Rancho
Safari.com CatQuiver
DIRECT FROM MANUFACTURER ®
®
Packs, Field Blankets, Etc. FREE BROCHURE
But a big boar can be pretty tough,
especially when hunted and not just shot. In Europe any mature boar is considered a real trophy, and mature boars have learned that moonlit fi elds are best avoided. Consequently many of the big boars are taken on drives, where a fast-shooting, hard-hitting rifle is considered absolutely neces- sary. Every shooting range I’ve visited in Germany has a running-boar target setup, and not just for practice. Formal competitions are held year-round, and fi ercely contested. The guys from Sauer brought
along a running-boar target, and we got to practice on it between the morning and evening hunts. I did pretty well at it, partly because I spent a lot of time shooting running jackrabbits in my 20s. The Sauer 303s we had were all in .30- 06, a good cartridge for big boars, and unlike many autoloaders were extreme- ly accurate, with very clean-breaking, light triggers. I guessed the pull on the one I used at about two pounds, and was informed by Norbert Haussmann,
, Shaggie , Ghillie, P.O. Box 691 • Ramona, CA 92065 • 760-789-2094
the head of Sauer in San Antonio, that they keep the pulls between 2.2 and 2.5 pounds. We used two different factory loads, Federals with 150-grain Fusions and Hornadys with 165-grain Inter- bonds. Both shot well, and the accuracy and good triggers came in handy when my guide Bill and I fi nally did fi nd a trophy boar, late on the last morning of the hunt. We were hunting safari-style,
driving a ridge road between two broad, shallow draws, when I saw a lone black pig trotting through the mes- quite draw to our right. It didn’t take long to recognize it as a boar, either. Their shoulders grow tall and thick behind the long, wedge-shaped head, with the slim hindquarters forming a longer wedge in the rear. “Big boar!” I said, just before
Bill said the same thing. He braked the pickup and we quietly got out. Unfortunately the wind was just at the wrong angle, and the boar sniffed us and started running hard. I held well forward toward his nose at what I
estimated was close to 100 yards, and squeezed off a shot. There was the un- mistakable thunk of a solid chest hit, but the boar just speeded up. I shot twice more as he dodged through the brush, missing once and hitting a mesquite on the second. “Let’s go!” Bill said, and we
jumped into the pickup again. “I’ll try to cut him off!” We could see the boar fl ickering through the brush to the right of us, oddly enough angling closer to the road, and then he was in the open and running alongside the pickup, try- ing to run across the road in front of us. I had the muzzle of the .303 pointed out the open window, ready, and suddenly he was so close that it seemed possible to shoot while we were all moving. The boar bobbed up and down in the scope’s view from the bouncing of the pickup, but the reticle caught his shoulder for a moment and I pulled the trigger. The reaction was immediate and
startling: The boar’s nose hit the ground and he flipped end-for-end, ending up lying pointed back in the direction he’d come from, legs in the air. It took longer for Bill to brake the pickup, and when we looked back the boar was still lying there. I got out and walked back, the rifl e ready, and touched the boar’s rump with the muzzle. He was, as the head Munchkin said, really most sincerely dead. The Interbond had hit him per-
fectly through both shoulder blades and the spine. There was another bullet hole a few inches behind the shoulder from my fi rst shot, through the rear of the boar’s lungs. He would have died within minutes, but initially all the fi rst shot did was speed him up. His nose dive had broken off the
Trophy boars are judged on the length of their tusks, as well as body size and, sometimes, color. This boar has 2¾" of tusk showing above his gums, and weighed 245 pounds. The biggest Texas boar the author has ever heard of weighed 405 pounds on the accurate scales of a local meat cutting shop.
Page 36 July — September 2011
tusk on one side. Bill looked for it a little, but I didn’t care. The head of my California boar was in my kitchen back home, and one boar’s head is enough for this hunter’s lifetime — though I never will get tired of hunting them, or eating wild pork.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212