and my 1st with a .25 Condor
I have been working a lot of hours and many weekend and have not had a chance to do much shooting or posting for that matter. This was the first wknd I had completely off without work bothering me. I have not spotted any G-hogs all Spring except for one across the street which lives in the back of that house and that was once last wknd. Every morning and wknds when I work from home I check the windows but nothing. And every day when I walk to the car I check the 4 holes around the shed searching for signs of a G-hog at the burrow entrance or look for flies which are attracted to them.
This past Thursday it finally looked like one had possibly moved in. Some of the dead grass from last Sunday when I cut the grass was gone from one of the burrow entrances under the shed and it looked like there was a nice clear path through some of the taller grass very close to the shed which the lawn mower could not reach. This gave me some hope that I may see one but the thought that it might be a skunk or possum was always in the back of my mind. I have seen a skunk go down that same hole a couple of times when I pull into the driveway at night.
Today the entire day everyone was and about in the neighborhood doing spring cleaning and mowing their lawn. Around 4pm it seemed like everyone went back inside at the same time including my wife, son and I and it got quiet very fast. We turned on the A/C because it was still 85deg, had a snack and were relaxing after cleaning out the garage and doing Spring cleanup all day. I decided to give the windows another try and scan my property. First I check the window facing the tool shed 21.5yds out, and there he is! A good size G-hog about 4ft from the end of the shed or about 23yds out. He was facing away from me. I went and got the Talon Tunes Condor .25 and loaded a 25.4gr JSB pellet. I then slowly raised both inside and storm window pausing every time the G-hog looked up and around. That took a couple of minutes and now the G-hog was at least 25-26yds out still facing and walking away from me. I put a small pillow on the window and rested the gun. After adjusting A/O and zoom to about 14X on the Simmons 44Mag (6.5-20x44), I followed the G-hog around through the scope for another 3-4 min. until he finally turned broadside but not completely. He was still sort of diagonal to my position but that was good enough for me because my back was starting to bother me as I was arched and bent resting on the window sill. As soon as he put his head up again to check around I quickly placed the crosshairs milimiters in front his ear and squeezed the trigger. I didn't hear the impact but just the phsssst of the shrouded Condor which was wearing its newest and bigger/longer shroud from Talon Tunes. The G-hog went on its side with tail up staight up, and then on its back with all 4's up in the air and expired in another ~5secs with all 4's up.
In my excitement I forgot to take a pic the way I found it with all 4's in the air but I took the usual ones with the gun. The pellet seemed to have entered right near a crevice at the front and top of the left ear and exited the other side under the right ear. It seemed to be a female and it might have been pregnant which kind of sucks, because it could have given me more little G-hogs running around to shoot later in a few weeks, but what can you do?
I just can't help myself, hehe. This one was a decent size just over 10lbs so not a bad trophy. Hopefully this is a sign of a good off-season but I know there are hardly any left after taking such great #'s of G-hogs the last few years. I just have to wait for them to move in from other areas, so it' s a waiting game.
I had to dial down the Power wheel to 7 on the Condor to keep the 25.4gr JSB's from going supersonic. I also only fill to ~2400psi to accomplish that. The pellet that hit this G-hog was traveling 1,060 to 1,070fps. Anything above 1,075fps and there is a little supersonic crack that comes out of the muzzle/shroud so the objective is to avoid that and keep the gun as quiet as possible.
