A coal black boar tore through the succulent food plot rooting for acorns, grubs and whatever he could find to devour. This massive hog had wreaked havoc on the surrounding fields and woods and was a huge problem. In fact, these wild hogs are a nuisance and threat to wildlife and habitat when their numbers get out of control, and they are out of control in many areas.
Payton Harris joined his fiancée Katherine Shell on Saturday night, April 9, for a hunt on the Shell property in Franklin County in search of this monster hog. They got into their stand about 8 p.m. and got ready for the wild boar.
“We’d spotted him on cell cameras and he was on our hit list,” said Harris. “I recently moved to Flowood and love to hunt deer, but after deer season is over we get out the hog gear and get after them. The Shell family introduced me to hog hunting and it has been a passion ever since.”
Things started slowly with only a possum making an appearance but suddenly the wild boar showed up with tusks popping and snapping as he tore the ground up looking for something to eat.
“I looked and one minute there was nothing there and the next the boar hog was 60 yards away from us,” Harris said. “I got him in my sights and squeezed the trigger.”
KA-BOOM! roared the .308 rifle and the hog collapsed instantly.
The coal black monster hog weighed in at 310 pounds and had long tusks made for rooting and slashing anything in its path. The hog was as long as a full body F150 pickup truck is wide!
“He was the most cautious hog I’d ever seen,” Harris said. “He was elusive but our cell cameras gave us the edge in locating him, along with a handheld thermal camera. The camera allows us to see what is out there without spooking the hogs with bright lights. If you are out there at night you are in their world and it doesn’t take much to spook them so you need to have the right equipment.”
Harris shot the behemoth hog with an AR-10 .308 with a digital ATN 4K (5X20) night scope. Hogs are dangerous and they are hard to kill so you had better make every shot count. You might come up empty handed or even injured if you get too close to them.
“I shot him right above the ear hole and it put him down,” Harris said. “He tried to get up so I shot him again and he was down.
“Katherine and I gave him about 15 minutes, went down towards him, and shined the light to make sure he was down but he turned his head to look at us so we had to shoot him once more. They’re dangerous and hard to kill and this one was really tough.”
Harris was so excited about his trophy hog that he was still shaking 30 minutes after the hunt. Although this was his best harvest to date, he’d already killed another 303-pound hog previously. This one was so massive that two grown men couldn’t pick him up and get him into the truck. They had to winch him up there.
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