A Thief In The Night! Warthog Hunting Story With Bayly Sippel Safaris

Word of this menace spread, and one of our local friends quickly volunteered to come in and give the hunt a try with his bow. On the day, we checked the right timing according to our trail camera pictures and settled into the blind. Everything went like clockwork and the pig came in perfectly on time. He walked in with all the confidence of an undisturbed warthog that had been feeding for weeks. However, at the very last second he must have scented something and turned his body to marginally quartering on—meaning no shot with a bow. A few seconds later he snorted and trotted off, and that was the end of pictures of him on our trail camera, except for a few rare sightings. Unfortunately, his inconsistent presence seemed not to be to the bushpigs’ liking, and we struggled with the bait site for the rest of the year. We went from having guaranteed and consistent bushpigs every season to erratic behaviour at best. Luckily, we had other baiting sites, and many lovely bushpig boars were hunted with our clients.

The season ended, and the new year came around. Secretly, we were hoping that the resident leopard had caught our maize thief. We checked the trail camera in anticipation of seeing monster bushpigs feeding at the same time every evening. Instead, we found photos of that same warthog! The problem was that he had doubled in size and his tusks had grown into a formidable set of ivory. What seemed odd on the cameras was that whenever David (the resident farm worker) went to feed at the bait site, this monster of a pig would stroll in a few minutes after David had walked away. Consulting with David, we realised that this warthog had become so bold in his addiction to the maize that on many occasions he would stand at the edge of the brush bordering David’s house and wait for him to go and feed! As soon as David was finished, the warthog would casually stroll in. The nerve of this pig! We had a few pictures of bushpigs interested in the bait site, but by the time this warthog was done, he wouldn’t leave a single maize kernel behind. Armed with this new knowledge—but knowing we had not brought any night-hunting equipment—we laid the best plan we could.

As warthogs are not normally nocturnal animals, we took the preventative measure of feeding at 18:15, when it was already virtually dark. That was not enough to stop this greedy warthog, and he quickly adapted to feeding in the dark. This time, I would walk in with David at 17:30, let him feed, and then wait for the warthog to appear.

We hoped the pig would smell the feed and come in earlier, giving us enough shooting light. Walking in with David, I could feel a strong breeze in my face—a perfect wind for the short wait and vital, knowing how sensitive a warthog’s nose is. As David put out the feed, I was reminded why our bushpig baits receive so much attention. Our special cocktail of ingredients made a smell irresistible to the pigs—though not so much for the person sitting in the hide with the feed container!

Standing quietly and limiting movement across the shooting ports, I waited with bated breath for the smallest sign of his approach. Given the close-quarters shooting, I knew it would be important to get the safety off well before he arrived. As the minutes ticked by, the sun’s warm glow faded deeper into the horizon. I constantly glanced through my scope to make sure I could still see the crosshairs and focus them on random points. I was quickly reaching the point where shooting would no longer be possible. I had a gut feeling that the pig was going to come in, but with not enough shooting light, I was already planning my sneaky departure for the next day.

Suddenly, in the distance, I heard something. It started as a twig snapping and slowly grew into leaves tumbling and bushes rustling. I flicked the safety off and held my breath. Was this him? Then, all of a sudden, like a ghost in the darkness, two white tusks appeared in the bush right in front of me. Realising that light was essentially gone and that within a minute or two I might not see anything at all, I readied myself for any shot opportunity. He came in confidently, walking head-on. Roughly five yards from the bait, he paused and glanced to his right, exposing his shoulder to me. The shot went off immediately and instinctively, the .375 H&H round punching through his shoulder, through the heart, and exiting in front of the opposite hip. He dropped instantly and disappeared into a cloud of dust kicked up by his final frantic movements.

Nervous about the shot in the low light, I cycled a fresh round and sprinted up to the pig, briefly having to look away to exit the hide. All the while, I desperately hoped he hadn’t disappeared from sight. Thankfully, when I got to him 15 seconds later, he had completely expired and lay still in the settling dust. The moment began to sink in. With Mike and myself being privileged to hunt in some of the finest big-pig areas in Southern Africa with our clients, we were no strangers to big warthogs. We guided countless giant boars every year.

However, looking down at this pig was different. I remember thinking this was the first time I had ever wanted to weigh a warthog. His body was absolutely gigantic—so big, in fact, that his exceptional tusks seemed dwarfed by his size! He looked like a domestic farm pig in a warthog costume. I rushed off with my flashlight to get David and show him the beast before us. We brought the vehicle in, but it took three of us to shimmy the pig onto the back.

Back at camp, we had a quick photo shoot and brought out a brand-new scale. We gave the poor thing a proper stretch on its first test run. This monster weighed in at an astonishing 104 kilograms! This was definitely a first for me and something not to be forgotten soon. As is often the case with once-in-a-lifetime animals, the photos did not do him justice. I believe that had we sent him off for a full mount, and if we had included his belly girth measurements, the taxidermist would have laughed at us!

Needless to say, our bushpig baiting site is once again open for business, and the bushpigs have returned to enjoy our delicious maize mixture. Hopefully, the next story will soon be written about chasing a new boar there!