First time hog hunting. I'm ruined for life!!!!


Nice. Looks like you dropped a lot of hogs on that trip. Expensive though.

Just curious about the downed hogs, if someone on the ground picks them up.
 
In our case we did not pick them up. Helicopter time is expensive and would have wasted our precious hunting opportunity. The size of the property we were hunting was 35,000 acres that was a combination of 5 land owners. Potentially the land owners would recover some of the hogs but they were mainly concerned with having them killed. In some of the video you can see how much damage they had done to the pasture land.

Yes the trip is relatively expensive but by far the coolest and most fun hunt I have ever done. I will never forget the memories from that trip.

We estimate that in our two hours of hunting we shot between 40 and 50 hogs.
 
I use to run the operations at a farm in TX and had to pay people to do this. They could decimate the property if you didn't stay on top of it. Sucks to waste the meat, but better to stay in business.
 
You seem to have left out a couple of fairly important(to the folks around here) details. What were you shooting and the load. Every heli hunting video I've seen the shooters had to have a brass catcher but you didn't seem to need it. I'll probably never do it but I'm curious.
 
I was shooting an AR 15 with factory loads. I didn't get the specs but I believe they were just full metal jacket loads that I'm guessing were around 55 grains. We didn't have a brass catcher. The guy operating the helicopter said they had tried those and that they ended up causing lots of jams. They use a brass deflector that basically just shoots the brass straight down.

We had a single point sling and the gun had a bad lever installed. During training you learn to do a right handed magazine change in order to make things safer. They provide 8 magazines of ammo per hour. You wear the helicopter seatbelt but put the shoulder restraint behind you. You wear the lap belt loosely so that you can get yourself to the edge of the seat with your feet out on the platform that is built for you to rest on.

In transit you do not have ammo in the chamber. When you get to the property the pilot tells you to chamber a round. He calls the shots and positions the chopper so that you have a safe shot. Both shooters are on the left side of the helicopter and the larger shooter sits in the rear.

In the video that first group of hogs was 40 to 50 and we didn't know what to expect. I didn't want to blast through all of my ammo on the first herd so I wasn't shooting as fast as i should have been. The herd split up and we still probably managed to take out roughly 30 of that group.

We had four hunters total with our group. 2 would go for an hour then land and the chopper would refuel and then the other two would go up and we alternated like that. They only put an hours worth of fuel on at a time for weight savings and to make the chopper more maneuverable. Unfortunately the other two guys that were with us did not get to see or shoot any hogs just because of bad luck. We shot about 30 to 35 on the first hour and then on the third hour we shot another 8. The other guys took one quick shot at a coyote and only saw some dead hogs that we had shot.

Im trying to give you as much info as I can. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. I have been lucky enough to travel and hunt many places but this topped my list because it was like nothing I have ever done. One more thing is that they told us it is best to go at the end of January or in February which is after deer season and before the leaves get on the trees so that the hogs cannot hide in the trees as easily.
 
Dude, that's Awesome! I want to go so bad, would be even better hanging out the side and of a Blackhawk, but that's just dreaming. One of these days, I've got to do it, that would be so much fun! Congrats on all the kills, looks like a great time and great hunt!
 
Thanks guys!!! It was even more awesome than it looks.
That company is working on getting Huey and might have a belt fed gun mounted to the chopper for some really ridiculous fun.
 
Heli hunting is awesome. It is actually pretty important to use a brass catching in a small chopper like an R44/22 because a stray casing could get down on the floor and jam a pedal or any number of other little nooks or crannies that have important stuff in them to keep the thing in the air.

I'd pay good money to shoot a mounted gun at hogs out of a huey
 
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