Within just a couple days of me shooting that 221 lb boar last week I had another boar move in and take over the barrel. Not quite as big as the last one, this one was 216 lbs. This one had better cutters though. He was not as fat, a little more lean and muscular. I think the other boar was the dominant one though.

The reason I say that is I stalked up on this one and he had no clue I was there. I was standing 60 yards away from him just watching. I was recording and waiting for the shot to line up. I had just got everything about the way I wanted with some good video. I was taking slack out of the trigger and about to drop the HAM'R on him. All of a sudden he heard a branch snap in the shelterbelt out in front of him. When that happened he decided to bolt out of there straight away from the sound. I had to take him on the run but put the first round right between the eye and ear hole.

I think when he heard that noise he thought it was that other old boar coming back to take the barrel back over. Whatever the reason he was out of there for sure. I embedded some more pictures of him in the video.

VIDEO LINK: https://rumble.com/v2molyw-216-lb-boar-hamred.html

Congrats; great shot, Jeff; almost like you planned it that way. LOL

Joking aside, for years I never took a running shot unless the critter already had lead in him because I had zero confidence in my moving target ability. Last few years have taken a few hogs & coyotes running and great videos such as yours showing the exact sight picture when the shot broke have been extremely helpful in learning the technique. Understood the principal from reading about it, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, especially in figuring out the amount of lead under different conditions.

Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Clarence

For many years I was the same Clarence. I did not take many running shots. One of the things that had the biggest influence on me was when I started doing a lot of crop protection/pig control work at night with thermal. I suppose you could lump the predator control around livestock the same way. That kind of changes things.

Once you get into control work instead of sport hunting then it is a numbers game. Methods change. It is about results and not about that one shot kill. At least with pigs, anyways. It is straight up all about stopping as many peanut gobbling mouths as you can. So running shots, long distance shots, bad angles, low probability shots, whatever.

By no means am I saying randomly blaze away slinging lead all across the countryside. Not at all. But each and every shot a person takes has some probability of success. It might be 99% or it might be 10%. The only way to make those percentage numbers better over time is by practicing those shots. You have to shoot at running pigs to get better at hitting running pigs. It is just that simple. You can increase your odds by reading body language and predicting what they are going to do so you can time trigger pulls for better percentage shots. A curving shot with aspect change is harder than one running straight and clean. The more trigger pulls you get the faster you learn. Sometimes when you are really in the zone it is like your subconscious brain takes over and just knows when the shot needs to break without thinking, it just happens.

Oh and for sure, video helps immensely with the learning curve. Since I started shooting thermal and recording there have been many times I go back and watch video and think "That is not how I remember that happening." But video does not lie and you can slow it down to see exactly what happened. It helps so much seeing what I did right and what I did wrong.

With just a few pigs or singles it is usually pretty simple. But walk up on a sounder of 20-30 pigs with a couple of shooters and things can get western pretty quick.

I start the all night campout/protection rotation on one of my sons fields tonight. He planted half the circle in organic peanuts yesterday and is finishing up today. Organic seed is not cheap and is limited in availability. $15k in seed going into that field and that does not include fuel or other costs. It is a new field so we don't really know what to expect there, no prior history on that place. But there are pigs around for sure. Just don't know how long it will take them to find it. I work my day job today, babysit the field tonight, then work my day job again tomorrow. Another forum member from on here is going to take the rotation tomorrow night so I can get some sleep, and then I will be back out there again Wednesday night. Then he takes Thursday night.

Man, you nailed it, Jeff. When asked to help with predator and hog control is when I started shooting more runners. Unfortunately, my learning curve has been a bit longer without the benefit of the videos, but I have benefited greatly from others' videos in lead estimations.

I use your, and others videos to "visualise", as David Tubb calls it, the correct sight picture required for a 10X shot, and it seems to help just as much w/moving targets as it does in match rifle fixed target shooting. Practice makes perfect and even "dry firing" practice is beneficial. Got there a long time ago on offhand, stationary targets, but can't say I'm there yet on the runners. You know you're getting there when the rifle just goes off at the correct moment without that conscious "pull the trigger" thought.

Keep those videos coming.

Regards,
Clarence

Great shot on the running pig.