Eye to tusk with a killer

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Have you ever been charged by an animal capable of killing you? I mean charged with intent to inflict as severe damage on you as possible and there's nothing between you and the animal except a rapidly shrinking distance.

I have. A number of times. It is why I love wild hog hunting so much. My favorite charge so far is about a 300 pound wild boar. He stopped his charge when my rifle "clicked" on an empty chamber.

I have taken steps to insure that won't happen again.

Saturday, I was charged 3 times by a wild boar. All three charges were turned aside and I did not shoot.

It did unnerve me.

To explain.

First - I was packing a .44 cap and ball revolver - a black powder muzzleloader firearm. Definitely capable of taking down a wild hog, which it in fact did. But not my preferred weapon for facing down a charge. I won't bore you here with the intricacies and issues of C&B revolvers. But they were very much on my mind. Why'd I take it? Because I wanted to shoot a hog with it. I did too.

Second - I was the hunter and behind me was John (Foxy) Fox with the camera. We were recording the hunt for Real Outdoors with Team No Prisoners TV show. As the hunter, Foxy's safety was part of my responsibility. Never mind that he can handle himself and has stood down many charges of his own.

Third - to my right stood the pro guide I was hunting with. On all three charges, the boar broke right. I could not shoot. I had to be aware of where he stood. The guide has stood down more charges than he can count, so I was not concerned about his safety.

The combination was more than I could process in less than second. Had I been packing a shotgun or a .45 ACP , it would have been dead hog at the instant of the charge.  But if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bust his ass every time he jumped.

Whatta rush. Looking forward to doing it again, this time with something a little harder hitting than a .44 C&B.

Some people will say wild hogs are not dangerous. We have footage of a wild boar (the one I killed) which was savaged in a fight with another boar. The hog I shot was dying anyway because of the wounds it had. Dogs are routinely killed by wild hogs. People have been hospitalized after being attacked by hogs.