The Yearling

---

Picked up my new hog hunter on Friday, mounted the scope on Saturday, went to the
range Monday and this morning for the sighting in, and let her out for a run this
evening.

Have lined up a third hunting location recently, but the field has needed to be cut
for weeks. Cruised by it this afternoon and the hay is coming off. She'll be ready
next week.

Decided to check out farm number one again and found the grass behind the barn had
been mowed. There are at least a half dozen hog holes in that field and it's
yielded three to five hogs so far. I set up on a stool with my back against the
barn and waited, and waited, and waited. Forty-five minutes went by and nada. So I
moved around to the other side of the barn and found a perch that gave a field view
I didn't have before. Again I waited and waited. No hogs, but I did watch a two
year old black bear meander by. Cool!

As I was leaving I saw the owner and we talked for about ten minutes. Nothing new
going on.

I cruised by farm number three again just to see the progress and decided to check
out farm number two for the heck of it. It's just ten minutes down the road.

As I pulled into the driveway I spotted one mature and one yearling hog on the front
lawn. Did my usual u-turn in front of the barn and parked. The mature one made
tracks for the weeds right away. The yearling hung around a bit and then decided to
pull a disappearing act down the same hole in the lawn I found last week. It
couldn't have been much more that five minutes when the yearling sticks his head up
out of the hole and almost immediately the mature one saunters out of the weeds, but
cautiously.

I just sat there and let them get comfortable. Finally the mature hog starts moving
around, but the yearling is still only showing his head. You know where this one's
going, don't you.

Well I pulled up the Savage, loaded a Remington 50 grain jacketed hollow point (by
the way, this one worked best out of five different commercial loads at 100
yds)(check out the picture), put the fine crosshair dot reticle on the mature hog
and let her bark. Ouch! Right through the shoulder. Didn't even move! In the
mean time the yearling ducked for cover.


I put the gun down and was getting ready to retrieve my prize when the yearling
pokes his head up again. I just couldn't resist. The Savage barked again. Results
unknown.

It's now after seven and I need to be getting home. I grabbed a bunch of plastic
bags for the retrieval and walked over to the mature hog first. Actually, he and
the hole weren't more than three feet apart. I could see the entrance and exit
wounds on the mature one, and in between it was like the insides had been sucked
out, like empty. Also, there looked like there was bone on the ground next to him.
??? I looked down the hole and the only thing I could recognize besides raw meat,
was a paw. So I put two bags over my hand and reached down the hole and grabbed
hold of the paw. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. That 22-250 does a
nasty job!!!

Doug from NJ