I had gone down to the ranch late one afternoon last week to make sure one of the Double Bulls was tied down well enough to make it through the approaching front that was supposed to push sustained winds of 30+mph through, gusting into the upper 30's. By the time I finished up it was getting late so I just decided to spend the night and hunt the next morning for an hour or two before heading back out to work.
The following morning I woke up to 25+mph winds out of the NNW, so I decided to go to Levi's Stand...a double feeder setup with an open corn feeder and a protein feeder with a hog proof pen around it. I wasn't expecting to see much with the front pushing through just a few hours before I got to the stand, however there were 15 hogs that came racing as soon as the feeder slung...in that group were two ~100 lb sows, 6 hogs ranging from 40-50 lbs and the rest were smaller piglets. Having some work that needed getting done, I decided to give the group a pass this morning and instead getting back on the pigs opening weekend with my son in the blind with me.
After about 5 or 6 minutes of watching the pigs, I see two big boars stroll in from my left. When I saw them with the rest of the group I was thinking they were probably in the 160 to 180 lb range...a little smaller than the 186 lb boar I shot with my bow down here in 2007. I slowly pulled my video camera out of its case (it had started to drizzle rain just a few minutes before) and set it up on the video head. The bigger of the two boars was feeding at about 18 yards so I drew back and sent the lighted nock on its way, slamming right into the sweet spot behind the shoulder. I did not get a complete pass through, so I assumed the arrow had lodged in the offside shoulder. He broke my arrow as he ran past the feeder leg and headed off to the west. I reviewed the shot on the camera, confirming what I thought I had just seen.
I saw a couple other deer for the remainder of the hunt and decided to climb down about an hour later to go track the hog. I found him piled up 80 yards from the shot...
...at that point I thought for sure he would be close to my previous record on the ranch of 186, but would probably fall just a little short...after I tried to load him on the Suzuki by myself, I was convinced I may have underestimated the brute.
I took him back to the skinning rack and put him on the scales...when the scale stopped moving, it read "224"...a new personal best for me with archery equipment.
To the best of my knowledge, my cousin still holds the record for heaviest hog taken down at the ranch...a beast of a boar that field dressed 274 lbs and was taken with archery equipment back around 2004. Still, I'm glad this one didn't weigh any more, otherwise I would have never got him out of the pasture!
The following morning I woke up to 25+mph winds out of the NNW, so I decided to go to Levi's Stand...a double feeder setup with an open corn feeder and a protein feeder with a hog proof pen around it. I wasn't expecting to see much with the front pushing through just a few hours before I got to the stand, however there were 15 hogs that came racing as soon as the feeder slung...in that group were two ~100 lb sows, 6 hogs ranging from 40-50 lbs and the rest were smaller piglets. Having some work that needed getting done, I decided to give the group a pass this morning and instead getting back on the pigs opening weekend with my son in the blind with me.
After about 5 or 6 minutes of watching the pigs, I see two big boars stroll in from my left. When I saw them with the rest of the group I was thinking they were probably in the 160 to 180 lb range...a little smaller than the 186 lb boar I shot with my bow down here in 2007. I slowly pulled my video camera out of its case (it had started to drizzle rain just a few minutes before) and set it up on the video head. The bigger of the two boars was feeding at about 18 yards so I drew back and sent the lighted nock on its way, slamming right into the sweet spot behind the shoulder. I did not get a complete pass through, so I assumed the arrow had lodged in the offside shoulder. He broke my arrow as he ran past the feeder leg and headed off to the west. I reviewed the shot on the camera, confirming what I thought I had just seen.
I saw a couple other deer for the remainder of the hunt and decided to climb down about an hour later to go track the hog. I found him piled up 80 yards from the shot...
...at that point I thought for sure he would be close to my previous record on the ranch of 186, but would probably fall just a little short...after I tried to load him on the Suzuki by myself, I was convinced I may have underestimated the brute.
I took him back to the skinning rack and put him on the scales...when the scale stopped moving, it read "224"...a new personal best for me with archery equipment.
To the best of my knowledge, my cousin still holds the record for heaviest hog taken down at the ranch...a beast of a boar that field dressed 274 lbs and was taken with archery equipment back around 2004. Still, I'm glad this one didn't weigh any more, otherwise I would have never got him out of the pasture!
nice
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