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02:00 and we were doing a last drive around the concession checking for pigs in the newly planted crops. My youngest son had earlier taken a yearling roe doe with his .30-06 Sauer Carbon. As you would expect, she dropped on the spot. We need to take out 40-50 deer this year, so every one counts.

I later missed a solo pig, a boar, in a field of newly planted corn. Not great but it was a clean miss and hopefully he will not come back again so soon.

We then agreed a 'last drive around' and then we would load the shot yearling and head home.

Coming out a woodland track onto some newly planted rye and rape, we spied a group of pigs rooting on the edge of the fields just outside the woods.

Four pigs evolved into 7 or 8 and as we stalked closer and could see the striped new borns, we were looking at some 14 - 15 pigs. 2 or 3 large sows, 4 - 5 juveniles, 6 - 7 young and 1 seriously large boar. We both said that he easily topped 100 kgs plus!

Now we do not shoot nursing sows and - having shot a 60 kg boar last week with plenty of meat in the freezer - I was not about to shoot the big boar.

A young boar was doing his best to mount all the young sows in the sounder and so he became the focus of our attention. We stalked in slowly to about 30 m under the cover of the giant wind turbine in the middle of the field, which covered any sound we made and also gives the wind direction!

With the Sauer 101 in 6,5x55 SE on the sticks, I waited till I had a clear line on the young boar, which was now on his back two legs on the back end of a young sow, and I squeezed off the shot. We heard the clear hit and all hell erupted with pigs bombshelling in every direction. My son followed the shot boar with his hand-held thermal as the pig bolted, pumping blood, out into the field of rape!

We waited for things to settle and then followed the easy blood trail for some 75 meters to find the pig shot thru the heart laying on his side. It being a pretty easy trail to follow, we then got my new Border Terrier pup of 7 months out of the Landy, and put her on the trail. She ran it very quickly, with one wrong turn which she corrected, to claim her prize pig at the end! Great stuff!

After some minutes with the dog and pig, we loaded the hog and then the deer and drove to a nearby butcher that has an outdoor skinning / gutting area, where we gralloched the two animals and hung them in his cold room for him to butcher in the coming week!

More wild pork and venison in the freezer and great work for the dog! It does not get much better!

And ps the 6,5x55 SE bullet totally destroyed the heart and part of the lungs (exit wound in the photograph) and the pig still managed to dash some 75 meters! Amazing!

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Good one, Charlie!