Lemonaid Wrote:Nice! A question about tactics when encountering a sounder of hogs. If you are going for maximum pest reduction, what determines which hog gets shot first, second, third + , Farthest away first? pack leader first? How do the tactics change if there are multiple shooters?
Everybody does things differently. Generally speaking, shooters go for the largest hog or hogs, first, assuming they have the best shot at those hogs. Pack leader? You mean the proverbial "lead sow" and "lead boars" or "dominant boars" that people often talk about? I can't say that I ever identified a lead sow except in small groups and identifying the one that is obviously much bigger and older. It seems like just about everybody who has hunted sounders more than once has developed the Shining to know how to identify the lead sow of a group when there are many sows present. I personally think they are making it up or fooling themselves. Without watching a group over a prolonged period of time and identifying who is communicating what, figuring out which is actually the matron of the group is not easy unless you simply go by size and size does not always determine leadership.
When I have asked people who claim to shoot the lead sows first how they knew it was the lead sow, the typical answers I get are "It was the biggest" or that "It was the one in charge." Hogs don't wear rank, so I am not sure how they were determining it was in charge, LOL. When I ask how they know it was in charge, it is because it was the biggest or because they saw it chase another hog...again, not diagnostic of being the group's leader.
There are no lead boars, though people have identified them on YouTube, apparently failing to understand that boars do not lead sounders and are usually kicked out of sounders as they reach maturity. If you see a mature boar with a sounder, it is a visitor that is after a sow or sows that are coming into heat.
Some people will claim to have shot the "dominant boar" which is sometimes described as the "dominant boar in the area." This is impressive. Generally speaking, people have no idea exactly how many animals are in an area. All they know, really, is what is going on with hogs directly in front of them. Again, they assume that whatever boar is biggest that is seen is necessary dominant and that is not always the case.
Hunting alone, opening shot tends to be on the largest hog, or at least that is the plan, sometimes it is on the largest sow as the plan, but due to livestock, wind, movement of the hogs, etc., that plan often morphs into shooting the biggest readily available hog that is safe to shoot. Once in a while, I will try shooting a hog in the back in hopes that they run toward me. It works once in a while. More often, it fails. Sometimes hogs do seem to run from the sound of impact, but which way they run can be problematic. More often than not, when a hog runs, it runs in the direction it is facing at the time of the shot. When there is a group, they can run in 20 different directions before most will turn and the group coalesce into running in a given direction which is often, but not always, the direction from which they originally came (where they were previously safe, is the theory).
Sometimes, I will specifically target a sentinel hog as my opening shot. This may or may not be a larger hog. A sentinel hog is any hog that is being particularly security conscious. This is identified by a hog stopping an listening (standing very still) and/or regularly sampling the air by raising up its nose. With a sounder, you may notice no sentinel hogs when they feel safe in an area. If they don't feel very safe at all, you may see multiple hogs going through the security process of checking out things. It is not uncommon to have one hog that you notice being particularly vigilant.
Multiple shooters, many strategies. You would be amazed how many times you get multiple shooters and if you don't have everyone specified on their own particular hog, they will all end up shooting at the same hog. With two shooters, we often either identify specific hogs (regardless of position and how they move during the countdown) or identify particular sides. The usual thing that I do with one partner is that we each take a larger hog off of the ends, with the shooter on the left shooting a left side hog and the shooter on the right shooting a right side hog. If the hogs move during the countdown and you lose the hog you wanted to shoot, you let it go and shoot whatever in on your side. If there is a sounder with a single sow and then piglets, the usual plan is for one shooter to take the sow and the other shooter to shoot any of the piglets on the opening shot.
Three shooters, we do left, right and center most of the time, sometimes with the center shooter getting to call whatever the largest hog is, regardless of location and the other two shooters shoot anything on their ends other than the largest hog. If I am on an end with 3 shooters, I will often take the one hog farthest over on my side regardless of size. That way I am sure not to be in conflict with the middle shooter.
WHENEVER engaging with multiple shooters, we have defined rules of fire and limits on fields of fire. It isn't always fair, but if you are on the left side and all the hogs run right, you may get one shot or two and no longer have a safe field of fire lest your rifle crosses too close in front of the guy to your right. Your options are to stay still and look for returning runners or to move to a new position.
NO shooter moves without shouting out that they are moving and where they are moving. If I am hunting with Ben on my right and the hogs run right, when I lose my field of fire, I will shout MOVING RIGHT, BEHIND YOU, ON YOUR RIGHT as I move. To move right, I will pivot left to keep my rifle to keep from scanning my partner as I move to the right. If I am in the middle and move, I am communicating what I am doing and moving the with muzzle pointed straight down when I turn.
Once the shooting starts, any and every hog is a target. You shoot whatever hog or hogs that present the best opportunity at the moment that you feel safe shooting. That may involve shooting big hogs or little hogs. You may shoot a hog wounded by another shooter. Once the shooting starts, the goal is to down as many hogs as quickly as you can do so safely.
The bottom line here is the old adage that no plan survives first contact. The hogs rarely cooperate, so that the best you can hope for is that everybody makes a good opening first shot. After that, movement of the hogs will often dictate shot opportunities.
Note, it is often more prudent to slow fire on moving hogs and choose your shots wisely as opposed to the commonly seen fast fire blasting away. Firing without having an intended target lined up in the sights is at best very risky and at worst a nightmare of bullets striking unintended things down range. Better to shoot 3 hogs out of a sounder of 30 than to shoot 10 hogs and the radiator of your truck, or the landowner's livestock, house, tractor, barn, etc.
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I mentioned sentinel hogs above. There are also scouts, which are often younger hogs in a sounder. Say you have a feeder set up in a clearing and you have a small hog come in to it. If you don't shoot it, you may see it eat a few bites and then run off, only to have a whole sounder appear a few minutes later. Sometimes you will see piglets come running in to a clearing and be present a few minutes before any adults enter the clearing. It gives the impression that the adults are waiting to see if things are safe or not.
99% of the time lone hogs that you are able to observe for a while (not just briefly seen scouts) are going to be boars. Sows tend to remain with sounders except for sows that are pregnant and nesting (they do start to nest just before giving birth [farrowing]) or postnatal and having just farrowed in the last few days. After the piglets are a few days old, the sow and the piglets will rejoin her sounder.
I mentioned that boars do not lead sounders and that is technically correct, although once in a while you may come across small bachelor groups of boars, usually litter mates that have grown old enough that they have been kicked out of the sounder, but are still remaining attached to one another. Occasionally, you may find doubles or triples of boars hanging out together. As they age, they will undoubtedly separate and become loners.
