My hunting bud and I have been on the look out for some good sized hogs for quite a while. Seemed when we would bust a bunch of them the ones we dropped would be the stinking boars of the bunch. We dropped several the weekend of Thanksgiving and every one of them wreaked enough that we simply kept on hunting.

Well, this past weekend was the end of my season due to a scheduled knee work on Thursday. WE headed to the smaller of his properties where we had seen a few really nice sized ones a couple of weeks prior but couldn't get off a shot.

I have a bow stand which has produced several for me in the past and that's where I set up that Saturday about 1'ish in the afternoon. I had seen game moving through out the mid day hours prior to getting there on Friday when we headed up to our place and figured with everything I had seen elsewhere they would be up and around her as well. THe plan was to salt the road down with corn and Hog Wild in several locations, then set up and wait for the show to start. When we pulled up to my stand, we heard the unmistakable sound of a number of them heading up the hill behind it through the underbrush.

After spreading out the goodies, I climbed up with both bow and rifle in hopes of also getting an old 6 point buck with the bow, and possibly several hogs as well. After sitting there till around 4:30 with nothing but birds and squirrels working the corn, I had to make a call to nature. While I was up I figured I would move down the road to the edge of the pasture where I cold have a bit more light as the evening progressed. Just as I was doing my business out comes a yearling spike and I figured the jig was up.

He didn't even notice me and walked right along the creek I was going to set up along. As I returned to the stand to get my bow, and pack, I heard heavier movement through the leaves than any of the squirrels could possibly make. Being as the brush was almost impenetrable from about knee high up, I squatted down and look up the hill to see a black snout stop and look right back at me about 50yds up through the mess. About the time she decided she had screwed up, I injected a 150gr PSP into her thought process. Her running mate for whatever reason, walked up to her and looked down as if to say, "hey stupid get up," and I sent her one as well.

That's when the work started. I texted my bud and told him to come on we had meat on the ground. By the time he arrived, I had managed to get my 4 wheeler up close enough to drag out the cable from the wince and slowly haul one down the hill, and we headed up to get the other one. Not sure what they weighed, but it was all we could do to drag the second one, which was the lighter of the two, the short distance to hook her up to the cable as well. Once we got it down to the second one we winched them up a tree and backed his Mule in under them one at a time. THe weight was enough that I had to sit on the front rack while we pulled them up to keep the front of my Polaris 500 on the ground.

This was one of those hunts that everything sort of came together, and the result should be multiple dozens of tamales, plus some pretty tasty trimmings to boot.

This was them right after we got them to the barn. They sure put a load on the suspension of that Mule,

This was the bigger of the two weight wise,

This one was no slouch either.

Congrats on the pork in the freezer!!

Opportunity and being prepared come together!!

Bob

FYI-Pics no wider than 640 pixels don't stretch out the page.

Good job on the meat haul. Hope your operation goes as planned. should make life a lot less painful after rehab. Hope your back in the woods soon.

nice memories for rehab.

Boars that "wreak" (sic) are usually just as good eating as most other pigs (of course, young sows or really young pigs are the best) IF they have been killed cleanly with a rifle, that is, not chased by dogs or stirred up in a trap. The oft repeated tale that boars are inedible is just that, a tale with little basis in fact. I can assure you that if you're going to use the meat for tamales, you'll never know the difference between the ones you left and the sows you're keeping.

Good shooting on those two. Really hard to tell from pics, especially with only one view (it really helps to see how thick they are), but I'd put the bigger sow in the 225 or better range and the smaller one at 180 or better.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
Boars that "wreak" (sic) are usually just as good eating as most other pigs,

The oft repeated tale that boars are inedible is just that, a tale with little basis in fact. I can assure you that if you're going to use the meat for tamales, you'll never know the difference between the ones you left and the sows you're keeping.

You know when we started really working on hauling them in for freezer fare, I kept that in the back of my mind. I also kept the smell of the neighbor boy's house after he cooked up some that smelled up his house just like it smelled. We used to do a little test on them in the field, where we would cut the hide back clip a small piece off the muscle, then get it sizzling real good with a small butane torch. Right then and there if it smelled like bacon cooking it went in if not it stayed. About half or more ended up staying. End result was, sow or boar, if we could smell them when we walked up to them we kept right on walking. Just too many out there to work with, to get one all the way home and be disappointed.

quote:

Good shooting on those two. Really hard to tell from pics, especially with only one view (it really helps to see how thick they are), but I'd put the bigger sow in the 225 or better range and the smaller one at 180 or better.

With those weights we would have at least been able to drag the smaller of the two down the hill, that was no dice. We drag quite a few of them for quite some ways sometimes even by ourselves. If the two of us can't get them going they are usually knocking hard on 300 if not more, and we have drug a couple that were over.

You right, I told my bud we should have gotten a couple of pic's of them from top and bottom side as well as with them laying on the ground. We were more interested in getting them in the cooler for the most part.

Like I said, you're wasting a tremendous amount of meat, doesn't matter to me, but we've cooked or given away hundreds of hogs and NOT one was inedible, including many boars that really smelled pretty rank in the field. The idea that half of the pigs you shoot are inedible is ridiculous.

I just shot a 280 pound, weighed sow, that made those look like a baby. I'm pretty good on wts, and unless you're weighing them, I'll stand by my guess as being fairly close.

Well congrats on your hog. I am sure it will make a fine addition to your freezer. Where are the pic's and the story. post it up so we can all see it.

Bummer that so much meat went to waste.

I've been told before, that once you get past the smell you've got it licked.

I know the big boar my husband shot on our first hunt stunk to high heaven, but once we had him cleaned and on ice, the meat turned out fantastic! The worst part was losing the bladder and guts... but thats what our guide got the big bucks for

Michelle

quote:

Originally posted by MediumBoreBoarHuntress:
Bummer that so much meat went to waste.

I've been told before, that once you get past the smell you've got it licked.

I know the big boar my husband shot on our first hunt stunk to high heaven, but once we had him cleaned and on ice, the meat turned out fantastic! The worst part was losing the bladder and guts... but thats what our guide got the big bucks for

Michelle

Michelle,

I appreciate the post, and am well aware of wasted meat. However, when your dealing with the numbers we normally see, shoot, and deal with, you simply cannot put them all somewhere.

This is a picture I pulled off my video camera of a small bunch that came out at over 350yds form my friends barn. We were re-decking a lowboy trailer at the time, later that evening with me laying under the trailer, I had close to a hundred come all the way across that same pasture, and right to the barn. I have video of them, as well some that even came under the trailer with me standing at the front of the truck attached to it, taking the video. The numbers of them in that and other areas is staggering.

Yes there are plenty of folks who would come out and shoot them, and others that would come and trap them, but we're already doing that and not making a dent. They go nocturnal and we simply cannot stay on them 24/7. There are liability issues as well as insurance issue that will not allow us to bring in people on a mass basis. We bring who we can and they generally always get something. But we can only do this on a limited basis per the landowner and their insurance agents.

For those who feel that it is a waste they have not had the damage done to property and or equipment resulting from hogs that we have. Some might have them and shoot them once in a while, and keep what they keep. Thats fine but we take them on a weekly basis and still are fighting a loosing battle. There is simply too much country that they have to hold up in, to effectively make a dent. So we do what we can, take what we can, give away what we can and move on.

When I first started hunting with my friend I hardly left one and it made me mad to do so. Now after 10 or more years of dealing with fixing roads, equipment, fences, and anything else they wreck, on his and my own property, I am happy with the ones I get and if someone else wants one I try my best to accommodate them. Just in those areas everyone has them, everyone shoots or traps, or puts the dogs on them, and with the meat being the way it is, spoil wise, we simply cannot keep enough ice and ice chest at the ready for more than a couple. We take the best ones we get and walk away from the others.

My freezer is usually like this for most of the year,


Plus I have one twice that size at our place in the country, which besides a couple of bags of ice is just about as full. The ones pictures above were split between myself and my fiend. Mine was taken to a lady who has way more responsibility that time, she is making us some tamales, and I put the rest of what she didn't need into the processors to have cut up for her, and I will cover the cost on it. His was similar, as some of his neighbors make them once a year, and he was contacted to see if he could supply the meat. In return he is also getting some of the tamales as well. But in both cases, neither of us will end up with the majority of the meat. It will be, or was given away.

You right once you get past the stink you generally got it licked, but the older I get, the less I want to deal with the stink, no matter where or what it is.

You should invite some friends over to take care of the hogs!




John