A .45-70 and a Black Boar

By Denny L. Vasquez

The pre-dawn light filtered down through the remnants of last summer’s once lush foliage, giving the landscape an eerie, mystical look. My guide, turned to me and said, “I like this part of the day the best. Everything is still fresh and clean, before anything has had a chance to spoil the experience. I think we will wait a few more minutes before we pick up our stalk. We need a bit more light.”

The recent torrential rains had left us plenty of evidence that this would be a wet hunt. Puddles of rainwater dotted this portion of the ranch, which was a mixture of small clearings that are surrounded by thick stands of almost impenetrable trees or brush and swampy bottomland. This country can be easy to hunt or very challenging.

Originally, I had planned my current trip as a photographic safari because of the abundance of game that I see on these trips. I like to use them to collect photographs that I need to help illustrate some of my articles. However, this trip would be different, as the rancher had asked me to bring a rifle along. And he had said the bigger the better.

I don’t like to be burdened with extra weight of a rifle when I am on a photographic trip. I tend to get “wrapped up” in my efforts to take just the “right” picture so a rifle is just something extra that I have to keep up with. Conversely, when I am hunting, I don’t like to carry a camera around my neck because it only gets in the way and makes using my binoculars that much more difficult. However, knowing rancher as I do, I listened to his request. For nostalgic sake I had brought one of my favorites, a Dixie Gun Works Sharps in .45-70 government.

Over an early morning cup of coffee, my friend explained that several of his hunters had been having trouble with a mean old boar that had taken up residence on the part of the ranch where we would be taking pictures. When he was first spotted there had been a broken arrow shaft protruding from his hindquarters and now, even though the arrow shaft and broadhead appeared to have been removed, as could be expected, he had it in for any human unlucky enough to cross his path. Consequently, this angry old tusker had treed several people. His weight was estimated at around 350 pounds of pure muscle backed by a tiny little angry brain. Upon hearing this bit of news I was glad that I had brought along a rifle.

“Well, it looks like we can go now” my friend finally said, “ Let’s head toward that big clearing about 450 yards into the bush. Hopefully we can catch a few animals out and get you some interesting shots.” I agreed, and after insuring that both my camera and the Sharps were loaded we set out along the game trail.

The first few hours of the morning were spent stalking several species of animals and taking some pretty good photos. At one point we caught a group of blackbucks as they slowly fed along a creek bed. As many hunters have found out the hard way, these animals are even more wary than our native whitetails. It only took a few moments before one of them heard the camera motor and they all took flight.

Next we discovered a herd of fallow deer bedded down among the bushes and tall grasses. They are one of the species of deer that have a palmation in their horns. I was fortunate to have found this herd, as there were examples of the white, spotted and chocolate color phases and I was able to capture several good images on film.

At this point we crossed the creek and met a small herd of Corsican and Mouflon rams coming our way. The Mouflon rams are the more impressive of the two species. Their ridged horns tend to curl back in towards the face in the shape of a heart. These beautiful animals were originally from the southern region of Europe and can make a very impressive mount as well as being a challenging adversary. We slowly continued making our way further down the creek, trying to make as a little intrusion into the realm of nature as possible.

Thirty minutes later I spotted a little red, furry ball rolling around in the brush up ahead. Soon, this little red ball was joined by a slightly larger black one. As these two appeared to play together, a herd of about 20 sows, small boars and piglets came into view. I was surprised to see them up and about on such a bright and sunny day. But my friend mentioned that it was not unusual to spot these small herds moving about under the shade of the trees and brush during the day. For some reason, known only to them, they preferred the damp, swampy areas along the creek. The signs of their rooting activities and the trails that they were fond of using were clearly present in our surroundings. In order to steady myself while taking pictures, I leaned the big Sharps into the Y of a small tree and then leaned into another one to use as an improvised camera support.

The trail that the herd was following emerged from the creek bottoms as though it were the exit for an underground tunnel. As the varicolored wild porkers made their exit single file, I was able to capture several good images on film. From our vantage point there was only a small lane through the trees that gave me an unobstructed view of the small clearing at the mouth of the trail. The surrounding vegetation was some of the thickest that I had seen on the ranch thus far. The brightness of the sunlight shining out in the middle of the clearing was a stark contrast to the almost night time darkness around the edges.

Several of the piglets playfully ran around their elders, making more noise than I would have thought them capable of. It quickly became obvious that this annoyed one old sow as she turned to nip and grunt at them. It was comical to see the chastised youngsters scurry for cover. As the herd continued feeding across the small clearing, I was able to shoot some really nice images.

When my friend laid his hand on my shoulder, I could feel the tension as though it were a palpable thing. The suddenness of his action caught me off guard as I was concentrating on my photography and had not anticipated this sudden change in events. As I glanced up at him, I noticed that he was holding a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence. Then he slowly pointed back along the game trail, in the direction from which the herd has come. As I turned in the direction that he indicated, I saw the last sight I had expected.

The black apparition slowly moved through the dimly lit under growth as though it floated on air. I am sure that it had to be the low light, but the old boar looked as though we was as big as any mud covered Cape buffalo that I have ever seen. He constantly swung his massive head from side to side with the motion of his broad shoulders, as he slowly made his way along the trail. I imagined that I could almost see the streams of saliva that he must have been flinging away from his body with each movement of those vise like jaws. The slurping sounds that his huge hooves were making with each step that he took were not imagined. Thus, I knew that this was a really big boar, bigger than most that are encountered by hog hunters who venture into the bush after these engines of destruction. All of this and the fact that he had absolutely no fear of man, as evidenced by his treeing of several bowhunters in previous encounters, made me wish I were somewhere else.

I grabbed the Sharps rifle as I slowly stood up and we began our retreat from the area, as we wanted to avoid an unnecessary altercation with this lord of the woods. But it was not to be. We had only made it a few steps when the old boar stopped in his tracks, and I swear he cocked his head as if he were listening for something, much like a human would do when hearing an unaccustomed sound.

Then slowly, the massive black dome, with the angry red eyes turned in our direction. I can’t state this as fact, because everyone knows that the eyesight of a hog is marginal at best, but I believe that the old tusker recognized us for what we were. And that is through 50 or so yards of very solid bottomland thickets. Then everything moved into high gear.

The lord of the woods threw back his head and let out an awful combination of a squeal and a snort that almost sounded as though it were a primal roar. This was answered by the squeals of the sows and piglets in the clearing that was now on our left. They took off in every direction as they attempted to evade the danger that the old boar had warned them of. Instead of running from us and in his haste to get at the threat to his herd, the old tusker tried to bully his way through the thick undergrowth that stood between us. My friend started yelling for me to shoot, but I couldn’t get a clear shot through the same undergrowth that prevented the old boar from reaching us. I knew that it wouldn’t do us any good to run and besides, I did have the Dixie Sharps in my hands.

After surveying the surrounding brush, I realized that the only way that the old tusker could get at us was to continue following the game trail until it crossed the creek and entered the small clearing. Then he would have to turn sharply left before entering the trail that we were on. Looking around I found just what I was looking for, a small sapling, about 3 to 4 inches in diameter that had an unobstructed view of the mouth of the trail. I moved over beside the sapling and took up my position. My friend moved over behind me and asked what I was going to do. I said to just watch and see.

After a few minutes of failing to make much headway through the thickets, the old boar turned and started running down the game trail toward the clearing. I knew that I would soon be testing my theory about the small clearing and the left-hand turn.

Taking a rest against the young sapling, I pointed the business end of the Dixie Sharps toward the spot that I expected the old boar to enter the clearing, which seemed to be shrinking as time went by. By the time the boar made it to the turning point, it appeared to have shrunk to the size of a business card.

When his head cleared the line of small trees at the end of the trail, I started swinging the barrel of the Dixie along with the boar’s progress. Then, when he tried to slow the momentum of his charge while changing directions, I let him have it with the 300 grain Winchester factory load at about 25 yards. You have heard people talk of the effect of a large, slow moving blackpowder slug hitting it’s mark with the force of a Mac truck. Well, this old tusker appeared to have been run over by a fully loaded freight train.

At my shot, all I could see were his legs sticking straight up in the air as he rolled over on his right side. Then he tried to get up on his feet again, but was having trouble because his left shoulder would no longer support his weight. I didn’t know it at the time, but my first shot had hit him at his left shoulder knuckle, thus shattering his shoulder and eliminating any support that it had been able to give him. But, being the lumbering beast that he was, he didn’t give up without a fight.

The mud, water, grasses and sticks flew in all directions as he continued trying to regain his feet. His momentum took him around and around in a circle that was about ten feet wide. Finally, after he had practically denuded the area of all vegetation, he came to a rest in the mud on his left side. His head was facing to my left and his tail was still thumping the ground in anger on my right. As he lay there panting for breath, I eased up to within ten yards of him and gave him the coup de grace that he deserved.

The adrenaline rush finally kicked in as I began to shake slightly. After all, there are not very many hunters in the US today that can say that they have taken a game animal that had been hunting them! I have always been one where the adrenaline rush comes after the hunt is over, not during it.

Now the hard part of any successful hunt began. Getting the game out of the field and then processing the animal. For this it took all the effort that we could muster to lift the old boar, one end at a time, up on the back of a 4-wheeler. But it was happy work, the Dixie Sharps in .45-70 had once again proven that an old design could still hold it’s own. No longer was the ranch home to a dangerous old boar that would of eventually hurt one of the hunters and I had an exhilarating experience, one in which the game animal was not the only one being hunted.

By Denny L. Vasquez