Monday till today I headed down to the Athens Ohio area to hunt Red and Gray Squirrels at a guys place I met online and have gotten togeather a numner of times to hunt
They will be eaten , but are frozen right now ....Tails will be turned into flies for bass and Blue Gills
His son was out running a trapping line when I got there
When he got home , he told us he had spotted a group of wild pigs feeding
So we switched gears and decided to hunt pigs
I had not only my 32 S&W Long rifle
But also a shotgun and a AK 47 that I had rebuilt from a cut down rifle , with a 30 MM Millet red dot on it
He told me YES it would work fine
So I loaded finished loading 4 , 30 round mags .... just in case the pigs didn't want to play nice
In 2 trucks with 4 ATV's in the back
We parked a ways away from the valley to not spook the pigs
When we got to the area his son had seen the pigs and it looked like someone had worked over large areas with a rototiller and we could here the pigs
Myself , my friend , his wife and a 14 year old son sort of hid along the small stream coming out of the valley
A steep rock wall was behind us and 50 or so yards of a mostly open area was in front of us
My friends 12... 13 year old son and 3 daughters ( about ) 8 , 16 and 18 had taken the 3 of the ATV's around to push the hogs to us from the other end
It seemed to take Hours , but I guess took 45 min for them to start
In short order we could here the pigs coming and got ready
About 10 min later we saw 2 sows and 9 young of the year pigs running our way .... not real fast
All the while looking for the kids that were behind them
I was given the first spot , then the son , then Mom and finally my friend
At about 10 yards in front of me and 30 yards to my right
I shot the first pig , a young of the year
Then everything went wild ... as the pigs went into overdive speed to get past us
Not exactly sure if I killed 3 or 4 pigs .... but I know I put a Lee 155 gr cast bullet into the head of one of the sows
Several of the pigs got shot several times and most of them we put a round in their heads to be sure they were dead
The son had a AR 15 as did the Mother ... I think 55 gr FMJ ammo
Dad played clean up with a 1100 shotgun with a 8 shot extended mag and OO buckshot
None of the pigs got away
They were able to get off the gravel road and drive within 50 yards of the creek running down the main valley
Making it easy to use the ATV's to transport the pigs about 300 yards to the trucks
It was funny to watch a 8 year old girl grab a about 100 lb pig by the leg and to try and pull it .... she was mad I took over and pulled it the 50 feet to a ATV
We all headed home , but 4 of the kids drove the ATV's cross country as we drove home on the road ( they call a thin strip of gravel a road in that area LOL )
3 of the young of the year pigs were dropped off to other people as we headed to his house
I then got a chance to help process wild pigs with someone that knew how to do it fast
In the right hands a SawsAll with a 12" metal cutting blade makes short work of cutting bones
Also I had to work fast , as they all knew how to cut up game to the right sized chunks for the freezer
2 - 60 or so old ladies from the next house also came over to help
In less than 3 hours we had all the pigs cleaned and cut up
They started mixing up brine to soak some of the meat before smoking
I think I brought home most of 1 sow as I was told they had most of the freezers full already and would give more away for Chirstmass presents
The other day I saw 30 or so more pigs while we were squirrel hunting
But I didn't think it would be a good idea of shooting a pig with the 32 S&W long at 100 yards
I was told the number of pigs in his area is increasing , even as they are killed and eaten by lots of people
John