While I was out at work, each night a hog worked my yard immediately around my home. It flat tore it up. From the pattern of it's routing, it appeared to be always downwind of my home wherever a shadow was being cast from the various yard and landscaping lights that are on. At 10:00 tonight, my ranch dog and I went out for a check before bed and durn if a hog wasn't 20 yards from my house in the shadow, tearing things up. It was immediately downwind of us as we quietly can around the corner of the house and was gone with the warning from its keen nose. My dog and I conferred and decided if it liked shadows so well we would give it all we had so I shut every light off and the ranch house complex slipped into pitch black. I stayed up for 45 minutes, the dog went in and went to bed, I probably had should of listened to her.
My dog came and nudged me at a little before 1:00 am so I got up and went to a window that would give me a view downwind of the house. I didn't see anything immediately so went and got the binoculars, my dog would not get me up without reason, and started studying the night. There it was, out about 50 yards digging some deep holes. I dressed quickly, slipped out around the house with the shadows and wind now at my advantage. I also slipped off my shoes at the first step in the yard as the grass was very crunchy and there was not enough breeze to cover the sound of footsteps. With that I was able make it to a point where I could get a clear shot without hitting my yard fence or anything else important. I took a standing, quartering to me, shot at what a few minutes later would measured at 47-yards. Even though it was pitch black out there, the Weaver Scout had no issue defining the hog against the yellow grass. The 290-grain TLC454-290-RF at 2095 FPS really cracked this beast and he went straight down in the hole he was digging. The bullet hole on the forward part of the hog is the entry hole, I like what a large meplat does to a critter, it looks like a 2095 FPS golf ball hit him!
I turned the lights back on so you could see the "hunting blind" setup. I wish the picture was better as all the little dark spots in the yellow grass are divots that you could almost set a 5 gallon bucket in. What the hogs are hunting is a little "native" green onion, similar in appearance but smaller to a green onion you would buy in the store for your salad. This onion is about 1/8" in diameter and about 3" long and they remove about "3 gallons" of dirt for one!
All I got to say is...
Oh, my dog went back to sleep and I've got to get up at 4:30 to take my dad into the hospital for some surgery he has scheduled on his rotator cuff. Going to be a long day with little sleep but it feels really good getting a beast down with the 454. When it came together, this rifle really came together. Sighted-in in five shots and a dead hog in the sixth!
