Knocked down a nice one Friday night. Wanted to stay in the stand until 1am but rain, 35mph winds and hail made me decide 11pm was it.

Hog came in at 10:58pm and my Ruger #1 in .280 dropped him. 140gr Nosler Solid Base (Federal Premium ammo). Got the scale out and he weighed 150lbs. 150yd shot. FoxPro FireEye worked nice but I wish I had brought my CoyoteLight because it is a lot brighter and better light. The Target Dot (Fine Crosshair) reticle on my 6.5-20x40mm Leupold was difficult to see during darkness. Something thicker or thicker and illuminated would have been a lot better. Next time I'll put my Illuminated SHV Nightforce on something and use it.

Didn't get a pass-through so came back out on Saturday 5/16 and the coyotes hadn't found him yet. Cut a section of hide off behind the shoulder and couldn't locate the bullet. Wow the skin is thick on these critters. Cut another 6" square of hide and found a hole in the meat. Put the Bubba Blade into it and heard metal-on-metal. It was a nice feeling finding the bullet but that tough skin dulls a knife quick!

I finally recovered my first bullet. I had to message Bobby since that was exciting. Bullet performance looked great and almost broke the skin on the offside. Cleaned it and it weighed 97.4 grains out of 140....pretty good!

The whitetail in my area are just now growing antler so tomorrow I may be spreading out protein and putting up a hog fence to keep them from scaring my bucks

Congrats on the hog!

That is exactly the type of bullet performance that makes me a long-time Nosler user. The hogs just don't seem to be as enthused about them as I am, though.

Be careful working out there tomorrow as the snakes really seem to be on the move, as are scorpions, which seem to have had a population explosion in our area.

Good to see others posting too.
Any pictures Bugle?

It's time Bobby got another one too.

George

I think the bigger the boar the tougher the skin.

150 yards for 150 pound pig is good dealing.

Not just tough skin, that dried mud/sand is really tough on a knife edge as well.

Glad someone got one this week--I didn't.

Let me see if I can make these work. I adjusted the size of them so they weren't huge but may be too small to see detail

Long snout on that one. And yes, the crap in and on the hair really dulls a blade. Mud, sand, dirt, whatever. Guess you could shampoo and blow dry them first.

To me, the key to skinning a wild hog is to do it while he's hot. Wait a few hours for whatever reason and the work is multiplied. It seems like the knife dulls-out twice as fast.

If you really wanted to eat one, could you not scald and scrape hair off, then butcher like a domestic pig?

You can do that, I even saw MeatEater Rinella do it in one episode, perhaps on his california hog hunt

Why gut and skin a dirty smelly hog. Do the poachers cut. Cut off the quarters and the back straps. Throw the rest of the hog away. Doing it this way takes about 5 min. and minimizes the need to hang and gut. You also take about 90% of the meat on one.

I do the Docbill technique; hang it (by the neck), skin it, take the quarters, take the back straps, lower the remaining carcass into a tub, drive it off in the pasture, and leave it for the scavengers.

My only regret is the tenderloins, but they are not worth the effort and mess.

The back straps actually looked very light colored and nice on this hog. I think that is the most common thing for people to take off of a wild hog. There are lymph nodes or glands inside the quarters..they look like grey grapes. Sometimes they are covered in a ball of fat so difficult to locate

Too much fun hunting these things during the off-season

Kenso:
I don't hang and skin. I do all of the cutting on the ground where it fell. I leave the skin on the quarters until I get it back to camp. Doing it that way, all you have to do is put a hook/gaff in the hogs lower jaw/palate and drag it off. No lift and carry of a foul hog.

I know what you are saying about the glands. Many times I've not gone out of my way to find them. I don't fret too much over it. I've never gotten a nasty surprise when eating a smoked ham or shoulder. I only smoke the quarters or take them to Kuby's for sausage. I'm assuming Kuby's takes the time to remove them. (The backstraps are light colored.)

Me and my friends eat every hog I shoot, big boar, little boar, sow, whatever. I don't believe anyone can identify the sex or age of a smoked Texas hog.

I have heard Florida hog hunters say here that their hogs are inedible. I have also heard some Texas hog hunters here say large boars are inedible. The rule of thumb my friends and I use, is that, if you can smell the boar when you walk up to him, turn around and walk away. Having said that, I've never had to leave a hog in the field for that reason.....yet.

quote:

The rule of thumb my friends and I use, is that, if you can smell the boar when you walk up to him, turn around and walk away. Having said that, I've never had to leave a hog in the field for that reason.....yet.

Then you must have walked up on all of them from the upwind side. I've killed a few boars so odiferous that you would almost throw up at the smell.

Their stench is what often gives them away. I've "winded" them from 175-200 yards before when conditions were right. And I've had 125 pound boars smell worse hogs one twice that size. Many factors are at play, and there is no rule of thumb to guide you.

Kensco:

The two Fla hogs I shot: 147, & 200.
Both were good eating imo.

The biggest one we tossed a hind qtr
as he'd been hooked between the legs and
up to the nuts, infected bad. The other
side was good. Didn't seem to stink much.

I brained 'em, both with a .243 at about 30 feet.

George

Must have something to do with what they eat, and that they are constantly after one sow or another.

Found this tidbit provided by a game farm. "Hogs are polyestrous animals which means the sows cycle continuously throughout the year until they get bred and therefore don't have a defined rut. Sows come into heat approximately once every three weeks and then stay in heat for about 24-36 hours. Most of the really big boars taken on our ranch are taken while chasing sows. A boar with big tusks takes about 6-7+ years to grow big teeth and they didn't get that big by being stupid, so when they do get shot it's usually because they did something stupid. I'll let you draw your own conclusions there so as not to say anything to incriminate myself!

Gestation in a sow lasts about 115 days (3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days) so they are capable of having two litters each year but that pretty much depends on conditions being favorable for that to happen. If a sow is in a weakened condition after nursing a litter of piglets she's not as likely to come back into estrous as soon. Weather, nutrition and general health all play a part in a sows ability to conceive. Also, feral hogs have to make a living off the land so don't receive the nutrition of a domestic hog. The average litter size in a wild hog is 3-5 in a very good year. You will see sows with multiple litters however, so many people mistake those as being large litters belonging to one sow."

To sum things up; you will never catch me purposely smelling a feral hog, but you aren't going to be able to hold your breath around them either, at least not the way I skin and quarter a hog. (Gato, I think, felt like I was afraid I was going to hurt the hog when I went to work on him. That had nothing to do with it. I knew he was already dead. I just believe in sound technique, good posture, mental preparedness, cleanliness, and coming away with all my fingers and toes.

I consider "doing a hog" more like a marathon than a sprint, and my times in the event prove that. I actually cease being mad at the hog when he hits the dirt. It just looks like I'm still angry at him until I get the lid closed on the cooler.)

Ken, have you hunted your hogs mostly in east and central Texas? Glad you have not had to walk away from any you have harvested.