A working holiday

The plan was simple. Paint the house by day, hunt wild boar by night. The neighbours had given permission to hunt both the potato field and the wheat — and the boar had made it clear which they preferred. I got the "sniper bike" ready so nothing rattled, sharpened my technique with a .22LR at 50 metres, and waited for darkness over the Swedish fields.

Two boars in one night

I checked the potatoes first — nothing out. So I moved on to the wheat below the maize. Several roe deer showed in the thermal spotter, their outline unmistakable, but down in the wheat lay a long, flat heat source. A boar. He stood about 150 metres from the irrigation pump, which was making a real racket. Using the noise, the dark and a good wind, I crept in along one of the tram lines, not daring to go too close where the wind curled below the slope.

The first boar

I got the rifle up on the Viper-Flex and switched on the Pard. Even in the light summer night the picture wasn't clear, so I tilted the rifle up, lit the IR lamp on the suppressor and lowered slowly back down. The boar hadn't noticed the "cigar glow." He moved off to my right, square on, and when he stopped I had him. The eye was my clearest point; I worked out where the shot should sit and pressed. A clear bullet strike came back — and then silence.

I waited ten minutes, found him, and cycled back to fetch the car. At the field edge I glanced back one last time — and was startled to see a large shadow come out of the forest and down into the wheat.

Boar number three

This one showed more boar above the wheat — a bigger animal than the first. The range was 120 metres, and though it had grown lighter I lit the lamp again. He fed to the left, so I simply mirrored the last shot. Another clear strike told me it was a solid hit. I left the Viper-Flex standing at the field edge as a bearing, cycled home for the car, and waited for full light before going in — this boar was markedly bigger, and my head torch had run flat.

He had laid himself down, by a stroke of "pig luck," exactly where the recovery was easiest. And he was a true adult — a pair of tusks jutting from his lower jaw the like of which I had never seen. Back home the scale read 92 kilograms; the big one's tusks measured over 20 centimetres, the "little" one's 13. There was clearly something for the wall.

The second night

After a couple of hours' sleep, dealing with the windows and boiling out the trophies, I set the alarm for half past two and went back out. At the green strip a familiar outline stood in the wheat — boar number three, in the same dangerous corner as the others. I crept in to 112 metres and set up the stick. The scope was murky even as day broke, but the IR lamp brought him up. He trotted about, smaller than the first two, then turned broadside. I aimed low in the wheat, where the vitals were, and squeezed. He bolted right and tumbled after a few metres. It was 03:15. A young boar with little in the way of tusks, so they were left in when I delivered him.

The last night

By now I was thoroughly worn — several nights of hunting had caught up with a body no longer used to hard physical work. So I slept without setting the alarm, and again the next night, letting fate decide: if I woke at a sensible hunting hour, I would go. I woke at two, anything but fresh, but a deal with yourself is a deal.

The fourth shot

Soon I stood in the potato field with a gentle breeze at my back. I looked across towards the wheat, a kilometre and a half away — and just then a shooting star fell, straight down over that very ground. There is, as they say, more between heaven and earth, so I turned the bike. I spotted a large shadow up by the wood. It was a good 200 metres and more, so I worked in along the curved tram line. In place of my head torch I had pulled on a beanie with a built-in light, and I had brought the rangefinder. At 134 metres I judged everything was as it should be. He stood broadside, feeding on the ears of wheat. It doesn't get better than this, I thought, and pressed.

The strike that came back was markedly different from the three before, and the boar sprinted off out of my view. What have you done now? was my first thought. It is extraordinary how your confidence can turn — ready to shoot, it stands like the Eiffel Tower; with the animal gone from the spot, it feels like a balloon with the gas let out.

The search

There was nothing to do but wait for light. I went over the shot again and again — I was sure it had broken cleanly, but a different strike and a vanished boar pulled the other way. I searched the ground minutely. There — was that blood? It was: pink, clotted, a very good sign. I had the direction, and the traces led me on until I found a very dead boar. The shot sat 100 % where I had aimed.

Back by the house I found the answer. One of the seals from my ear defenders lay on the ground — it had fallen off when I fitted them under the beanie. That was why the shot had sounded so loud and the strike so different. My tinnitus had gone wild, but there was no time for that. The boar weighed just under 100 kilograms, and the drag to the road was over 250 metres.

Four boars, three nights

Four wild boars over three nights, working alone with a thermal spotter, a suppressed rifle and an IR lamp. No high seat, no bait station — just fieldcraft, patience and a stable platform in the dark. On the first night I left the Viper-Flex standing in the wheat as a bearing, so I could find my way back to the boar in the dark. And it was on the stick that every one of those four shots was made.