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Gentlemen,

Well this last weekend I finally got out and did a Russian boar hunt with the Franz W. Kessler 9.3X74R SXS I picked up a while back. This may not be "the place" to put this post but I was thinking it couldn't hurt to keep it in close proximity to the last related post. Anyway, the hunt was great fun. Actually everything went about as well as it could except for the strange weather, rain in Michigan's "Upper Peninsula" in late January? I'm generally kind of shy about making recommendations due to the varied expectations of others but I have no problem with saying that I would highly recommend taking a boar out of Bear Mountain Lodge in Negaunee, MI. This post would get rather long if I detailed everything I liked about the place, the people, and the critters so if you are interested in hearing more about the aforementioned and the experience that my hunting bud and I had send me a PM. On with a few pictures ...

Practice shot prior to the hunt - right barrel - 40 paces or thereabouts? (It looked closer than 50 yards to me).

Downed beast and weapon of choice.

Hearing that a small herd had been jumped and was making it's way in our direction (through a rather dense cedar swamp) my guide (Jeff) and I hustled about thirty yards, in deep snow (and some places not so much), to get positioned looking down a lane hoping to get a shot as they crossed.
Having walked said lane earlier I knew that they could come flying across the rather narrow lane very close to our position or quite a ways out, as it turned out they started popped out at around 85 yards or so. I was just in the process of shouldering my rifle when the first boar flashed by. It seemed like a fraction of a second later that Jeff reached over and planted my shooting stick in the perfect place for me to rest the rifle and get back in the scope without any fumbling around. Just then a good looking boar (?) darted into view and Jeff let out the word "trophy!” down it went.

As it turned out the Sellier & Bellot 285 grain SP RN passed through the beast, through a 2" tree, and bounced off the slightly larger tree pretty much in line with the bullets prior course (right to left in picture). It's out there somewhere.

Taking pictures in the rain was hosed up (I had my boar, how bad could it be?) and taking pictures in the falling snow after we returned to the lodge wasn't a whole lot better but that's just the way it goes sometimes.

Regards,

Buchseman

PS - Yes, the guides get a kick out of making the boars look like monsters in the pictures but it's all in good fun ... not to mention the promotional aspect of it all.

--------------------
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

- John Dryden

Edited by CptCurl (27/01/10 01:24 PM)