A hog hunter in North Texas killed the most important pig he’s ever seen from a cornfield not removed from the Oklahoma border. It took Dakota Landers two makes an attempt and somewhat assist from his buddies, however he finally dropped the 350-pound boar underneath the quilt of darkness on Aug. 18.
Landers tells Out of doors Life that late summer time has at all times been his favourite time to chase wild pigs close to his dwelling in Fannin County. That is when farmers are slicing corn, soybeans, and different crops. For all of the hogs within the space which have been mendacity low and hiding from the summer time solar, all these combines and threshers may as properly be diesel-powered dinner bells.
“I spend lots of time driving round scouting” Landers says. “I’m not even essentially on the lookout for animals. I’m simply testing all of the fields which can be being reduce, and if I see a farmer in a kind of fields, I’ll drive up there and ask him if I can come again after darkish and hunt.”
9 instances out of 10, the farmers are very happy to oblige, Landers says. That’s as a result of, in a state that’s dwelling to a minimum of 1.5 million wild hogs, farmers want all the assistance they will get today. Although research have proven that large-scale trapping is way and away the simplest technique for controlling feral pig populations, a keen hunter with a rifle and thermal scope may also assist reduce down on the quantity of crop harm that hogs trigger domestically.
So after he obtained permission to hunt a brand new area final Monday, Landers says he was driving by after darkish on Tuesday night when he stopped to offer it a glance.
“Positive sufficient, there’s this pig standing in the midst of the sector,” he says. “And I might inform by means of the thermal that he was big.”
Try No. 1
Landers hopped out of the truck, however as he labored his manner across the area and obtained inside vary of the pig, he realized he had made a giant mistake. He had his gun in hand—a Colt Competitors AR-style rifle chambered in 5.56 and fitted with a Sig Sauer thermal reflex sight—however because it had been driving alongside within the automobile with him, there wasn’t a spherical within the chamber but.
Man, I shoulda racked it up by the truck, Landers thought to himself as he stood roughly 60 yards away from the hog. Pulling again on the bolt as slowly and quietly as he presumably might, he tried to sneak one within the chamber, however when he took purpose and pulled the set off, all he heard was a click on. When he racked a brand new spherical in, the large hog busted him. The pig took off, working down right into a creek backside and out of sight.
“I knew he wasn’t gonna go far, so I stated screw it. I’ll wait and let him settle down for a pair days,” Landers says. He already had a plan in thoughts. He simply wanted reinforcements.
Try No. 2
By Thursday, Landers had recruited two of his buddies, Nathan Stringer and Ryan Nichols, and the three of them headed again to the farmer’s area that night. They arrived about half-hour earlier than sunset and noticed the identical pig that Landers had spooked off two nights earlier than. The boar was standing out within the open, chowing down on corn, so the hunters bided their time and waited for darkness to fall.
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“This pig was spooky, and he was sensible,” Landers says. “We stayed and watched him work throughout the sector, however then a deer got here strolling down the tree line. The pig noticed the deer and peeled out of there, working off into the woods once more.”
Nicely after 9 p.m., the three returned to the sector when it was pitch black. Scanning with thermal scopes, they walked into the sector and shortly noticed the large hog once more.
“He was working his approach to the upwind facet, so we knew he wasn’t gonna odor or hear us,” Landers explains. “After they’re consuming corn like that, they’re making a lot noise chomping and chewing that they’re not even paying consideration.”
The pig was nonetheless oblivious as Landers and his two buddies crept inside taking pictures vary. Steadying his rifle on the taking pictures sticks, Landers instructed them to observe up on his shot as quickly as he fired.
“As quickly as I did it was increase, increase,” he says. “The pig by no means even moved.”
Strolling up on the lifeless boar, the three hunters couldn’t consider how huge he was. They’d killed huge hogs earlier than—as much as 300 kilos by Landers’ estimations—however this was simply the most important one any of them had ever seen in individual. After struggling to elevate the pig onto the tailgate of Landers’ pickup, they headed for his dad’s storage, the place he saved a fine-tuned scale that he used to weigh racecars. Placing the hog on the dimensions, it registered 352 kilos.
“We actually couldn’t consider it. The farmer was blown away too,” Landers says. “350 kilos may not sound that loopy for a pig, however they not often attain 300 kilos up right here. It’s sort of like a 200-inch whitetail. It takes quite a bit for a pig to develop to that dimension—particularly with all of the rednecks down right here in Texas—and so they don’t get that huge with out being sensible.”
Landers says he plans to get a Euro mount of the boar’s cranium. And also you higher consider he’ll be reaching out to extra farmers within the county earlier than harvest season is finished.
