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Thought I was going to get skunked again for the second afternoon like I did on Saturday, but patience and the bark of my Thompson Center Encore in 204 pulled victory from defeat.

I was just about to give up after an hour in the fields when I decided to glass the area one more time. That's when I saw him, a mature hog that just recently crawled out from his den under the shed. If it wasn't for my Yardage Pro I probably wouldn't have seen him because he was hunkered down in the grass.

When I first saw him he was nearly all visible except for his belly, but he started moving right into some taller grass. I was sitting at the far side of the field with my back propped against a tree stump, so I got down into the prone position, extended the legs of my bipod and glassed him again. It would be 190 yards, the furthest I've shot this summer.

I pulled the stock up to my shoulder and looked through the Simmons Pro Hunter. I already had the power set to 10, so I went about finding the hog. It took me a few seconds to locate him. By now he had moved into higher grass and I could only see him when he looked up. I kept my eye on him and after a few minutes he turned to the left and started moving out of the high grass. I could still only see the upper quarter of his body, but he was holding still with his head up so I decided to let go with the 32 grain Hornaday V-Max.

The crack of the gun echoed off the mountains to my right and although I did not hear the familiar smack of the bullet, I did see the hog roll over and surrender with his tail straight up in the air. That's when I knew I had connected with my best shot so far this year. The breathing and dry fire practice paid off. Got him right though the neck.

I took a few photos to memorialize our efforts, me and the hog. Hope you enjoyed my little hunting story.

Doug from NJ