And again a wild boar down

[Holland&Holland]

Last thursday i was asked to go out for wild boar at a new "feeding"area. We throw about 1 kilo of corn every day at particular spots at high seats in the woods to attract the wild boar. The energy the animal gets from this is very limited and therefore it is not really feeding. In the old days we could feed it little chickens, left over meat from the butchers etc. Pigs liked that a lot but we can not feed animal produce any more.

This spot is a fairly new one. I climbed up the ladder at 18.00 hours. I noticed that the high seat is placed to close to the feeding area to my likening. You do not want to sit up close because of the smell and noise, not to far away because you shoot mostly at night and you cannot use nightvision on the rifle. So all on straight optics . Distance about 25 meters, i like it to be 30-40 meters.

After an hour two foxes came by. They cannot be shot either because the huntingrights are leased from the State Forestry Commision and they do not allow foxes to be shot (as roedeer strangly). At 19.30 a roedoe and roecalf came nibbling. After 5 minutes made a little noise to chase them away. Do not want that they eat my little corn that i intended for the wild boar.

Then three badgers came and started nibbling. These are not easily scared and i thought better keep still this time and hope the boar come sooner then the corn is eaten. At about 21.00 a wild boar came from cover. It was very cautious. Luckily i had cleverly thrown a hand or two of corn into the cover. This way the boar eats here first and settles down before breaking cover and enter the feeding area which is more open. You want moonlight shining over it to have some vision. After 10 minutes it finaly started eating in the open area. Looked closely and saw it was a single female, possible two years. I saw no piglets or big long tits which can be a sign she has piglets (sorry for the description ). Decided to shoot it. Then in the corner of my eye i saw another wild boar coming over. This was a piglet. It belonged to a group of pigs that i then heard breaking through cover. Hmmm piglet is better then the sow. But the lead sow of the other group was an experienced one and she grunted at her piglet from the thick cover. This made the little sow on the feeding spot also nervous and it wanted to leave. I thougth now or never and quickly aimed and shot. Because of the blast i could not see it fall over. I heard a lot of breaking in the cover and figured i hit it, maybe wounding it. I waited 10 minutes and climbed down to look for blood trail. No need because on the feeding spot, behind a tree, it layed dead. Nice shot to the heart.

Turned out to be a small sow of 40 kilo's. She did not have tits with milk (so no piglets) and was not carrying unborn piglets. Good cull sow !

Edited December 21, 2008 by Holland&Holland

[jojusa]

Nice shooting and another great write up.

[Tis1979]

Fantastic write up really enjoyed reading it. Keep up the good work. Tis

[Pedro]

Well done H&H

 

I was reading in the paper that wild boar are becoming a real problem in Germany after a massive population growth - good luck with the cull.

 

P.

[jinxy72]

nice shooting and good reading too must admit though never ate wild boar ( just never had the chance ) ... suppose it tastes like any other pig?