That Pony don't play that game

 I wasn't sure what time the hogs would come out or if we would see any any at all.  My brother in law Mark Johnson was picking up our nephew Elias and we would try our luck at knocking down a hog, whether it be a small medium or large hog.   Of course safety always comes first so we all had some type of snake boots on just in case we stumbled across any.  Hopefully not.   One of the things we had to do was make sure the cattle were locked up in the front fields so they wouldn't wander into or near where we would be shooting.    We also attempted looked for the four horses but were unsuccessful so we would need to be on the lookout for them all night long.  

But it wasn't long before they would show up.   Mark and Elias were set up on the east side of the property and I was on the north side of the property.

My rifle, which is a Ruger .243 with a Nikon 10X50 scope, is sighted in for 200 yards and my field of view was just about 200 yards, so it should be an easy shot.   As the sun started to go down thats when the 3 horses and the pony started grazing through my area.   If the hogs or a coyote showed up now, there would be nothing I could do about it and I would just have to watch it until the horses and the pony left.  



The sun started setting and made for some awesome pictures but I also was checking the area for hogs and coyotes.   The horses worked their way towards the caliche road and started eating on the  corn and hog attractant (Hog Wild) and I was now using  night vision.  

Once darkness set in I could see a hog walk in under the barb wire and it also was eating the feed we hd set down.   The 3 horses didn't seem to care but apparently the pony didn't like that idea.   For 30 minutes I watched as the pony would take 3 or 4 steps like a in a charging manner, towards the hog and the hog would go back under the fence and come in from a different angle.   The horses would look at the two and kept eating.   At different times the hog was positioned in between all three horses and the pony would just look at it.   One one of the horses would move, as they ate, the pony would move in with its head down in a charging manner.   The hog eventually got tired and walked north into the neighbors field and several times stopped turned around and looked back at the caliche road where the food was at.   The pony never took its eyes off the hog and stood almost like in a challenging manner looking at the hog.   It was almost as if the pony was saying, don't come back or else.  

I watched as the hog traveled towards a small pond in the neighbors field which would put it  behind me to my left, in the field and could see the hog was walking to the fence line I was sitting next to.   I put the night vision scope down and grabbed my rifle to see if I could see anything since it was now 2100 hours.   Once I glanced through it and saw that in fact I could see real good I swing my rifle to the left along the fence and saw the hog come under the fence into the property I was in.  I followed the hog as it walked but still couldn't shoot since the horses were beyond the hog or directly behind it about 70 yards.   Anxiously I looked through the scope and once it walked to where the was nothing but trees behind it I pulled the trigger and heard one of my reloads hit that hog hard on the front right shoulder, and he was down about 30 yards from where I sat.    Until next time, stay safe.