Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day by those who believe in superstitions, but for Peter Maximov, a hunter from Chelyabinsk, Russia, November 13th, 2015 was the luckiest day of his hunting career. It was on this faithful day that he brought down a massive 500 kilogram wild boar, in the forests of the Ural Mountains.

36-year-old Maximov, co-founder of “Andreev Hunting Farm”, went hunting in the forest near the village of Shokurov, as he usually does on weekends. He placed some bait in a wild boar foraging area and climbed a hunting tower where he quietly waited for a target to show up. Little did he know he was about to become the envy of every big game hunter in the world. I don’t know what Peter used as lure, but it attracted the biggest wild boar he had ever seen. Regaining his composure after setting eyes on the massive animal, the experienced hunter lined up his target and fired a shot that struck home, but failed to bring it down. The wounded animal ran off deeper into the forest, and Maximov was apparently too scared to go after it himself, so he enlisted the help of a local ranger to help him track it down.

The two men spent a long time getting on the boar’s trail, until they finally found a drop of blood and followed the trail back to the wounded animal, which now laid on the snow, still alive, but seemingly unable to move. Maximov took another shot that he says only managed to anger the animal, which gathered up all its remaining strength and rushed towards them. The two hunters hid behind a tree and fired a third shot that finally brought down the giant boar.

Upon closer inspection, Maximov realized the carcass wan’t going to fit in his truck, and even if it did, the two of them couldn’t hope to load it themselves. But he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity of showing off his trophy, so they tied it to the truck and dragged it all the way into Shokurov village. He quickly had someone snap a few photos, which he uploaded online, specifying that the boar weighed around 500 kilograms and that his hunter’s scale was not designed to sustain this kind of weight. His fellow hunters later helped him determine the animal’s precise weight and size – a whopping 535 kilograms and a shoulder height of 1.7 meters.

Photos of Peter Maximov posing with the giant boar were later uploaded on “Imperial Hunting“, from where they were shared on Russian hunting forums and quickly went viral.

It’s a nice hunting story, but one that got some negative feedback after it was covered by E1 News. Most people called the way the boar was brought down “cowardly”. Not only did Maximov first shoot it from high up in a tower, not giving the animal even a chance to fight for its life, but he also shot it again while it lay defenseless in the snow. Senseless killing in order to gratify your ego, fun for small-minded and aggressive people who find pleasure in the blood,” one person commented.

According to Wikipedia, wild boars in Eastern Europe can reach brown bear-like sizes of 270 kg and 118 cm in shoulder height, and males in regions like Russia’s Ussuriland have been recorded to weigh 300–350 kg and measure 125 cm in shoulder height. However, such giants are rare nowadays due to past overhunting preventing animals from attaining their full growth. I guess we have to thank people like Peter Maximov for that…

Photos: Imperial Hunting