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I was not going to ‘write this one up’. It was not a spectacular hunt, in fact it was a very unspectacular evening other than the five or six minutes when the pig appeared and I shot him. But a couple of AR friends asked for pictures and the story so here you are .....

I sat from 20:00 hours in a ‘Kanzel’ not far from the German Dutch border in our concession, planning to sit from 20:00 til 01:00 hoping for a pig for the freezer. A mild evening. My Springer asleep at my feet. A couple of roe does at the maize bait, dozens of mice stealing the corn pips and I was slowly thinking about calling it a night and then, without a sound and almost as if from nowhere, a pig appeared.

A very large black shape in my night vision. My first thought was a sow due to the long snout and the hanging belly. A very long snout! A very large sow! I watched and waited. Where was the rest of the sounder - the other pigs and the inevitable summer hoard of piglets? But nothing. The single pig started feeding on the maize bait. I watched in silence. No other pigs appeared and the woods were quiet.

After 3-4 minutes I slowly switched on the Pard night sight on my CZ .30-06 and picked up the pig clearly. A big pig. The pig must have picked up the infra red off the Pard as it slowly, almost casually, trotted into the cover of the surrounding bush. But there it stopped and turned back towards the bait. It was then that I could just make out a small short tuft of hair below the belly. A boar! A big, lone boar!

He slowly came back to the maize presenting me with a wide open left shoulder and I sent the 170 grain Geco soft point on its way and on impact the pig bolted into the woods on the left. There was a brief rustle of foliage as he disappeared into the night and then silence.

Everyone that hunts knows those moments after the shot if the quarry has not folded on the spot but rather vanished from sight - whether by day or night. Was my shot good? I am sure I was good on the shoulder, wasn't I? Is the pig down or will there be a follow up? A follow up on a large wounded boar in the dark with night vision! Has he gone over the border into Holland? A roller coaster, jumble of thoughts and emotions.

A good friend who was out with me that night but sitting in another Kanzel about a mile away texted me - a simple ‘?’. I phoned him and told him the situation. “I’ll pack up and come.”

Ten minutes passed. With a flashlight in my hand and the .30-06 shouldered, a round in the chamber and on safe and with my Springer in tow, I slowly walked the 40-50 meters to where the pig had been standing at the shot. I came to the exact spot where the boar was standing. Blood! Bright red blood splatters next to the golden maize seeds. Lots of blood! I followed the easy blood trail some 10 meters and there lay the pig - shot through the both shoulders, shattering the left front shoulder and taking out the heart - facing back towards the bait site. And what a pig! I guesstimated him - yes a big boar - at 130 kgs / 280lbs dead weight and 5 plus years old from the teeth!

My friend arrived in his Wrangler Jeep - yes he drives a Wrangler Jeep - and on seeing the boar asked how I proposed dragging the pig out of the woods? We laughed and stood there, taking in the pig on the ground before us. I then drove my Defender through the bush and backed-up to the boar and together we swung the pig into the Landy on three.





With the winch at the farmhouse out of order, we lifted the boar up heigh with a fork lift and dressed him out, taking a diaphragm and front leg muscle sample for the State Vet to do the mandatory trichinosis test. One internal sample of muscle and one external.

We then lowered him onto a Euro pallet, taking care not to damage the teeth, and weighed him at 122 kgs / 268 lbs whereby taking off 24 kgs for the pallet the dressed weight came in at 98 kgs / 216 lbs just shy of the 100 kg mark! For our concession that is a large pig! And btw the lower tusks measured 18.5 cm and 19 cm respectively!











So a very non eventful ‘Ansitz’ (sit) resulted in a super pig and a heck of a lot of sausage, salami, filets and ground pork to look forward to in the weeks to come!

My son’s comment the next morning was “You don’t shoot a lot of pigs but when you do they are ‘proper’ pigs!” We laughed.





Sometimes ‘Lady Luck’ or ‘Diana’ shows when you are least expecting her to put in an appearance!

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Weidmannsheil!

Charlie,
If the hunt was non spectacular then your account is riveting. Thanks for posting. A very enjoyable read, as most of your reports are.
Congrats on a heck of a Boar. Great jaw on that pig. And yes, a lot of pork !

Nice wildboar. They are a really challenging animal to target and shoot, especially a really big boar. Unless you get lucky.

Good one, and he does have a long snout and teeth for sure!!!

Hey Charlie!

Sure an UGLY one this time.
Proper size too.

Too late tonight to read the story, will
save it for another time.

Thanks for sharing, go get a few more.

How's the wheat lice over there about now?
George

Charlie64
Big congratulations on a fine boar from Deutschland. The story brought back memories of a Romanian hog I shot that didn't drop on the spot. That point being... one knows when one made a great shot. Keep the faith. Dank und guten naben.

A really good pig. I can see from your photos why you thought that was a sow - I thought the same until I read your story.

WMH

Nice pig none the less mate

Good shot and some great meat. Be Well, Packy.

Waidmannsheil on a good Keiler Charlie. Your story brings back fond memories of hunting the Schwarzwild. I always said any shot at night was twice as hard as a daytime shot.

That's a big boar. Congratulations.