Venatic and I are long time friends with Mike Milli aka DTECH and a few years ago took Mike on his first Thermal hog hunt in Texas. Then the next year, he came back with his son for another hunt. Last year didn't happen due to Covid, but this year the hunt was back on.
This hunt takes place in conjunction with Mike's trip to the Shilen Swap meet at the Shilen Rifles factory in Ennis Texas.
The meet is a chance for Shilen to meet with the gun makers and dealers who use their barrels and locals to bring stuff for sale or trade. Always some good deals to be found. I think Mike usually ends up buyinng more than he sells!
I have gotten my own thermal since Mike came the last time, and I was able to record some of the action.
On Thursday I made the 2 hour drive over to meet up with Venactic and we in turn met Mike and his brother Pete.
First order of business was to grab a bite to eat at the local Mexican Restaurante. After than we headed up to check zero. I was swapping my Thermion 2 XP38 from my 300 blackout upper to me Dtech 6,8 SPC, and Venatic was putting his Iray on Mike's Dtech 25 DTI.
A few shots later, and we were ready to go ride around and look for hogs as it got dark. I took a few rounds to copme up on some, and we had the wind in our favor so we make a quick stalk.
The video is from my thermal with Mike shooting. No video from Pete with Venactic's thermal.
Mike hit at least 2 hogs, the first dropping in place. Mike neglected to tell Pete that he didn't charge the 25 DTI so he was just watching
Mike and Pete with the first hog of the night.
I was took the hams and back straps for Mike and Pete to enjoy when they get home.
A little while later we had found another boar. This time Pete had my rifle, and the CLICK you here is a misfire (aparently my rifle has problems with factory Hornady Black. We had one misfire while sighting in, but thought it was a one of)
Mike makes a shoulder shot and we trailed blood but didn't recover him.
After some more driving around for a quite a while, we found 2 hogs not from from where we had staged our other vehicles before we got into one truck. The wind was really howling, as you can hear in the video. At least one hog was hit, but as you can see, both made it out of the field.
We went out to look for them and I had taken my rifle with thermal from Mike to try and find it. As I got to the tree line to the right where they had went I found another boar and took him out. We never found either of the other 2.
By this time it was 4 am, and we had an hour back to Ennis where Mike and Pete were staying at the Holiday Inn and I was staying with a friend. Venatic had to drive back to Waco so he could get an hour or 2 of sleep before driving to Uvalde to guide turkey hunters.
The plan was for me to meet Mike and Pete at the Shilen factory the next afternoon to set up their table and partake of Shilen crawfish boil.
Mike and Pete being Yankees and all, don't have much tolerance for spice.
The eating was over just in time to drive to a local spot I have for the evening hunt. It didn't take us long to find some hogs.
I was shooting my rifle while Pete shoots the big sow to my right.
After our shooting is over, the hogs stop and I give my rifle to Mike. Apparently the hogs were too far.
Pete got his sow and I found one of the 2 hogs I hit.
We went and checked another spot for hogs, and then decide to make a calling stand.
I switched to my other AR with the coyote light and Pete had Venatics thermal and Mike was running the red scanning light. About a minute into baybee cottontail, a bobcat came running in and dropped him.
We then made another calling stand and quickly called in a coyote was quickly missed by one of Minnisotans using my gun and coyote light.
We made on more blank calling stand and called it night (1am) since we had to be at the swap meet at 8 the next morning.
I met Mike and Pete at 8 and spent the day with them at thier table. We sold some stuff, bought some stuff and had a great time.
It is always a treat for me to take them out and hang out, but after the meet was over I had to drive 2.5 hours home and they went back the motel for some rest before the 2 day drive back to Minnesota.
Looking forward to doing it again next year.
If someone knows how to get the videos to show with out clicking on the link, please let me know)
This hunt takes place in conjunction with Mike's trip to the Shilen Swap meet at the Shilen Rifles factory in Ennis Texas.
The meet is a chance for Shilen to meet with the gun makers and dealers who use their barrels and locals to bring stuff for sale or trade. Always some good deals to be found. I think Mike usually ends up buyinng more than he sells!
I have gotten my own thermal since Mike came the last time, and I was able to record some of the action.
On Thursday I made the 2 hour drive over to meet up with Venactic and we in turn met Mike and his brother Pete.
First order of business was to grab a bite to eat at the local Mexican Restaurante. After than we headed up to check zero. I was swapping my Thermion 2 XP38 from my 300 blackout upper to me Dtech 6,8 SPC, and Venatic was putting his Iray on Mike's Dtech 25 DTI.
A few shots later, and we were ready to go ride around and look for hogs as it got dark. I took a few rounds to copme up on some, and we had the wind in our favor so we make a quick stalk.
The video is from my thermal with Mike shooting. No video from Pete with Venactic's thermal.
Mike hit at least 2 hogs, the first dropping in place. Mike neglected to tell Pete that he didn't charge the 25 DTI so he was just watching
Mike and Pete with the first hog of the night.
I was took the hams and back straps for Mike and Pete to enjoy when they get home.
A little while later we had found another boar. This time Pete had my rifle, and the CLICK you here is a misfire (aparently my rifle has problems with factory Hornady Black. We had one misfire while sighting in, but thought it was a one of)
Mike makes a shoulder shot and we trailed blood but didn't recover him.
After some more driving around for a quite a while, we found 2 hogs not from from where we had staged our other vehicles before we got into one truck. The wind was really howling, as you can hear in the video. At least one hog was hit, but as you can see, both made it out of the field.
We went out to look for them and I had taken my rifle with thermal from Mike to try and find it. As I got to the tree line to the right where they had went I found another boar and took him out. We never found either of the other 2.
By this time it was 4 am, and we had an hour back to Ennis where Mike and Pete were staying at the Holiday Inn and I was staying with a friend. Venatic had to drive back to Waco so he could get an hour or 2 of sleep before driving to Uvalde to guide turkey hunters.
The plan was for me to meet Mike and Pete at the Shilen factory the next afternoon to set up their table and partake of Shilen crawfish boil.
Mike and Pete being Yankees and all, don't have much tolerance for spice.
The eating was over just in time to drive to a local spot I have for the evening hunt. It didn't take us long to find some hogs.
I was shooting my rifle while Pete shoots the big sow to my right.
After our shooting is over, the hogs stop and I give my rifle to Mike. Apparently the hogs were too far.
Pete got his sow and I found one of the 2 hogs I hit.
We went and checked another spot for hogs, and then decide to make a calling stand.
I switched to my other AR with the coyote light and Pete had Venatics thermal and Mike was running the red scanning light. About a minute into baybee cottontail, a bobcat came running in and dropped him.
We then made another calling stand and quickly called in a coyote was quickly missed by one of Minnisotans using my gun and coyote light.
We made on more blank calling stand and called it night (1am) since we had to be at the swap meet at 8 the next morning.
I met Mike and Pete at 8 and spent the day with them at thier table. We sold some stuff, bought some stuff and had a great time.
It is always a treat for me to take them out and hang out, but after the meet was over I had to drive 2.5 hours home and they went back the motel for some rest before the 2 day drive back to Minnesota.
Looking forward to doing it again next year.
If someone knows how to get the videos to show with out clicking on the link, please let me know)
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