On the line: Cazadora's first wild pig hunt

The prospects for this weekend's pig hunt were starting to look pretty bad.

Though I normally shoot decently with a rifle, I'd had two lousy sessions in a row at the shooting range, and my hunter safety instructor's words were pounding my head like a bad hangover: If you can't hit your target on the range, you have no business hunting.

You see, this is not only my first pig hunt, but my first big-game hunt. I've never done this before. I have no experience to draw from, no wellspring of confidence to tap.

My nightmare scenario is shooting an animal so poorly that I wound it and lose it, leaving it to suffer until it succumbs to four-legged predators, or leaving it gimpy for the rest of its life. I understand I may not be so lucky as to drop an animal with the perfect shot. Hell, I know from experience on the family farm that even a domestic pig is hard to kill with a gun point blank - I'll tell those stories here some day.

Still, it's really important to me that when I shoot an animal, it dies quickly to avoid prolonged suffering.

That's why Friday's target practice with Boyfriend's .270 made me cranky and Wednesday's made me downright depressed. My shots were all over the place. The problem, I think, is that I was having a hard time holding the gun still. Been a little stressed lately.

So I regrouped. I took one of my favorite anti-stress vitamins (B6), had one less cup of coffee when I got up this morning, went back to bed and slept until noon, then headed to the range.

When I got there, my grip on the gun was much more steady, and the first three shots I fired came out beautifully - not the bulls eyes my Virgo soul craves, but definitely dead pig.

That's what I'm talkin' about! I shouted into the wind.

Then I stuck my nifty sticker over those shots and went back for five more.

Booyah!

Again, not Perfection, but definitely Dead Pig.

I was feeling pretty good about this. Fine, Dr. Caso, I'll stop drinking three cups of coffee a day. Deal.

Then it was back to the bench for another round. I put in three close to the bulls eye and then fired my first bad shot of the day. I could feel myself pulling as I was getting ready to squeeze the trigger. The shot went an inch and a half off the black.

But it still wasn't that bad. It wasn't an ideal shot. But I learned from it. Next time I took a shot, I felt that wobble starting and I stopped myself from pulling the trigger.

Good girl! Lesson learned - no wounded pig.

And when I went to retrieve the target and looked at the back, I was pleased to see how tightly grouped most of my shots were. I had five clustered tightly around the bulls eye, and seven more still in the kill zone.

That's the kind of shooting I'm accustomed to. What was an average shot for my past two outings was now my worst shot of the day.

I was feeling like a smart gambler: Having done well, I was going to quit while I was ahead. I packed my bag and went home, glad to have regained the confidence that had eluded me.

I know now that I can shoot; now, I just have to find a pig.

© Holly A. Heyser 2008