Well, a noob at this, bit I still settled down and made the shot count.
I saw the group trotting along at about 80 yards, so I had the opportunity to drop prone and put down the bi-pod legs. (1st noob mistake – can’t track running hogs with a bi-pod.) Got the rifle up on my elbow (hogs now at 40-ish yards) and discovered can’t properly/safely track hogs running that close with scope at 6x. (2nd noob mistake – but in my defense until three years ago I’d shot shotgun exclusively for almost 40 years.) Got the scope down to 3x, but they had spotted me. Now they put on a burst of speed. But I had enough presence of mind to realize I’d already screwed up twice. So I settled down and started to hunt just like I have with any other animal during my life; that is ‘think’, not ‘react’. I repositioned towards what I thought they would see as an escape route. I got my NPOA ready for that area and only had to wait a couple of seconds. Here they came; running 90 degrees right-to-left (sweet) at full bore (pun intended, bore/boar, get it) at about 80 yards again. Anyway, I just picked out the biggest one, tracked her, and pulled the trigger when steady on the mid-neck. I figured that would be a kill shot whether on target or high/low trailing (and I kind of expected trailing, not knowing how much to lead a hog at full speed). She when right down. I’ve now officially bagged my first hog.
Tonight I go for coyotes.
PS. Location was between Austin and Houston. Rifle was a Browning BBR 30.06 with a Nikon Prostaff 3-9×50. Bullets were Fusion factory loads.
