Rob skinned his hogs and got them in his cooler.
Rob, Joe and I went with Rick to feed up stands. Johnsonville had been hit pretty good overnight so there wasn't too much worry about my spooking the hogs while walking out the evening previous. Chalk one up for walking quietly without a flashlight.
We went back to the lodge and got ready to head out. Joe was headed to the same stand where I shot my very large hog a few years back. But, instead of using the ladder stand, his plan was to hang back and use his bench rest rifle. Joe and Cody were in a stand nearby.
Rick took Jessie to Will's farm and I went back to Johnsonville. Rick told me that since the hogs were not patterning at the various corn piles at all, it was time to make some action. I was to sit on the stand on the road and if nothing showed up before dark to make my way over to the other stand I was on the night previous to see if they were there. The exception to the rule of: Don't get out of the stand!
The evening passed slowly. The ground blind was fairly uncomfortable with my legs tucked up in an awkward position. The spot was also at quite an angle to the left and back. Thankfully, my sciatica was cooperating on this trip.
Near dark I dark after not seeing anything, I releveled my shooting sticks, took one last peak in through the scope and headed very quietly to the other stand. I'll admit that as I was getting up I thought that moving and trying to sneak up on mythical hogs was probably pretty dumb. I hugged the right hand side of the road and peered around the last bush to see a whole mess of hogs milling around the corn pile. But, it was dark, almost dark, dark. I crawled on my hands and knees with my rifle and shooting sticks and set up. I wasn't happy with the level of light. Five minutes earlier would have made all the difference.
I could still see the crosshairs, but with so many hogs, I didn't want to have a pass-through wound or even worse a bad shot and wound. I picked out a lighter colored hog near front that didn't have much else around it. It definitely wasn't the biggest one, but the black hogs were too hard to see to risk shooting. The lighter one was quartering toward me, nearly facing me.
At the shot, the hogs scattered, but not in a panic mode. For the second time in recent hunts the muzzle blast of my gun temporarily blinded me in the dim light. Through the scope I could see my hog flopping. The lack of noise told me it was hit good and in a few seconds it stopped flopping. There was still a bit of worry since it wasn't easy to see after the shot and the hog was covered in mud after the shot.
I quietly made my way back to my first stand. I had a text from Rick saying he was at the clear cut. I responded that I was pretty sure I had a hog down and to come get me. He drove up a few minutes later and after driving to the other stand we easily found my boar on the left hand side behind the big mud wallow. It wasn't the biggest hog I've ever taken, but given the circumstances and the fact that this one was taken in stealth mode, I was happy. It was also probably one of the first hogs taken on this farm in quite some time.
We loaded up my hog and went back to meet the others. Joe had shot a hog with his wildcat 7mm Norma Magnum bench rifle at a confirmed 498 yards. Impressive! The others in the group hadn't seen anything.
We cleaned the hogs and left them to hang overnight.
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