Jon, Mike and Matt, from Orange County, New York came down to Texas for a little R&R...Tactical Hog Control style! This was Jon's second trip and think he'll definitely be back!

After flying into Houston, they made the short drive up I-45 to Madisonville where they met up with Kevin and I. As always, we spent about an hour getting everyone fitted for ANVIS-9 night vision goggles and then having a safety briefing on our weapons and optics.



With all of the guns loaded in the racks of the RSOV and the sun going down, we headed out to put a dent in the local hog population....then the fun began. The ranch we were hunting was one of my favorites...about 24,000 acres of pecan orchards, pastures and irrigated farm land, with several miles of river frontage.




On our way to check out a recently harvested wheat field, we ran into the first hog of the night...but the wind didn't cooperate...Busted! Since there's no sense in crying over spilled milk, we continued on toward the wheat field and as soon as we panned it with the ATAC-360 thermal...BINGO....PORK!...about 20 of the little buggers at 800 yards. It was going to be an easy stalk....right up until a truckful of spotlighters showed up at the other end of the same field. Bye Bye hogs!

We re-located to another part of the ranch and it wasn't long before we spotted another group of hogs. That's when the ranch owner's daughter and a group of her friends came riding by on 4-wheelers....I'm about to pull my hair! Luckily the hogs didn't pay much attention to the riders and we stalked to within about 70 yards of the group of rooters. The weeds were a little over knee-high but visibility wasn't a problem thanks to the TuskIR-384 thermal weapon sights from Nitehog Systems and the D-760's Gen3 night vision scopes by Night Optics USA. Once everyone was ready, we counted down...3..2..1..and the Larue Tactical OBR's started singing. 5 hogs will root no more!




Since Jon and his buddies wanted to take some meat back to New York, we called the skinning crew in....Pork Chops, Baby!




While the skinning crew was "doin' their thang", we went looking for more action...and it wasn't long before we found it. Another wheat field...and another group of hogs. Using some round bales for cover, we got the guys to within about 60 yards. 5 more pigs met their maker! Small, but perfect eating size! (they said "Anyone can hit the big ones!")




By now, it's getting late....but then we saw another porker on the thermal. The monitors in the RSOV are hooked to a 640x480 ATAC-360 thermal imager with a NightMIR controller....it wasn't hard spotting this old bruiser. He was rooting around in the middle of a recently-planted cotton field and that's where he met his demise....3 simultaneous shots to his head/neck that you could've covered with a playing card. Since all of our rifles are suppressed, it sounded like a fat kid getting knocked out in dodgeball!...WHOPPP!




We all had a blast....except for the 11 hogs that got blasted. A lot of the meat is going to be processed and then shipped to New York, so Jon and his buddies will have something to remember it by...until they eat it all! Then, they'll come back!

Looks like fun!

Sweetness!

X's 2

Nice

Those rifles are a beautiful piece of machinery...

Zach...they run just as good as they look too!
Clark

saweet

Thought I'd share my $.02 here.

My better half, and some friends of ours from Illinois had the opportunity to hunt with the Tactical Hog Control guys, I believe the week before the hunt described above. Our experience was very similar, right down to the ranch we hunted on. That place is unbelievable - for one, it's HUGE! I would love to see it in the daylight sometime.

Our group consisted of a couple of hunters and wives who had not hunted before. My wife shoots with me occasionally, and has tagged along on a deer hunt, but has never really considered shooting a critter. The girls really did not know what to expect, and didn't know how they would react to the opportunity to shoot a pig, but neither one could stop talking about the experience.

Both of the ladies connected on their first attempt! This is saying something - neither one had fired an AR-15 before, never fired at an animal, and certainly had never fired at anything using night vision, etc. The guides (Kevin and Carl) were outstanding, and coached them (and us) through everything.

The girls and their first pigs:





Kevin and Carl also did an awesome job of putting us in the best possible position to connect. On a couple of occasions, we made long stalks past a couple of single porkers to get on big groups browsing in a recently cut wheat field. I didn't see the big group until we had walked past several others, so I was a little puzzled when we let the singles walk. It definitely paid off though! They get you up close and personal with the pigs, and we put hands on a dozen very much dead porkers on the night, with several others that had been ventilated but made it to the woods. The number and size of pigs that we saw was beyond anything I expected. Check out this bruiser:





Me with a lone sow:



The quality of the equipment is amazing. These guys are using top of the line AR-15s, goggles, thermal scopes, and suppressors that they (Cottonwood Armory) make. I really do not want to know how much $ they have tied up in equipment, but the cost of the hunt is a real bargain by comparison. This is the only way most of us will ever be able to hunt with gear like this.

One very pleasant surprise was the stargazing with the night vision goggles. We hunted on a clear, moonless night, and I have NEVER seen stars like that. The milky way was clearly visible, and looked more like a cloud than stars. We saw more satellites and shooting stars than I have EVER seen before, and you could not see the same ones when you were not looking through the goggles. I saw one shooting star that looked like it went from one horizon to the other.

I can't say enough good things about the THC guys or the experience we had. It truly is a unique hunt, and the guides do an amazing job of coaching even complete beginners. I highly recommend this hunt to anyone I talk to about it.

A couple of hints for you guys: My buddy's wife got him this hunt for a Christmas present - start dropping your hints for Christmas or your birthday/anniversary now! For me, taking the Mrs. was a great way to make sure I got to go too, and she had a great time. We have young kids, so this was a unique way for us to get an "adult" weekend together. Taking the wife would not have been my first idea, but it worked out great!

And for those of you that live in the great state of Texas, suppressors are now legal for deer hunting! Thanks to Clark, I now have a couple of Cottonwood Armory suppressors on the way through the paperwork process.

This looks like a blast. I just put a night vision on my 243 but have not sighted it in yet. I can't wait to try it out.

Nice looking armory...

Yeah, those guys do not mess around. Can't imagine an operation with better toys than these guys have.

Wish I could afford some of their toys...

please. take. me. with. you. next. time.