"You guys hunting
pigs or
hogs? You go banging away at a 300(+/-) lb. Russian Boar with a rim fire and he might make you eat it. Get a bigger gun for BIG Hogs. Lawdog
[/quote]"
I think Lawdog is correct. Here is my first experience with hogs. It is long and really seemed more like work back then than all the excitement but I doubt a .22 WMR would have sufficed. I used the 30-30 because it is what I had. While I'm prone to use bigger guns on them these days I wouldn't feel "undergunned" with my M94, the same one I used years ago.
Larry Gibson
First Hog Hunt
By; Larry Gibson
The ranch was small as ranches go but with 85 acres and another 140 acres we watched over we were able to have a small herd of beef cattle plus the usual assortment of horses, a goat or two, chickens and pigs. The place was located about five miles west of Dallas Oregon in the foothills of the coastal mountains. Both of my parents worked in Salem so the task of watching over the cattle and other sundry chores fell to me, I was twelve years old when we moved to the ranch from Salem in early 1960. Between then and the time of this story I had many adventures or misadventures between my horse and my love of hunting and shooting. I had managed to accumulate a .22 rifle, a single shot 16 gauge shotgun and a M94 Winchester 30-30 that I got for my 14th birthday in 1961. I also had a Daisy BB gun, a Crosman single action CO2 revolver and a S&W M&P .38 special revolver. The revolver was my uncles who left it for my mother to use for protection but I occasionally mooched some ammo from him and shot it.
It was in that fall there was a very large wind storm in Oregon that is referred to as "The Columbus Day Storm". It did considerable damage throughout western Oregon including blowing our barn down and blowing a tree down across the pigs shed. My father worked at a cannery and would bring home our old Dodge dump truck full of the cull corn, beets and carrots from July through January. We would have about 20 pigs to eat the cull and also fed it to the cattle. Come January all were in prime condition and at that time of the year we got top dollar for them. The tree also knocked down the pig fence so all of the 20 or so pigs we had escaped. The pigs just went up into the thick Oak trees and made a home there. They would come to the feeder, like the cattle, when they heard the throaty roar of the old Dodge truck coming down the driveway, they knew when chow was on. It was quite a ways from there to the boundaries of our ranch so we left the situation as was figuring we could round them up easy enough come January. However, the old breeding boar gathered up three young sows and took to going out into the pasture and the "back forty" of the ranch with the cattle. There was about 40 acres of the ranch that was old unused prune and plum orchard along with numerous apple and cherry trees growing throughout the ranch. There also were the many acres of Oak trees with an immense accumulation of acorns around them. Somewhere around December the boar and his three sows quit coming into the feeder as they really had plenty of food out in the "back forty" where they took up residence in a very thick stand of Oak and young Douglas Fir. In short order they became very wild, secretive and many times aggressive when approached. That set the stage for my first experience at hunting pigs.
The carrot harvest was a good and long one that year with the harvest running into the middle of February. When completed it wasn't difficult to build a temporary enclosure and catch most of the pigs that were still feeding at the feeder. One old sow became quite wary and was not sold off with the others. After numerous attempts at trapping her it was decided she would be our family pork for the next year. The sow was getting more and more aggressive and would charge my horse when I was trying to herd her toward the trap. The last straw was when, after one beer too many, my father decided I should rope her and drag her into the trap. The difficult part was not the roping it was the dragging. The sow would have no part of that and quickly turned on me and my horse. I dropped the rope and got my horse out of her way. My father grabbed the rope and was promptly drug all the way, about 80 yards, through the pasture back up into the trees. He was covered with all sorts of dirt, cow pie, horse sh*t and probably pig sh*t when he came cussing out of the trees. Of course I had fallen off my horse laughing so hard and asked why he didn't just let go. He told me to quit being a smart a**, go get my rifle and shoot the so and so blankety blank pig. I used my M94 with Winchester 150 gr Power Points. It was a pretty simple head shot at about 25 yards so I was pretty pleased with my big game hunting prowess.
We didn't really pay much attention to the old boar and sows out in the back 40 as my father figured we would round them up come the next late summer and they would be "next years stock". So spring passed and the three sows had litters. I had several run ins with them during this time as they got rather aggressive. The sows would move away from the boar when the piglets were small which seemed to really aggravate his disposition. Seemed like that old boar would just as soon charge me and my horse as run. Come mid summer we set up a trap and caught all the young and dumb pigs but the old boar, the three sows and one piggy. The caught ones were moved down into the real pig pen. Over the next couple of weeks it was impossible to get the boar and sows out of the thick Oak and Douglas Fir grove plus a couple large blackberry patches growing nearby. I had tried several times and they just got more aggressive. They also can move a lot quicker through that stuff than you can. Late summer brought us to a stand off. One of my fathers drinking buddies (he had quite a few) decided his "hounds" could run the pigs out of the brush.
Now that was a sight to see; three grown men (they picked up another drinking buddy at the local bar) who were a little on the inebriated side, and a pack of howling hounds! My part in this sport was once the pigs were run out I, on my horse, was to herd them back down to barnyard where they would find the luxury of the cull food and would go willingly into the pen with the rest of the pigs. I didn't think it would work quite that way and remember my Grandmother saying something about God saving us from drunks and Irishmen (My Grandfather was an Irish bootlegger during Prohibition). It was hard to say how many howling hounds there were as the noise was an atrocious racket and I was having trouble just controlling my horse because of the racket. It looked like a scene from "The Three Stooges" as the three of them had all the leashed howling hounds wrapping leashes around their legs every which way, tripping them and in general creating mayhem. I'm not sure who was howling more, the hounds or the three stooges cussing and cursing! Well they finally got the hounds unleashed and the proud owner was yelling "hunt'em up" or some such thing. The hounds milled around and finally took off on the fresh pig trail and dove into the thicket howling and baying. Such a sight to see!
There was a tremendous racket of dogs barking, yapping and howling along with pigs squealing and grunting coming from the thicket. The owner of the dogs had quickly produced a fifth of Old Crow from behind the seat of his pickup and they were already drinking to the success of their plan. I wasn't as sure as I could hear some of the dog yapping turning into yelping. I had dismounted from my horse pulling my M94 out of the scabbard at the same time and levered a round into the chamber. By this time I was reloading using a Lee Loader and had some 170 gr Speers loaded over the scoopful of 4895 as the ammo in the rifle. I had it well zeroed so it hit just above the bead at 100 yards. About the time I was thinking of moving my horse back and tying her to a tree three of dogs came yelping out of the thicket with the youngest hog fast on their tail. This melee ran right through the three men who promptly dropped the bottle of Old Crow and scattered helter skelter too! I probably would have died laughing but my horse had jerked the reigns out of my hand and was now the object of the hog's attention as she was turning tail to run, the dogs having jumped into the back of the pickup and were already cowering in their cages. My father yelled at me to get the heck out of there as the three of them had run around to the backside of the pickup and were peeking over the bed. All of this was happening pretty darn fast. The hog had given up on my horse and was crossing in front of me at maybe twenty-five or thirty yards heading back for the thicket. My father yelled to; "shoot the damned thing" so I held on it's nose and fired. The 170 gr bullet took the hog in the neck right at the junction of the shoulders and it did a complete somersault and slid to a stop very dead.
I just stood there watching the tail end of my horse disappearing through the trees toward the barn. My father and the other two guys appeared from around the back side of the pickup and started thumping me on the back saying that was the damnedest shot they'd ever seen. I didn't have time to bask in heroics as the other dogs really started yelping and all but one came high tailing out of the thicket. All of them seemed to have blood on them and a couple of the dogs were limping. My father, brave soul he was, insisted we go into the thicket to see what was happening. Since I had the rifle he was a short step or two behind me. The owner of the dogs and the other guy then went to lamenting the broken bottle of Old Crow more so than the injured dogs. That was, until my father and I came back and told them the boar and sows were tearing apart the dead dog and eating it. Then the owner started blubbering and crying. My father decided I was to kill the hogs if I could while they took the injured dogs to town and would come right back. There was immediate discussion of also getting another bottle of whiskey. They did throw the dead hog in the back of the pickup to drop off at the local slaughter house as they would take them shot in those days if they were for your own use. My father again told me to shoot the hogs if I could but not to do anything stupid or take any chances.
Well, there I stood watching them drive off after telling my father I would follow my horse back in case she didn't make it to the barn. I looked at the thicket hearing the hogs grunting, looked at my M94 with six rounds left in it and then walked back the barn to get my horse
.and more ammo. As this was late summer the days were long so when I returned to the thicket about an hour and a half later there was still a couple hours of daylight left. I had tied up my horse downwind which made her nervous and used a reverse slipknot so she could jerk loose if need be but she seemed calm enough to stay put. I levered a round into the chamber and put another into the magazine so it was full up and approached the thicket very carefully. I could hear an occasional grunt but it was hard to tell how far into the thicket they were. I got a few yards into the thicket where I could kneel down and see what was ahead of me for probably 25 yards or so. Thought I could see the back of one but wasn't sure so I got up and proceeded slowly. About the time I could see it was a hog the sow must have winded me as she stood up, grunted and started toward me. I shot her straight down fairly between the eyes and she died right there.
At the shot the boar and the other two sows busted out of the thicket on the opposite side. I ran after them hoping for a shot but they kept going straight down a trail single file at a fast trot. I really didn't stand a chance catching up with them. They went right through a hole in the brush along the fence and under the barbed wire out into the very large open pasture of the neighbors place and were headed over the hill toward the neighbor's house and barnyard. I ran back to my horse and quickly mounted, went through nearest gate and out into the pasture. I figured I was in big trouble for as sure as heck running the hogs off toward the neighbor's place would be considered "doing something stupid". I didn't know how but intended to try to head them off before they reached the neighbors barn as they had some young calves penned there. The neighbors pasture was in soil bank and there wasn't much to hurt so at a full gallop I crested the hill to see the hogs crash through the calf pen fence. It was just woven wire held up by flimsy posts which slowed the hogs enough for me to catch up to them. Fortunately the hogs didn't injure any of the calves but the neighbor's dog was not so lucky. It tangled with the boar and received a very nasty gash down its back leg and lower stomach. I cut through the barnyard which turned the hogs away from the house and they then ran up alongside the barn and around the other end. The neighbor lady was yelling and screaming as I brought my horse to a sliding stop in front of her, dismounting with my rifle, handing her the reigns and yelling at her to hold my horse, "please".
By then the hogs had circled clear around the barn with the boar in the lead and were heading back the way they had come up the hill at a pretty fast trot. The last sow in line was some distance behind the boar and other sow and was limping pretty bad, apparently injured in the fight with the dogs. That last sow was quartering away going uphill at what looked right at 100 yards to me. I leaned against a fence post and aimed a little out in front of the sow's nose but it was not enough as the shot hit her hind quarter and broke her hind leg. The sow, severely crippled then, was still trying to go up the hill. The boar and last sow kept going without a backward glance. I grabbed the reigns of my horse from the lady and swung up into the saddle saying "thank you". It looked like the lady's jaw was hitting the ground and her eyes were as wide as saucers! As I galloped toward the crippled sow I shouted back to her that I would be back. I was able to close the distance to the crippled hog quickly, dismount in front of her and finish the job with a shot to the sows head. I again swung back into the saddle and at a gallop crested the hill in pursuit of the boar and last sow. I glanced back at the farmhouse seeing the neighbor lady waving at me and saw the calves still running in all directions. I was even more certain I was in really big trouble.
However, I had no time to feel sorry for myself as the boar and last sow were now more than half way back to the fence line. If I was going to be in big trouble then the other two hogs were not going to get away with putting me in that situation. I knew there was no way, even as fast as my horse was, that I could beat them to the property line fence. I turned my horse toward the left open gate. We went sailing through the gate at a full gallop heading for the thicket as I figured that's where the boar was trying to get back to. I made it to the edge of the thicket just in time to dismount, shove two more cartridges into the magazine and take up an ambush position where the trail from the fence came into the thicket. I had little or no time to wait. My blood was still rushing, my heart was pounding and I was sweating like the proverbial "stuck hog" as the boar, in the lead, came straight down the trail. I got two quick shots into him straight on in the front shoulders at maybe 30-40 yards and then had a broadside running shot on the sow as she swung around me still trying to make the thicket. The shot at a very short range took her through both front shoulders and she piled up. I quickly levered in another round and swung back to shoot the boar again but it was not necessary as he was down for keeps also. I was so pumped up I think I let a war hoop out that wouldn't quit and probably did a little victory dance too!
Getting on my horse I then rode back to the house to see if my father had returned yet. On the way the shakes set in and I didn't know whether to sh*t or go blind, for the first time in my life I was truly scared of the consequences of something I had engaged in. Maybe I did do something stupid and took a few chances but the thrill was unbelievable. My mother had my father and the other two guys in tow when I rode up. She looked awfully relieved and was glad to see. The first inkling she had of the adventure was a very excited telephone call from the neighbor lady. When I told her what happened she took the bottle away from my father and his two buddies. She proceeded to tell them, in no uncertain terms, that of all the dumb and stupid things to do was to leave me alone to shoot the hogs. In defense my father started saying that I was entirely capable of handling the situation and, in fact, had done so. I knew I was off the hook then as she ordered them to go back up on the hill and take care of the dead hogs. My mother said I needed to put my horse away and go to the neighbors with her.
I was glad as I was pretty worn out and wasn't looking forward to helping load the hogs. I think my mother saw I was a little scared as she told me I had done a good job even it was probably foolish. My mother and I then drove over to the neighbors in our old Rambler station wagon; she had me take a "snort" of the Old Crow on the way and settled my nerves a bit. The owner was there by then with his wife who was all excited about that brave boy who saved her life from the marauding pack of 40 or 50 "wild crazed hogs!" After some discussion my mother let them have the sow hog I'd killed in their pasture for their dog that had to be "put down" and the trouble caused. The neighbor already had the calves rounded up and the fence fixed so there wasn't much damage other damage. The bright side was the daughter who had come home with her father. I had for some time thought she was kind of pretty but she was a year ahead of me in school and had not even noticed me before. Seems that for the first time she took notice and smiled at me asking if we could go riding sometime, but then - that's another story.
After leaving the neighbor's place mother and I stopped by the top of the hill where my father and the other two guys had managed to find the dead boar and two dead sows and had already thrown them in the pickup. The dog's owner had buried what was left of the dog that was killed, wasn't much left though. By then the Sun was going down and the three men left to drop the hogs off at the slaughter house. The sows went just a little over 200 pounds on the hoof and boar went better than 250 pounds. Not large for domestic pigs but pretty good for feral hogs. After dropping the dogs off at the local vet's office the men also spent the rest of the evening in the local bar reliving "their" adventure. I did hear later my father kept bragging about his "hard riding and straight shooting boy". I showed mother where the last shootout had taken place and managed to find two of the 30-30 cases where I had shot the boar and last sow. On the way back to the house mother had let me have another "snort" and I settled down. I went to the barn and curried my horse and gave her an extra bowl of oats. Every boy should grow up with such a horse. Later at the house, as I was cleaning my M94, I figured this "big game" huntin' was pretty dad burned exciting and just the thing I always wanted to do. And so it has been
.
