HOG HUNTING WRAP-UP
By Bill Wilson, Wilson Combat
I hope you have enjoyed this series on the basics of hog hunting. To reiterate and summarize.
Hunt where there are hogs:
Fortunately, unlike deer, hogs leave a lot of signs that they are in the area, such as rooting, rubbing on cedar and pine trees, and wallows, so it's pretty easy to determine if they are in a specific area. In most areas where legal, hogs are drawn to you with a corm feeder.
Hunt when the hogs are out:
Hogs are not mid-day creatures. The best hunting hours are one hour before dark in the evening to an hour after sunrise in the morning.
Getting in position for the kill:
A hogs #1 survival instinct is its’ sense of smell, and you must approach hogs from downwind, they have no tolerance for human scent. Move slowly and quietly without making any sounds that are not natural to the hog's environment like metallic sounds. Have a cartridge chambered before you get close and take your rifle off safe quietly when you're ready to shoot.
Learn to shoot accurately from field positions:
There are no bench rests when you're out hunting and getting your rifle steady is critical for proper shot placement. Therefore, you must learn and practice shooting from field positions such as resting on a tree or learning to use bi-pod or tri-pod shooting sticks effectively. The only way to become proficient is to practice!
Killing hogs cleanly requires proper shot placement:
To kill a hog quickly and not have to go looking for it in a thicket requires you to hit the brain or sever the spine. Heart and lung shots will kill hogs 100 percent of the time, but 90 percent of the time, they will run, often into the nastiest thicket around. A shot placed behind the shoulder like you would on a White-tailed deer will almost always result in a non-recovered hog, there is simply no vitals there on a hog. The best shot is with the hog quartering to you and place the shot just forward of where the neck meets the shoulder with the second-best being a broadside shot and placing the bullet vertically centered at the front of the shoulder. Never shoot a hog behind the shoulder!
Appropriate cartridges for hog hunting:
I'm not too fond of anything under .30 caliber, but any of the following will do an excellent job on hogs if you place a superb bullet where it needs to be placed.
6.5 Grendel, 6.5 Creedmoor, .260 Rem., 6.5x55, 6.8 SPC, .270 Win., .280 Rem., 300 HAM’R, .300 Savage, .308 Win., .30-06 or anything larger.
However, most hog hunters prefer a semi-auto, so this narrows the choice down to the 6.5 Grendel, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.8 SPC, 300 HAM'R, or .308 Win.
Pick the right bullet:
Basically, there are two camps when it comes to bullet preference. The controlled expansion/deep penetration/high retained weight camp or the dramatic expansion/moderate penetration 70-80 percent retained weight camp. Both kill hogs well if properly placed, but after killing over 2000 hogs I've personally become a believer in bullets that give quick expansion and typically lose 20-30 percent of their original weight resulting in bullet pieces flying around inside the hog. I've found this bullet performance to kill hogs quicker. Good choices are Remington Core-Lokt, Hornady Interlock, SST or FTX, Speer HOT-COR, or Winchester Power Point. As to bullet weight, I'm not a big fan of any bullet weighing less than 110 grains. As one of my friends at Speer told me, "bullet mass is normally your friend when it comes to killing something".
Hog hunting gear:
To get started hog hunting, you only need a reliable and accurate rifle shooting a 6.5mm or larger bullet, a quality scope of 6X or more with a 40mm or larger objective, ammo, decent quality 7-10x binoculars, shooting sticks and propane lighter to check the wind direction.
If you get serious about hog hunting, you will eventually step up to night hunting gear. From personal experience, I use and can recommend Pulsar brand thermal optics.
Like anything, buy the best you can afford, and you will rarely regret it.