{"id":29764,"date":"2025-05-08T10:18:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T17:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=29764"},"modified":"2025-05-08T14:38:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T21:38:06","slug":"el-puerco-times-two-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/05\/08\/el-puerco-times-two-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"El Puerco Times Two: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

It had been way too long since I hunted pig, and that was a character flaw I aimed to correct.\u00a0 Baja John immediately said “Hell, yeah” when I asked if he wanted to join me on an Arizona pig hunt, and it was game on.\u00a0 I’ve known John for half my life, and that means I’ve known him for a long time.\u00a0 We’ve done a lot of trips through Mexico and elsewhere on our motorcycles.\u00a0 We know how to have fun.<\/p>\n

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My Ruger No. 1 in .30 06. It’s a long time favorite. I mounted a 4X Redfield the year I bought the Ruger, and it’s never left the rifle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Getting ready for the hunt was nearly as much fun as the hunt itself.\u00a0 I knew I’d be bringing my 200th Year .30 06 Ruger No. 1A with me.\u00a0 It’s a rifle I’ve owned and hunted with for 50 years.\u00a0 You’ve read about it before here on the ExhaustNotes blog.\u00a0 On a previous hunt, I used Hornady’s 150 grain jacketed softpoint bullet in my Model 70 Winchester and it worked well.\u00a0 I had not developed a load with that bullet for the Ruger, though, so I set about doing that.\u00a0 The secret sauce was 51.0 grains of IMR 4064, which gave an average velocity of 2869.3 feet per second (with a tiny 14.1 feet per second standard deviation) and great accuracy.\u00a0 The load was surprisingly fast for the Ruger’s 22-inch barrel; the No. 1 shot this load at the same velocity as my Weatherby’s 26-inch barrel.<\/p>\n

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A week before the hunt, I checked the Ruger No. 1’s zero at 100 yards. The first shot from a cold and oiled barrel was a scosh high; the next two were right on the money. The rifle was ready.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I knew I needed binoculars, which I already had, and a way to carry ammo (which I didn’t have).\u00a0 I found a cool belt-mounted ammo pouch on Amazon; the next day it was delivered to my home.<\/p>\n

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A cool little belt-mounted ammo pouch. It costs $8 on Amazon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had everything I needed; I loaded the Subie and pointed it east.\u00a0 We would hunt on the Dunton Ranch, about 325 miles away in Arizona.\u00a0 The weather was going to be a crapshoot.\u00a0 Everyone was predicting rain, and they were right.\u00a0 We would be lucky, though.\u00a0 It would be overcast and rain a lot, but not while we were in the field.<\/p>\n

My six-hour ride under gray skies to Kingman was pleasant.\u00a0 It rained a bit, but it stopped just before I reached Kingman.\u00a0 Sirius XM blasted ’50s hits the entire way.<\/p>\n

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On the road to the Dunton ranch. I had a travel mug full of coffee Sue had prepared for me. I enjoyed the drive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I arrived at the Ranch, Tom (our guide) met me.\u00a0 John wouldn’t be getting in until later that evening.\u00a0 Tom asked if I wanted to hunt that afternoon, before Baja John arrived.\u00a0 You bet, I said, and we were off.<\/p>\n

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Ossabaw hogs in Arizona.\u00a0 They are an even-tempered pig.\u00a0 They are what Tom calls “meat pigs.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scott Dunton keeps his ranch stocked with at least three flavors of hog, including Russians and Ossabaw pigs.\u00a0 I had not seen a Russian boar on my last hunt, and I would not see one on this hunt, but that’s okay.\u00a0 It’s good to set goals in life, and one of my goals is to someday get a Russian boar.\u00a0 It didn’t happen on my Dunton Ranch pig hunt a decade ago, and it wouldn’t happen on this trip, but we started seeing Ossabaws almost immediately.\u00a0\u00a0Wikipedia tells us that the Ossabaw pigs are descendants of feral hogs on Ossabaw Island, Georgia.\u00a0 \u00a0The Ossabaws were originally released on that island by Spanish explorers in the 16th century.\u00a0 Imagine that.<\/p>\n

Tom and I set out and like I said above, we saw Ossabaws fairly quickly.\u00a0 I told Tom that I really wanted to get a Russian.\u00a0 “They’re smaller, they’re harder to find, they’re nocturnal, and they’re mean,” Tom said.\u00a0 “Some boys out here last week got a nice one.”\u00a0 He told me he could set me up in a blind, but the odds of seeing a Russian were low.<\/p>\n

A while later, we came upon a group of Ossabaws.\u00a0 Tom had a rangefinder and he scoped the distance at 117 yards.\u00a0 “What do you think?” he asked.<\/p>\n

My mind was racing.\u00a0 I started thinking about Mike Wolfe on American Pickers.\u00a0 He often says the time to buy something is when you see it.\u00a0 You don’t know if you’ll ever see it again.\u00a0 I thought it would be cool to have John there when I shot a pig, but I didn’t know if we would see any later.\u00a0 I wanted a Russian; these were Ossabaws.\u00a0 But they were there.\u00a0 I could hear Mike Wolfe:\u00a0 The time to shoot a pig is when you see one.\u00a0 “Can I shoot one of these and then take a Russian if we see one later?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“You can do whatever you want,” Tom said.<\/p>\n

Tom set up his tripod, which is a cool field version of a rifle rest.\u00a0 I had never used one before (I’d never even seen one before).\u00a0 I looked at the Ossabaw 117 yards away through the 4-power Redfield.\u00a0 The hog was standing broadside to me.\u00a0 Fifty years ago, I used to shoot metallic silhouette pigs that were a third that size at three times the distance (385 meters, to be precise), with no rest, shooting offhand.\u00a0 \u00a0But that was 50 years ago.\u00a0 My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, my ability to shoot a rifle offhand isn’t what it used to be, and hell, I’m not what I used to be.<\/p>\n

It was time.\u00a0 I rested the Ruger in the tripod rest and held on the hog’s shoulder.\u00a0 I watched the reticle sashay around against the hog’s dark form and started applying pressure to the Ruger’s trigger.\u00a0 Things felt right.\u00a0 I was in the zone.\u00a0\u00a0I didn’t hear the shot, and I didn’t feel the recoil, as is always the case for me when hunting.\u00a0 The hog fell over, away from me, just as a metallic silhouette javelina would do.<\/p>\n

“That was a nice shot,” Tom said.\u00a0 I don’t think he said it because I was the client.\u00a0 He probably sees a lot of misses out here from other clients.\u00a0 The hog’s rear legs twitched in the air.<\/p>\n

“Should I put another round in him?” I asked Tom.<\/p>\n

“No, he’s gone,” Tom answered. “It would just destroy more meat.”\u00a0 I looked again and the hog was still.<\/p>\n

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Success: 117 yards, my Ruger No. 1, and an Ossabaw hog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We walked up to the hog.\u00a0 I could see where the bullet entered (satisfyingly just about where I had aimed).\u00a0 \u00a0I was surprised; I could not find an exit wound.\u00a0 When I .30 06’d a hog at the Dunton Ranch on my last visit, the bullet sailed right through.\u00a0 \u00a0Not this time, though.\u00a0 More on that later.<\/p>\n

I posed with my Ossabaw for the obligatory Bwana photo.\u00a0 \u00a0Tom and I struggled to roll El Puerco<\/em> over.\u00a0 We tried to lift it onto the back of the truck and could not.\u00a0 \u00a0Tom told me he needed to get the trailer (which had a winch), and he told me he would drop me off at a blind.\u00a0 “You might see a Russian come by,” he said.\u00a0 \u00a0That was enough for me.\u00a0 “I’ll come back out here later with John to pick you up.”<\/p>\n

I got comfortable in the blind, which overlooked a watering hole about a hundred yards away.\u00a0 I scoped everything I could through my binoculars, imagining every rock and bush in my field of view might be a Russian.\u00a0 I felt like a Democrat looking for the imaginary Russians (I really wanted to see one, but they just weren’t there).\u00a0 A small group of Ossabaws showed up at the watering hole.\u00a0 I watched them through my binoculars.\u00a0 They did what pigs do, and then they started meandering around a bit. Towards me.<\/p>\n

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An Ossabaw hog just outside the blind’s window. Were they coming for payback?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Golly, I thought.\u00a0 The Ossabaw hogs were getting close.\u00a0 Then, they literally walked right up to the blind.\u00a0 I could feel it rock around as the pigs rubbed up against the walls.\u00a0 They know, I thought.\u00a0 I had shot Porky (or maybe it was Petunia?) and it was payback time.\u00a0 They had come for me.<\/p>\n

I could hear the pigs grunting just below the blind’s window.\u00a0 I remembered my iPhone.\u00a0 I took a picture, holding the phone just outside the window.\u00a0 I don’t mind sharing with you that I was more than a little bit afraid.\u00a0 My Smith and Wesson Shield and its nine rounds of hot 9mm ammo were back in the Subie.\u00a0 The sportsman-like snob appeal of hunting with a single-shot rifle suddenly didn’t seem like such a good idea.\u00a0 I had my one round I could put in the chamber, but I wouldn’t be able to reload quickly enough if the pigs wanted to exact their revenge on me.\u00a0 One shot.\u00a0 I was the Barney Fife of pig hunters.<\/p>\n

Nah, I thought, these are just pigs being pigs.\u00a0 Or were they?<\/p>\n

If you crank up your computer’s volume all the way up and listen, you can hear their grunts.<\/p>\n