When my buddy Bill Olson who owns Texas Outdoor Journal told me to grab a plane ticket because he had a hog hunt lined up with Slow Glow, I was ready. While at the gun range at the SHOT Show I’d talked to Jeff at the Caracal booth and told him we were working on lining up a hog hunt. He had me shoot their CAR814 A2 PATROL .300 Blackout. I fell in love with it right away. So when this hunt jelled, I contacted him about testing one out on a Texas hog.
Next decision — what scope should I put on it? We would be hunting over Slow Glows, which are LED lights that are motion activated and start slowly illuminating if something triggers them. So I decided to mount on a Riton Optics 2-7x scope. That would allow for fast target acquisition. Their marketing genius Justin also told me to take along their red dot sight and 3x magnifier. He thought I’d favor that for the close-up night hunting.
Now what ammo? I’ve heard a lot of good things about Nosler, so I went with their ballistic tip 125-grain Boattail ammo. The Slow Glow system is unique. If hogs are at the station, you come up behind the light and they can’t see you. Last year, the owner’s son Clint wanted to shoot one with his bow and four of us stalked up to within 15 feet of a whole sounder of hogs. So I sighted in the .300 Blackout for 20 yards.
And lastly what knife should I use? I’ve wanted a Puma skinner ever since I was a kid so that’s what I took to test on this hunt. I was now good to go.
I jumped out of bed at 3:30 a.m. and was off to Austin. Bill picked me up at the airport and we headed to the ranch. We met up with Murray and Clint Choate with Slow Glow and Eric Anderson with Roxor, which is an India-based quad company. They became famous for making parts for the Willy’s during World War II and the Korean war. Their quad looks just like a Willy’s to me.
Bill and I sat at one site and the others took off bow hunting. There was a full moon and with my 10x42 Riton Optics binoculars, I was able to pick out two hogs about 150 yards away and then two more behind us. Then a bunch of smaller ones ran out behind us.
We held off shooting them thinking they would come into the Slow Glow. They eventually started working that way but when they got to our side they must have winded us and shot off for the brush.
The next day, we moved to a different ranch. During the day we tested Roxor and did some filming. Clint is a super good photographer and has all the cool cameras and drones. In fact, last year he filmed an ad for the Super Bowl.
During the middle of the day, Clint took me around to get the layout of our hunting spots. Near dusk, we sat on a hill between our spots and waited. They have an app that alerts them if hogs are hitting a spot and then you scoot down there and do a stalk.
We had an alert but messed up the stalk. We went to check another spot, and they were moving in right when we got close. They were all around us in the brush and spooked every which way, but due to it being dark and in the brush we didn’t have a shot.
We went back and waited some more. Suddenly Clint said we’re up. We sneaked down to the site. Murray had thrown corn in a shallow pool. The hogs were out rooting in the mud and sounded like a herd of carp sucking. Clint and Murray call it snorkeling. You can hear them snorkeling before you even get close enough to see them.
Clint started filming and pretty soon gave me the thumbs up. They were on the other side of the pool snorkeling, probably 25 yards away. The Slow Glow had fully illuminated. I picked out the biggest hog and when the Caracal barked, hogs ran away squealing.
In the melee, I didn’t notice but the hog I shot at ran through the pond and come up over a small rise. When I saw her, she was coming in at 40 mph and didn’t turn until she was a mere 13 to 14 feet away.
We waited a few minutes and then started tracking. Good trail. There was blood on both sides of the trail which was good. That meant it had passed through and double lunged her. After a 60-yard trek, we came upon her. She was a huge 175-pound sow. We took a lot of pictures and then skinned her out with my new Puma skinner.
What a great night.
Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana.
