Turkey hunting = pork?

I made a quick run down to the land Saturday afternoon and was hoping to find some Turkeys, but after spending the afternoon without hearing a gobble, I hung the shotgun up and grabbed the Rock River Arms AR-15.

I was afraid that the pigs would have skipped town for the summer since my pond was dry, but I figured I might as well sit for a couple hours and see what showed up. I saw lots of deer, at one time I could see 8 all at the same time in 3 different groups. The bucks are starting to grow antlers, they had nubs a couple inches long or so.

Solo boar came in to one of my feeders and the RRA put him down.

Amazing that a tiny little piece of lead can smoke such a big animal if you put it in the right spot. I didn't put him on the scale, but I'm guessing him right around 200lbs, maybe a little more. He had really good cutters for his size, and they were both intact (sometimes the bigger boars end up with a broken cutter).

Took some work since I was by myself, but I got him on the tailgate so I didn't have to bend over quartering him up. A LOT easier on the back. He looks a lot bigger on the tailgate.

Quartered him up and was home for Mother's day! He's on ice now and I'll probably turn him into pulled pork this week. I need to buy a bigger smoker! Need to do an inventory on my sausage before I turn him all into pulled pork though.

That makes pig #4 off my 160 acres so far for 2011. My friends from Wyoming came down and shot 2 back in March. They actually shot more than 2 but that's all we recovered. Pigs vitals are so much farther forward that a lot of deer and elk hunters shoot them too far back and they can run forever and don't bleed much at all if you shoot them too far back.

With it being so dry, the conditions were perfect for finding old sheds. The grass has withered up and is flat as a pancake compared to normal. Didn't find any from this year, but found 4 old ones. I would prefer rain over finding these old sheds, but they were a nice bonus.

The Northern Rockies are still dealing the affects of record snowfall this winter, and the Midwest is having record 100 year flooding this spring, but it hasn't really rained here in over 6 months.

Here's what the pond down at the land looked like Saturday!

And here's what it should look like in the spring. This picture was taken on May 5th, 2007.

We don't normally get a lot of rain, but here's our total precipitation for the last 7 months.

0.01 0.00 0.04 0.35 0.20 0.00 0.09 = .69 inches!

Did see one hen turkey, and she showed me that the neighbors pond isn't dry yet since she headed that way and came back with muddy feet, but we sure need some rain!

Oh well, thought I would share my Saturday.

Nathan