Atchman2
Well-Known Member
My friend Stanley allows me to be one of the ten non-family people to shoot hogs on his property. His land butts up the Royal Blue Unit and in fact his property line has TWRA signs on it in some places.
I went up there yesterday firstly to rescue my feeder. A bear has had its way with it several times now and has in fact broken the metal band that holds the legs. While it is still standing it isn't in good shape. Stanley thinks he can fix the band so I left it for him to try. When I removed the feeder I dumped the leftover corn on the ground along with some Kool Aid. There has been two BIG BOARS coming in and now a couple of sows with piglets. All of them need to go!
Across the river there is a large field. While it holds nothing special for the hogs, they seem to enjoy destroying it. I just got a new Moultrie feeder that I am trying over there. I like it because I don't need a ladder to fill it. I have some large metal poles I bought at Rural King to hold it down. They are nice as they are made out of re-bar and have loops on them. Well the loops didn't matter because I forgot my pliers and had no way to cut the wire.
On the other hand I did have a roll of duct tape! Since Stanley wasn't there and my wheelers were in Knoxville, I had to carry the stuff across the river with my hip waders. Let me tell you that current is not to be messed with! It doesn't take much especially carrying 50 lb bags of corn on top of your head!
With that done, I settled down with my rifle to try and sight it in. I have a Sightmark Photon and it is very hard to sight in. Everything is backwards! They say "one shot" zero that is junk. I even bought a new laser boresighter to help. Well it didn't. I think the laser beam is too bright for a NV scope. What I ended up doing was clamping the rifle down and just looking down the barrel with the bolt out. It took me a couple of shots to get it where I wanted it, but it is ready now. It isn't perfect, but considering I wasn't using a bench and I was REALLY COLD I think it is going to be fine for hog hunting. It was grouping nicely at 50 yards at less than an inch.
I had taken the night vision off of my BAR. I don't think there is any use in having the NV on a semi-automatic rifle in the woods. I never seem to get off a second shot. Between the flash and the smoke it is hard to get in a second shot, so I've put the NV scope over on my Savage Axis .308.
The last thing I did was to check my old feeder location one more time for anything I may have left and then I crossed the river again. Over there is the area that directly connects to the state land. I had placed a camera over there with some corn in front of it to see if there were any animals on that part of the property. Well I found out that I've been hunting the wrong side! Deer, coyotes, LOTS OF TURKEYS, and of course pigs out the wazoo. Once the other feeder is repaired it is going over there. The landowner told me that we would clear some trees so we can shoot across the river. That is welcome to me because while that river isn't super wide, it is swift, so going across isn't the most fun. I am also going to have to start bringing up my four wheeler so I can get the hogs back across if I shoot one.
The nice thing is I think if my new Moultrie Feeder does what I think it does I can actually sit in my Dodge Durango and shoot from it! That is a LOT warmer than sitting one the ground.
I went up there yesterday firstly to rescue my feeder. A bear has had its way with it several times now and has in fact broken the metal band that holds the legs. While it is still standing it isn't in good shape. Stanley thinks he can fix the band so I left it for him to try. When I removed the feeder I dumped the leftover corn on the ground along with some Kool Aid. There has been two BIG BOARS coming in and now a couple of sows with piglets. All of them need to go!
Across the river there is a large field. While it holds nothing special for the hogs, they seem to enjoy destroying it. I just got a new Moultrie feeder that I am trying over there. I like it because I don't need a ladder to fill it. I have some large metal poles I bought at Rural King to hold it down. They are nice as they are made out of re-bar and have loops on them. Well the loops didn't matter because I forgot my pliers and had no way to cut the wire.
On the other hand I did have a roll of duct tape! Since Stanley wasn't there and my wheelers were in Knoxville, I had to carry the stuff across the river with my hip waders. Let me tell you that current is not to be messed with! It doesn't take much especially carrying 50 lb bags of corn on top of your head! With that done, I settled down with my rifle to try and sight it in. I have a Sightmark Photon and it is very hard to sight in. Everything is backwards! They say "one shot" zero that is junk. I even bought a new laser boresighter to help. Well it didn't. I think the laser beam is too bright for a NV scope. What I ended up doing was clamping the rifle down and just looking down the barrel with the bolt out. It took me a couple of shots to get it where I wanted it, but it is ready now. It isn't perfect, but considering I wasn't using a bench and I was REALLY COLD I think it is going to be fine for hog hunting. It was grouping nicely at 50 yards at less than an inch.
I had taken the night vision off of my BAR. I don't think there is any use in having the NV on a semi-automatic rifle in the woods. I never seem to get off a second shot. Between the flash and the smoke it is hard to get in a second shot, so I've put the NV scope over on my Savage Axis .308.
The last thing I did was to check my old feeder location one more time for anything I may have left and then I crossed the river again. Over there is the area that directly connects to the state land. I had placed a camera over there with some corn in front of it to see if there were any animals on that part of the property. Well I found out that I've been hunting the wrong side! Deer, coyotes, LOTS OF TURKEYS, and of course pigs out the wazoo. Once the other feeder is repaired it is going over there. The landowner told me that we would clear some trees so we can shoot across the river. That is welcome to me because while that river isn't super wide, it is swift, so going across isn't the most fun. I am also going to have to start bringing up my four wheeler so I can get the hogs back across if I shoot one.
The nice thing is I think if my new Moultrie Feeder does what I think it does I can actually sit in my Dodge Durango and shoot from it! That is a LOT warmer than sitting one the ground.
