Special Ops, Pig Patrol

The men advanced in the sweltering, pitch-black night, scanning the landscape with night-vision goggles and armed with semiautomatic rifles fitted with silencers. As the party drew nearer to its wary targets, guide Jed Dreher whispered for the men to walk in single file to "decrease our profile." At 50 yards out, they took aim through their thermal-vision scopes and let loose a hail of bullets. The targets scattered, squealing and grunting, into the nearby woods. The prey in this high-tech hunt: feral pigs in pastures near Madisonville, Texas. Hunters Chuck Coiner and Frank Hahnel, clients of guide service Tactical Hog Control LLC, killed five wild porkers that June night, including a 30-pounder that took five bullets to finish off. "Those are tough suckers," Mr. Hahnel remarked after the night's first shoot. "That was awesome." Tactical Hog Control, started in 2009 by Texas ranchers Clark Osborne and Mr. Dreher, is among a handful of next-generation outfitters across the South offering a new style of hog hunting designed to appeal to hunters' inner commando. Each client on a nocturnal hunt with the two men suits up with roughly $40,000 of military-grade gear, including semiautomatic rifles like the DPMS AR-10. The men prowl bumpy pastures and farmland in off-road vehicles bristling with gun racks and infrared headlights...more