ting comfortable teasing our hosts about their Southern ac- cents. Of course, it was the two Yankees who had the accent. Rest would be welcome, having only about three hours
of sleep in the last 40 hours. Before parting, Chris and Dar- ren made arrangements to meet us the next morning. We would follow them to our hunting stands. They planned on hunting about 400 yards from us and told us to wait until shooting light to approach the stand. If animals were in the area we may have a chance to harvest one before it spooks. We followed our hosts’ advice and parked at our location about 30 minutes before light. In the dark we prepared our equipment. For this trip
I had chosen a Ruger 44 Carbine with a 4x Tasco scope. My understanding was shots would not exceed 100 yards. For ammo, store-bought 240-grain Winchester hollow-points were sighted in 2" high at 50 yards. Dave chose his Rem- ington .30-06 with 168-grain Nosler E-Tips I loaded for him. Dave had planned on covering cultivated fields, if available, while I would cover closer quarters. It was about a half-mile walk to Dave’s stand. He would
be overlooking a field of volunteer corn. A food plot of about half an acre was on the headland next to the oak hardwoods. I would be sitting about 200 yards past him and 75 yards inside the hardwoods. It was obvious there were pigs in the area. Everywhere we went pigs had torn things up. As we walked we talked softly of plans for communi-
cating. We discussed several scenarios and how each would react to maximize our kill. It was getting light enough so no flashlight was needed but still too dark to identify game and shoot. We walked slowly and as quietly as possible to arrive at Dave’s stand. We were ahead of schedule. Dave began the climb into his stand. I pressed on
slowly, trying to be as quiet and stealthy as can be. About 40 yards from Dave I heard, “Psst, psst, psst.” Dave was trying to get my attention. At the same time I noticed movement in the food plot. It was still pretty dark but about 40 yards out I saw short dark forms moving around on a lighter back- ground. An occasional snort or grunt was audible. My first instinct was to freeze, and then slowly I moved
to a pine tree a few feet away. My intention was to use the pine tree as a shooting rest. An additional value of the tree was to keep something between the pigs and me. The pigs did not detect me so I patiently remained still and waited for light. Once one of the pigs came close to me and must have
gotten a whiff. It squealed and ran to the other pigs. The larger group seemed unconcerned and continued to feed. I waited for shooting light and hoped Dave could get
a shot off. I would start shooting after I heard the report of his rifle. In anticipation I looked through the scope and could make out good targets with my crosshair on the pig. I could shoot but was waiting for Dave. Maybe we could get a double or triple. As this was going through my mind one of the pigs
strayed from the pack, feeding in my direction. I had a good shot but was holding out for Dave to start shooting. He was an additional 40 yards from the pigs than I was and may not have had enough light to shoot. By now my crosshairs were on the pig and I waited for it to detect me. If I spooked them it pained me to think they could all run off without anyone getting a shot. Finally the pig was getting too close. The little Ruger is
against a tree and held on the center of mass. The trigger was a little stubborn but finally gave way as the report echoed off the surrounding woods. The wounded pig squealed loud enough for our hosts to hear it more than 400 yards away. We later learned they did a high five and enjoyed our success. There was a lot of grunting and snorting going on. Pigs
gathered near the center of the food plot. One pig parted from the group and approached the wounded one to investigate … not at all what I expected. I lined up on the second pig and sent another echo throughout the woods. Our hosts could also hear the squeals of the second pig. With that, the group of hogs departed from the field. Two sows of about 115 pounds each were unable to join them. Later I learned that Dave was about to drop the hammer on pig number two when I just happened to get the shot off first. Dave and I met and were laughing big time. The morn-
ing was just started so we decided to go to our respective stands and hope a new batch of pigs would come by. As I sat in my climber turkey buzzards located the two carcasses and zeroed in on them. They didn’t land but kept us entertained until lunchtime. At lunch we took the pigs back to the farm and deboned
them for the ride home. Our hosts got us ice and we filled the big cooler we brought with us. We ate lunch and headed back out to hunt. We wanted to spend as many hours hunting as possible. With the success of the morning we were excited about the evening’s hunt. By 2:00 we were back on stand.
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