to do the job with any reasonable caliber. It's just that you can never tell when one of the ornery cusses may not realize he's dead and run off several hundred yards. Even when dropped on the spot with a shot through the head, they'll tend to lie there on their side and keep their legs churning for quite a little while.

This last weekend I killed three adult hogs on the run with a .270 -- two of them were anchored more or less on the spot with body shots (although one had to have a finisher) and the third and largest made it about 75 yards with a gut shot before running out of steam and collapsing and expiring on its own (that one must have hit a major artery). Fortunately, these were in an open field, so being obsured by brush was not an issue.

Poor bullet choice wounds more pigs than anything else...you need a tough bullet like a Nosler or carefull placement low behind the shoulder...

Here's a warthog killed at 90 yards with a plain old Hornady 150 grain spirepoint in the .270 Win. MV 2940 fps. Shot hit mid/high shoulder and angled back. He went right down, rolled and kicked for about 30 seconds and that was it.

Partitions? Bah, humbug.

That 150gr in a .270 has a high sectional density, I've never recovered a 150gr .270 bullet, not even a Ballistic Tip.