Well, made the decision last night — going hog hunting over Christmas

Since the lakes I want to fish are nowhere near ready to ice fish and I have the next two weeks off I decided to contact my buddy in Houston to see if he would be OK if we came down for a few days. We will drive down on the 23rd and probably just stay 3 or 4 days and maybe hunt a couple sits at his ranch. He has a ton of them some my middle son is excited to try and get one. My buddy has an AR with a suppressor and some kick a$$ night vision scope on it. That should help. Ive never seen a wild hog in person so it will be interesting if we get lucky enough. He sent me a trail cam pic with at least 15 right outside his camper.

Have fun Capt, it is something I would like to do someday also.

Not sure if you are talking True wild Hogs or Feral hogs. I have hunted Feral hogs in Alabama and Georgia. Way fun and excellent eating. There are a ton of them down there. Last I knew , No license needed and no limit on them. I Read recently where there are what they are calling Canadian Super Pigs that are now starting to enter the US. Including Minnesota. After seeing the damage that the Feral pigs are doing in the Southern states. I can tell you that it would not be good if they get a foothold here in Minnesota.
Here is the article on the Canadian Super pigs:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/23/super-pigs-invading-us-from-canada-concerns/71681456007/
Have fun and hope you get to shoot a few on your trip.

After reading the super pig article, it sounds like we need to build a wall on the Canadian border.

TH wrote:

After reading the super pig article, it sounds like we need to build a wall on the Canadian border.

Hey now. Lets not get carried away. I’d have to climb over that wall several times each year. Its already getting tough enough to get into Canada. Lets not make it more difficult.

Need help??? I may be old, fat, and breaking down….But I can shoot!

Which Bar?

These would be the feral hogs not the native ones. I really hope my son can get some shots on them. I dont care if I shoot anything I will just sit and drink beer. No idea if they taste any good but I will surely bring them home and try to figure something out! Ive been reading about the super hogs coming in from Canada. Not a good situation for sure

Brian Klawitter wrote:

Which Bar?

No doubt!
Also called them confidence builders.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

No doubt!
Also called them confidence builders.

I never knew there was a bunch of chubby chasers around here. In college we called them BOBs for Big Ole Booty.

Go with the guys offering shooting hogs from a helicopter

I had a client fella, that when hog hunting in Calif. Bow, crossbow and rifle. His guide said “If you really want a rush, take this knife, sneak up on one and slit its throat”.

He did after some instruction from his guide. He said it was the best part of his trip.

Personally, I don’t drink enough bourbon to do that.

Good Luck in your hunt Cpt Musky!

on my very first trip to vegas we stayed at the Mirage. i can for the life of me remember the hotel just up from there but it was a bit fancier then the mirage. they had a buffet that had wild boar/pig on the buffet……..i tried it and from what i remember wasnt to bad!!!

i remember now…it was the Bellagio hotel!!!

Yeah from what I have heard it isnt bad, but especially in the warmer months you have to gut them and get them on ice fast or they get nasty. Also the smaller ones I have heard are better. We will see what happens. Knowing my luck I wont get any but I hope my son does.

Be sure you cook the pork well, no blood, and freezer the freshly processed pork for several days prior to cooking. Most pork produced for market is fed a medicated feed that controls a multitude of porcine related diseases: wild pigs and boars are of course untreated but the freezing and fully cooking will handle anything the animal might be carrying.

Yikes Jimmy now you are making me nervous!

Nothing to be nervous about, just be sure to freeze the meat for a week or so and to fully cook it, no blood. I’ve had wild pig and some actual russian boar on several occasions and they both are very good eating.

I know a guy in Oklahoma that hunts wild pigs and uses the meat religiously on the family table and also uses it for making sausage. He freezes all of it after processing for 14 days, then does his sausage using it and in this case the cure does the deed on anything bad that may have come with the meat.

If the juice is clear in your cooked pork, it’s considered fully cooked. Pink meat and/or blood needs more cooking time. Then enjoy in confidence Cap’n.

My son went to Texas hog hunting a few years back. They went through an outfitter and the place they went through said no AR 15’s due to they had bad luck with people not making good shots and felt the caliber was too small. So something to consider if you go that route. They did some night hunting also and used lights as no one had night vision at the time. He got 2 hogs and we had the backstraps which were ok and the rest got made into sausage. Should be a good time for you and your son.

These are 2 I shot in Oklahoma
a few years ago. Had 2 hams smoked and they were excellent. Ground the rest of the meat for sticks and sausage. Another guy in our party tried grilling the chops and said they were tasty but awfully tough.

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CaptainMusky wrote:

No idea if they taste any good but I will surely bring them home and try to figure something out!

The guy I hunted them with had his own smoker and Smoked 100’s of them a year for family and friends. They were excellent eating. He also shoots and smokes a ton of Deer each year. He made some smoked Venison roast where he put the Venison under the Pig hams while smoking. The drippings from the pig dropped onto the Venison while cooking. It was some of the best Venison I’ve ever had. A lot of the people down south will shoot several pigs and just take the Hams and chops out and just bury the rest of the pig. Sad, but with the # of them they had there it was a common practice. My buddy had access to a large Military base in Georgia and was one of only a few who were allowed to hunt it. He had access to 1000’s of acres to hunt. It was Crazy the # of pigs we saw. Don’t worry about the AR calibers. They are more than enough. One of his Favorite hog guns was a .22 Mag. He killed 100’s if not 1000’s of them over his years with it.

I have hunted them a few times down there. They are fun to shoot. Sure there can be some big pigs down there but your average is going to be in the 120 to 150 lb range.

We used to barbecue a rear quarter at the end of our hunt. We never had a problem with the meat.

The thing to remember on a pig is the vitals are farther forward than say a deer. If it’s an older hog it will have what they call a shield built up. That can be harder to punch through.
I always hunted them with a bow and used a middle of the road weighted arrow with a good COC head. Never had any problems.

Good luck!!!

Off topic a bit, but there was a show on an outdoor channel where the guy hunted with a spear. I think he hunted a variety of animals including bear.

Michael Best wrote:

The thing to remember on a pig is the vitals are farther forward than say a deer. If it’s an older hog it will have what they call a shield built up. That can be harder to punch through.
I always hunted them with a bow and used a middle of the road weighted arrow with a good COC head. Never had any problems.

Good luck!!!

With a rifle we were told to aim high on the neck just behind the ears.

Brittman wrote:

Off topic a bit, but there was a show on an outdoor channel where the guy hunted with a spear. I think he hunted a variety of animals including bear.

Look up Tim wells on you tube. Great spear hunting videos

Look up Tim wells on you tube. Great spear hunting videos

seen that fellow doing that, was a good show!!

and they are good eating!!

Ive seen a lot of Tim Wells shows and he is a wild dude for sure. Those spear hunts are crazy.

Well we have it a shot but didn’t see a hog that we could shoot on his property. Saw 2 at a feeder 1000 yards away on adjoining property and tons of trail cam pics but nothing while we sat. Even sat during times they had been showing up but we got to see lots of other critters, armadillo, opossum, bobcat, racoons. My son shot 3 times at a raccoon but missed it each time. My buddy sighted it in with a purchased suppressor but as a machinist by trade he made one out of stainless and sighted it in. Dead on. Since we were non resident we would have had to have some sort of tag and if caught with the one he made we would’ve got in trouble so he put the other one back on. Well the dynamics were different and it was off and my son missed 3 times. The night vision and the video is unreal to watch though. Those racoons each so much of his protein that each handful he goes there’s another dollar! Holy the yotes! Yipping in every direction. We never saw them but they were everywhere. Fun times but after driving 17.5 hrs straight through I am wiped out. I drove the whole way and couldn’t use cruise since des Moines due to drizzle and freezing temps so my feet are killing me.

Sounds like a fun trip even with no critters to show for it. Can you not shoot the bobcats? I would love a full body mount of a bob cat?

We drove back from the cities to Des Moines yesterday. Roads were not good. Glad you made it back safe.

We could have certainly shot the bobcats, but it was just prior to when the hogs normally were showing up so we didnt want to ruin a chance at one of those. Knowing what we know now we would have shot it. They have a longer tail than I thought. Seemed to be over 6 inches, but those nightvision things might distort things.