KYLE’S FIRST BOAR HUNT

I already had a couple hunts under my belt for wild hogs. But my 11-year old son, Kyle was chomping at the bit. So I loaded the family and was off to sunny Florida. After a few days of fun in Orlando, we headed south to Lake Okeechobee in the pursuit of wild hogs.

We climbed into our blind around 5 am, and I immediately broke out my Thermacell. Thank God I decided to bring that, because bug repellent alone was not working against these bloodthirsty swamp critters. Within 5 minutes of firing up the Thermacell, would could actually hear the swarm buzzing outside the

blind. It’s hard to sit still when mosquitos are taking hunks of flesh out of you every 15 seconds.

At first light, a few whitetail deer milled past our blind. My son, used to big-bodied Illinois deer, chuckled at the small size of the Florida deer. We sat on stand for a few more hours, but no hogs were moving. We then started still hunting some palmettos groves and were able to roust out some pigs. I saw a flash of black 40 yards to my left. I swung my faithful Remington 870 Wingmaster, locked on behind the leg and cut loose a round. The medium-sized boar ran about another 80 yards and was done (the Federal copper sabot slug did it’s job). Kyle used a .223 Winchester and took a nice boar as well. I decided to use my 12-guage slug gun (that I use for deer hunting) as my weapon of choice. I’m accurate at close range, fast moving targets. And the Federal Sabots pack a mean punch, just what is needed on the tough hides of wild hogs.

We packed out the meat, and de-boned it all for the flight home. We made italian sausage, pork loins on the grill and my favorite- smoked boar BBQ! Definitely goin back.