HOG WILD, COAST TO COAST
It was spring gobbler season in Georgia, a beautiful sunny afternoon, but I wasn’t hunting turkeys. Just before sunset I saw movement on the edge of the woods as three hogs stepped carefully into the food plot. That’s what I was there for, so I put my binocular aside and slowly reached for the rifle. All three were red, nice size but no giants. Crosshair on the shoulder of the largest hog, I pressed the trigger as soon as it stopped. I expected the animal to drop, but you never know with pigs. It ran down the field as if nothing had happened. I was just about to fire again when it rolled into the ripening grain.
Another spring day several thousand miles west, Chad Wiebe and I jumped a big boar in tall, sloping barley. The hog went through the stalks like a torpedo, but we didn’t get another glimpse until he was across a steep bottom and working his way up the next ridge through thick wild mustard. I was on sticks, waiting him out, a shot looking unlikely. Then, just below the crest, he slowed and the mustard thinned. I held forward at the top of the shoulder, and at the shot he vanished into the yellow flowers. He was probably my best California boar … and a shot I’d just as soon
