A couple of ya’ll have politely “suggested” that I shoot the pig I was trying to guesstimate the weight of in another thread. I went out turkey hunting on Monday, and while I didn’t see it, I did get a couple of eating size ones.

For a number of years now, I’ve occasionally gone hunting with the husband of my wife’s very close friend. He’s much more of a bird hunter while I’m more interested in deer and pigs. He’s also an airline pilot so his schedule usually isn’t conducive to hunting when mine is. But we got a turkey hunt planned for Monday and set off at 4:30 a.m. We arrived at the lease a little before legal shooting light, got ourselves squared away, and set off into the field just a few minutes after legal shooting light.

We don’t have a lot of turkeys on the lease, but I’d seen a couple the previous Saturday and had a game camera picture of a very large tom from late March. After calling at a couple of locations and walking a couple of other areas looking for sign, we decided to move to another part of the property. There were two ways to get there, and we randomly chose the northern route. This is an area with a lot of pigs, and I was carrying a rifle rather than a shotgun for just such an occasion. As I said, I don’t really get into spring turkey so the first shot on any bird was going to my friend, and Texas does allow rifles for turkeys, so I could have used it had I wanted to and the opportunity presented itself. But my freezer didn’t have any pork chops, so I was really hoping to find some pigs.

As we walked along, we were seeing lots of pig sign in the area including lots of scat and rooting. Some of it looked pretty fresh. After we’d walked a quarter-mile or so, we saw some very fresh scat—the kind that’s still squishy and has flies on it. Of course, we’re really turkey hunting so I haven’t yet chambered a round in my .30-06. And I still don’t. We continue to amble on looking for a good spot to set up to call some turkeys. About 100 yards further along, we round some trees and into a small clearing where we find three pigs grazing. Whoops. Maybe should have chambered a round.

We step back out of the clearing with a clump of trees between us and the pigs in the clearing. I tell my friend to get ready, and I chamber a round. He begins gesturing forcefully straight ahead at the trees whispering pigs! I’m thinking that I’m well aware of the pigs and why are you pointing through the trees? I ease back around to the edge of the clearing. The three pigs—good size sows—are still feeding contentedly about 50 yards away. I drop into a seated position, take aim at the closest and largest one’s ear, and BAM! The sow drops, the two others in the clearing bolt, the trees explode in pigs, and I hear, “look out, here they come!”

Ah, yes, he was pointing forcefully into the trees because there was a dozen more in there that I hadn’t seen some of which were no more than 10 yards away. I worked the bolt and took aim at one moving left to right in front of my at 30 or so yards. The first shot was low—I knocked one of its forelegs off—but that turned it at the right side of the clearing and it ran right to left in front of me quartering away. The second shot entered the back of the abdomen and exited in front of the offside shoulder. It dropped.

The rest of the pigs had scattered at this point so we calmed down, and I reloaded. Turns out my friend had never actually been pig hunting before. He rather enjoyed it and admitted it was something of a rush since he thought we might get run over by some of the pigs.

I was carrying a .30-06 with hand-loads: 168 grain Triple Shocks, Nosler brass, and max charges of RL19. This has been my go to gun for several years now and has proved to be quite lethal on the deer and pigs. The hole on the larger pig is the exit wound from my first shot. It was a little high, but Ms. Piggie neither complained nor got up and ran off.

The first one:





The second one:



You’d think this would be enough for one day; but it wasn’t. We got some meat off the pigs, chunked the carcasses, topped off a feeder, had some lunch, and headed back out into the field shortly before a massive thunderstorm hit Somervell County, Texas. In something less than 30 minutes, the sky changed from perfectly clear and sunny to seriously dark and ominous looking. After looking at doppler radar on a smartphone, a couple of phone calls to another pilot in Fort Worth who relayed several things including “tornado warning,” and seeing a wall cloud, we got to the truck about the time the rain started. Because the storm was moving northeast we went southwest a few miles to what my pilot friend said was the back of the storm. That was all wonderful till the back of the storm started moving backwards. We could actually see the clouds at the tail end of the storm moving back and starting to rotate. Then whispy fingers starting dropping down from the clouds and twisting. We drove several miles further.

Here’s the wall cloud:



All in all it was a very fine and interesting day. But watching the cloud movement is something I will never forget.

LWD

Nice work!! Congratulations and thanks for posting this!

Perfect sized piggies! Sounds like a fun day, though you may have created a monster in your airline pilot friend...

Just wanted to let you know that what may be your wall cloud just passed me below in the valley. Hope one was all you saw. Also liked your report and piggy pics.

Well done sir.
Although, I'm not sure that just because you killed those pigs with a 30-06, that a 30-06 is enough gun.

Clearly it worked, however, you may have just gotten very lucky. Had it not worked I would have a much better point, but that's not the point. The point is that you should use more gun next time in order to make a more ethical shot because just because it's a one shot kill, doesn't mean it was the right shot to make that kill with.......