The Author goes wild boar hunting on a 600 acre hunting camp about 7 miles south of Green Cove Springs with friends Joe and Mike.

We left for the hunting camp at around 4:45 a.m. after meeting at Joe's house and packing our weapons, equipment and cigarettes into Mike's 4x4 F-150 pickup truck. We smoked a few cigarettes to make sure that any game downwind of us would not only smell our presence, but might actually even walk up and ask to bum one having been able to smell our specific brands on us. Mike took a 12 gauge auto shotgun and a pack of regular filtered, Joe took a 12 gauge auto shotgun and curiously a Lee Enfield No. 4. .303 British rifle, but quickly realizing the impracticality of its heavy weight on a hunt he didn't end up carrying it that I saw. I think he was smoking generics. I took a Mossberg 535 ATS 12 gauge pump shotgun loaded with 5+1 round chambered of 2 3/4" 00 (“double-ought”) buckshot for short to medium range shots and a Savage model 116 .300 Winchester Magnum with a 3-9x30mm duplex crosshair scope and spring folding bipod for long range/sniping shots loaded with 3+1 rounds of 180 grain Winchester Supreme Ballistic Silvertips giving me a long effective range). I was prepared for sniping shots being dressed in a full body ghillie suit and was planning to lay in wait near a creek that runs through the hunting camp with two packs of Marlboro reds. Mike wasn't heavily camouflaged being mainly concerned with setting up a ground blind and a new tree stand he had just purchased for deer season starting November 8th and Joe was pretty casually dressed also, mainly planning to help Mike set up the blind and stand. By way of comparison, this left me looking like an escaped lunatic who was prepared for World War III. This amused me immensely and added an extra spring to my step. I might have even pulled down my face mask and uttered, "Dirka-dirka, Muhammad, Jihad!" a couple of times, but I digress.
After about a 40 minute ride to the hunting camp which Mike belongs to we arrived in plenty of time to be positioned for an ambush near a spot that had been previously baited by Mike besides one of the dirt roads around the perimeter of the camp. We were in position before dawn, which broke at 6:04 a.m. Alas, as daylight came, we saw no game. By 6:06 a.m. we were lighting cigarettes and examining the site. We walked to the bait pile and discovered that the full kernel feed corn had been eaten, about 40 lbs (18 kg) worth. There were either some contented deer or boar around, or one amazingly fat bunny rabbit stuck upside-down trying to crawl back into his hole who was experiencing the truth in the expression that "it" really does flow downhill. We saw neither.
 
The majority of the 600 acres of the camp is dense trees, moderate underbrush, with a little swampland, which makes movement, especially silent movement, painstakingly slow. When moving silently it is also a good idea to think especially hard about where you are placing your feet if you want to avoid surprising a rattlesnake, who tend to bite when surprised. The camp is circled by a dirt road, and paths are just wide enough for a four wheel drive vehicle to travel to several spots deep inside the camp to avoid having to leg it everywhere. The paths are narrow so any vehicle will end up being scratched up by the dense branches, so you can't be squeamish about your paint job. Florida hunting law is such that shots cannot be fired from a moving vehicle with the ignition turned on, something reserved purely for urban neighborhoods, so while traversing the camp we had our weapons pointed out the windows and were braced for rapid braking in case food suddenly presented itself and asked to be shot.

Having had no success with our dawn ambush, we drove through to several previously baited spots, and saw plenty of tracks for deer and boar, but didn't see or hear any movement. For this typical Florida environment, the best practice is to walk stepping as quietly as possible for several yards, then stop to listen, then repeat. It's a technique that is very similar to sneaking into one's own house after being out drinking late with the wife laying in bed, but not quite as dangerous. While Mike and Joe scouted off following the creek I set up an ambush spot high on a creek bank with around 180 degrees of tactical view, and about 40 of those degrees presenting clear shot paths out to a maximum of around 60 yards, with a steep 35 degree down angle. It was around 90F (32C), no discernable wind except for Joe who'd had eggs for breakfast, and around 78% humidity. I had approximately a pack and a half of Marlboros. Ranges are almost exclusively eyeballed while hunting in the Florida woods, rare are the shots far enough for the ballistic path of the bullet to drop far enough to require a laser rangefinder to calculate compensation and adjust scope clicks. I had my Savage 116 scoped in for zero at 100 yards, and with the ballistic path at this range at most being 1.5" high there was no advantage in clicking in an adjustment. It was essentially impossible to miss at such close distance, especially since I was concealed, which gave me the luxury of being able to take my shot at will in-between cigarette drags. All I really needed was a beer for the ambush position to be complete, but we were being good citizens and would only be drinking after handling firearms, not during, or even before this particular time.

Fully covered in my ghillie suit, save for an open slit for my eyes and cigarette, I lay in wait. And waved off bloody mosquitoes. And more mosquitoes. And more. I had neglected to spray on any DEET and I had now been demoted from hunter, to prey. My suit was full body coverage, but being Florida I had made certain it was breathable mesh under the leafing to avoid cooking myself and that breathable mesh was quite adequate for a mosquito to penetrate where it made contact with my skin. Blast. The greatest plans can be compromised by the tiniest of details. This is why soldiers are taught by routine, so that the little details become so ingrained that they are done without even thinking about them, even when acting in a hurry. Although a strong believer in routine in my haste and enthusiasm to get on the hunt I had skipped spraying myself in bug repellent and it was now coming back to haunt me with a fury. After around eight bites from mosquitoes that seemed at the time to be large enough to appear in the next Jurassic Park movie, I compromised my position and headed back to the truck some quarter of a mile away to spray up and smoke up. I returned to my spot but the itching from the bites already sustained took my enthusiasm down a notch, and I held the position for only another half hour or so before heading back to the truck to see what Mike and Joe had gotten up to. They had followed the creek "a mile or two" (how can you not know which?) and had seen many fresh tracks of deer, boar and turkey, but did not see any actual game. After making the rounds to a few other spots and seeing no game, time, it was decided, to set up the blind and the tree stand.

The ground blind Mike had bought was quickly assembled by the three of us, and although already nicely camouflaged we covered it with palm fronds and cut brush to make it especially concealed. It had a clear linear view of a feeding station about 30 yards away, which will make it almost like shooting into a refrigerator at a pile of steaks and sausage. The inside of the blind was plenty large enough for a couple of chairs, a beer cooler, and a small table for an ashtray and to set your beers on while shooting. Sodas, I mean. With the stand finished, I was walking casually around the perimeter of the stand site. We had made a lot of noise setting up the stand so I was not expecting any game to be in the area, so it was much to my surprise that my eye caught movement in the brush. Elated, I was thinking that it might be nudists, but focusing in, I saw the rapid movement of 3 to 4 boars in dense brush out at about 50 yards, and at a down angle toward the creek. Although caught unprepared I flipped off the safety on my shotgun which already had a shell chambered and broke into a full sprint as close to a 45 degree lead angle to their travel path as I could manage through the thick tree and ground coverage. I stopped for a second and fired off a shot of 00 buck and immediately went back to full sprint. I saw one of them stopped, possibly from the first shot trying to figure out where the sound had come from, so I took aim again. Since they had been moving also I was still about 45-50 yards out. I fired broadside and he disappeared from site. I was sure I’d hit him. There was no squeal, but that would just mean it was an instantly fatal shot. 00 buckshot contains eight pellets, each .33” (8.4mm) in diameter so a veritable hail of lead was upon said piggy. Certainly he must have succumbed. Thinking him down, and my dinner plate certain, I walked to find where he lay, taking the opportunity to breathe and for my heart rate to lower back down to double digits. I couldn’t find him. Mike and Joe, upon seeing me break into sprint like a madman knew I had been on the hunt and were not far behind me at this point, and were helping me find where my prey had fallen. We looked. And looked. No carcass to be found. Okay, he’d survived, that meant the hunt was still on, time to find the blood trail. We looked. And looked. No blood trail, in fact no evidence at all that I’d even hit him. I had gotten off two shots at what must have been 125 to 150 lbs boar during my mad sprint through the trees, at what was a practical distance for a shotgun considering my practiced aim at the trap range, and yet no bounty. I was confused, I should be looking at a trail of blood at least, if not at a pile of future pork chops, bacon and sausage.

I started to think about what could have gone wrong. I’m a good shot with my 12 gauge, shooting clay pigeons at the trap range with at least a 90% kill ratio even on bad days. With two shots, I shouldn’t have missed. I make rapid shots at moving targets all the time at the trap range. The trap range. Where I put a wide dispersal choke into my shotgun at the trap range. I shoot the clays with a Modified or Improved Cylinder choke at the trap range. Dang it, did I not change out the choke with a Full choke after leaving the trap range and before coming hunting? Nope. Back to the little details again, it’s the little details that will come back to bite you. Taking a shot with a choke wide enough that it is intended for only 25-35 yards at game which is out at closer to 50 yards, while pumped with adrenaline and not drawing a steady bead on the target, and shooting at a down angle through moderate brush coverage, together all of these little things had cumulatively conspired together to take away from me what would have been a respectably plump pile of piggly wiggly.

If I had stopped to think for a second, instead of launching into my initial sprint, foaming at the mouth with bloodlust like a lawyer during a divorce, I would have realized that what I should have done was dropped the shotgun and unslung my .300 Win Mag rifle that was on my shoulder the whole time. Then I could have taken careful aim through the scope, put the crosshairs right over his lungs, fired off a round, and we would have been hauling him off to the cleaning tree instead of traipsing through the brush looking for said absentee pork chops.

Lesson learned. I am reminded, as I have been before, that reacting too quickly without taking just a moment to think and make sure that all of my ducks are in a row can result in disaster. If only for a few seconds of rational though, I would have shot that boar. If only for a few seconds of rational thought, I'd have never woken up next to a fat chick after going out drinking. Speed is not everything, sometimes all it takes is just the extra few seconds to make sure that what you are about to do is indeed the best approach. Forgetting this lesson, in my adrenaline pumped hasted, resulted in the final score …

Piggies: 1 - The Great Hunter: 0.

But I'm getting ready for the rematch, oh yes. Next time I'll be taking an assault rifle and a few hand rolled Nicaraguan cigars. Bring it on Porky!