OK all you experience pig, boar or hog hunters out there.

Can you list the biggest or heaviest beasts shot in your country ?

Just wondering which country in the world have the biggest pig by weight

This is to settle a discussion I have with a few friends in London

THIS IS NOT A TROLL OK guys but just to settle a hunters tale.

Thanks
Londonhunter

The biggest anywhere (the 450-1100#) are farmyard hogs released for "hunters", but I would assume you mean the largest wild/feral hog that hasn't been fed while penned. It's not always possible to differentiate which is really wild, but IMO very few wild hogs that have to root for a living get over 450#. And the ones that get that big live near productive farms.
South Arkansas has some of the 400# feral hogs along some of the river bottoms next to good farmland. Gatogordo has a picture of one huge beast killed down there.

I have to agree with SGraves....
To get much bigger than 400lbs they'd have to be living near a pretty major food source like a farm or a feed mill where they didnt really have to "earn" a living.

One other possibility, guys: barren sows and natural born gilts(?) (boars with no testicles...).

Around here in Mississippi, every time somebody shoots a hog it's "four or five hundred pounds." I always ask, "Did you weigh it on a good scale?"
And they always reply, "Well, no, but...."
The biggest ones I've personally seen in Mississippi and Texas are not much over 300 lbs. Being a wild hog is not easy, it's a tough life. The ones I have shot or seen killed have next to no fat at all. I, too, think that 400 lbs would be about the limit for a truly wild hog.

We have a habit of tossing hogs killed here on a certified cattle scale. VERY few togs top 300 in our country.

Lets see,
I probably spend at least 60 days a year "in the field" since 1999. I've hunted on 7 different ranches, all low fence/no fence that range from 750 acres to 50,000 acres. I've hunted over bait and stalked. I also trap and snare hogs. Here are three of the bigger hogs I've either killed or been involved with and were actually weighed. Only one weighed over 300 lbs.
Two weighed +/- 275 lbs. One weighed 315 lbs. These were weighed on a game scale, not a certified scale. They were weighed within an hour or so after they were shot.








I weighed this boar at 275 lbs. I'd have swore that he was heavier, but that's what the scale weighed him at. My son and I could not move him. We used a batterey operated winch to load him.






This boar is the only boar in 11 years of hunting the hill country that I have actually weighed at over 300 lbs. It tipped our scales at 315 lbs. The fellow in the picture is 6' tall.









I took four men and their sons on this hunt. We shot 18 hogs this weekend. This hog was this young mans first kill with a rifle. It was shot with a 243, and some tracking and a charge by the boar was involved. It weighed in at 275 lbs.

I have shot others that might have weighed more, but nothing that would approach 400 lbs. I'd have to say those are rather rare.
GWB

quote:

Originally posted by SGraves155:
The biggest anywhere (the 450-1100#) are farmyard hogs released for "hunters", but I would assume you mean the largest wild/feral hog that hasn't been fed while penned. It's not always possible to differentiate which is really wild, but IMO very few wild hogs that have to root for a living get over 450#. And the ones that get that big live near productive farms.
South Arkansas has some of the 400# feral hogs along some of the river bottoms next to good farmland. Gatogordo has a picture of one huge beast killed down there.

I agree. You get near 300 pounds and that is a really big hog and a rarity.

I farmed and raised cattle for 27 years; I've also hunted larger game for even longer than that and have seen any number of animals weighed, so I'm pretty good at guessing the weight of animals. I have never personally seen a feral hog that would weigh more than about 250 lbs, but I'm sure there are legitimate 300-pounders (about 140 kg or so) out there.

As others have said, larger hogs are a result of opportunistic feeding on crops or other nutrition not naturally available. Dragging four or five hundred pounds of lard around in the wild is not a good survival adaptation.

As an aside, the really huge hogs have lost nearly all their speed and endurance, and are not much danger to a pack of hounds or a hunter. But a 200-250# or so, mature boar can run for hours and kill a whole pack of hounds in an afternoon, then tear up your garden that night. One of those giant overweight hogs would have his tongue hanging out if he ran/waddled a hundred yards--kinda like some of us.

We have shot many many hogs on our place. It is about a 1/2 mile off the Trinity river bottom in Anderson County, Texas. My son shot a boar 5-6 years ago that we weighed at 342 lbs. I lifted it with the front end loader on a tractor with a scale in between. That was the only pig we have killed that exceeded 250 lbs that I am aware of. I will say that the average size is getting bigger. Last year I shot two sows in a herd of 20 pigs that both weighed about 200 lbs and there were 8 more in the gang with them that size. Years back 150 lbs was the average for a good size pig.

Check out this monster killed by Chris Hughes with a double rifle!
Chris Huges' Big Pig!

My experience is similar to Geedubya, I have been hunting pigs since I was 15 and now I am 43. I have hunted them every month, every year.

My hand has more fingers than the really big boars I have seen after all those years hunting them.

Any pig of 300 lbs or more in Uruguay is a real trophy. It must be several years old (not something easy as they have a lot of hunting preassure)and with some domestic blood line in him despite that it looks like 100% european. Also helps if it was hunted at the end of the summer as he has been feeding with crops for several months. The same pig hunted in winter will weight much less.

L

I've killed 3 boars over 300 pounds on my ranch. 2 were just over and one weighed 350. One I killed last year went 289 but was really skinny, if he had been fat he would have easily exceeded 300. Biggest sow I've killed weighed 280, last winter, and the same day my son killed 2 sows, one at 260 and one at 210. We had one gigantic boar that a friend shot (probably) with a .270, couldn't find any blood trail, but I think he died. He was huge, and would easily have made 350 or maybe quite a bit more. I'd seen him several times, but could never get a shot. Those 3 sows made a pretty good truckload that we gave away to a local. But this is out of a LOT of pigs shot and killed by myself, my son, or hunters on my ranch over a multi-year period. However, in this area, which has a lot of corn and soybean fields, there is usually at least one or two killed per year in the 400 plus range, reportedly one killed last year by doggers weighed 550, but I never saw the whole hog, just his head and he was a big hog. Adam (my son) and I tried to get a shot at 2 really big sows the other day, one might have exceeded the 300 mark, but they moved into some heavy cover and the wind was wrong, so we let them go. I'm onto them tho and maybe will get the big one if Diana smiles. I killed a skinny sow with the .223 the other morning, just for the record, but she was probably on her first set of pigs, and only went about 100.

AFA how little those big hogs can run, one that went over 450 ran a mile or so from the dogs, fought them off, swam the Red River into Ok and was caught again about 2 miles from the river an hour later. However I agree that a 150 to 200 pound boar with an inch to 2 inch long cutters is the most dangerous to dogs.

BTW it is my opinion (totally based on observations and anecdotal stories of other areas pigs wts) that our grown pigs run a little larger than the average, especially of those farther west, either in S Central or SW Texas or Ca. I attribute this to two factors, one, the grain agriculture we have that is fairly widespread and two, the fairly heavy cover which is also widespread and helps make the pigs harder to see and kill, which gives them more growing time. It's fairly easy to kill a 200 pounder just about anytime if you can get them out in the open where you can see the whole sounder. Of course, most full grown pigs that are killed weigh in the 100 to 175 range. This year seems to have a bumper crop BTW.

I just tasted one of 2 hams that I smoked last night. They had been curing 4 days @ 5C in (per gallon water) 1 cup kosher salt, 1/3 cup brn. sugar, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 1 tsp. pickling spice, 1 heaping tablespoon potassium nitrate. They are fantastic!!! gotta do it again....

quote:

BTW it is my opinion (totally based on observations and anecdotal stories of other areas pigs wts) that our grown pigs run a little larger than the average, especially of those farther west, either in S Central or SW Texas or Ca.

I'd agree that Gato's area of NE Texas, where a combination of readily available crops interspersed with thick cover and nourished by relativley abundant rainfall is able to grow feral hogs that run larger than most places. It is much like the black bears produced in the agricultural areas of North Carolina and a few similar locations where they tend to dwarf "wilderness" bears. Generally speaking, I would guess the high rainfall agricultural areas of the southern United States from East Texas to Georgia to produce the heaviest hogs. Some places like Missouri might also produce some whoppers.

I have weighed a bunch of the hnogs I have killed here in Texas.

I have killed several in the 265 to 285 lb range.

I weighed one that took my 300lb scale past the 300lb mark. I figured it weighed 330 to 340 lbs baised on how far past the 300 lb line it went.

I killed one other pig that was bigger than that one, but I could not weigh it. I was walking and it was killed in a lace I could not get a vehicle to it.

So I butchered it in place and packed the meat out.

All of the biggest pigs have been boars, all have been butchered and cooked.

ALL were excellent eating, including the two 300lb boars.

A good boar here in the fatherland is any that go over 100kg (220 lb) field dressed. Dressed out weights around the 120-130kg (pushing 300 lbs) range is about the limit I've heard.

BTW, looks like most of you guys are cheating, weighing them piglets whole Waidmannsheil, Dom.

quote:

Originally posted by Dom:
A good boar here in the fatherland is any that go over 100kg (220 lb) field dressed. Dressed out weights around the 120-130kg (pushing 300 lbs) range is about the limit I've heard.

BTW, looks like most of you guys are cheating, weighing them piglets whole Waidmannsheil, Dom.

Unless you are carrying the pig a long distance, I see no reason for field dressing them -- they are not deer and won't start to bloat. I guess you could fill the empty void with rocks and get the weight up even higher!

quote:

Unless you are carrying the pig a long distance, I see no reason for field dressing them -- they are not deer and won't start to bloat.

Interesting to hear and why is that? I have noticed that from the photos on the forum.
When we hunt warthogs we field-dress them immediately as with any antelope.
To do with the ruminant issue?

Down here we also field-dress them inmediately or as soon as we can. Makes a lot easier to carry them back to the truck.

L

quote:

Originally posted by Karoo:

quote:

Unless you are carrying the pig a long distance, I see no reason for field dressing them -- they are not deer and won't start to bloat.

Interesting to hear and why is that? I have noticed that from the photos on the forum.
When we hunt warthogs we field-dress them immediately as with any antelope.
To do with the ruminant issue?

No need to. We'll usually get it back to camp, skin it and quarter it there. If you have a long way to carry it, I can understand, but if not, there really is no advantage in my opinion.

If I can get a pig back to camp pretty quick, i usually gut, skin and butcher it there.

If the overnight temp will be 40*F or lower I will gut it, and hang it over night.

I have killed MANY pigs in 100*+ Texas heat.

I gut,skin, butcher, and get them on ice ASAP.
They all taste great.

I feed the big ones to the coyotes and buzzards. The shoats are really good to eat.
I just scoop them in a front end loader on a tractor Then I may chain them to a hook on the loader and lift them up and gut/skin them in the field. A tractor with a loader is a wonderful thing!

You're making a mistake, the big ones are just as good as the young ones, but usually tougher.

Of course, if you're overrun with hogs and have a freezer full, I have no problem with returning them to nature. I give away a helluva lot more than I keep these days, but unless it is some elderly person, widow, or similar, they get them whole.

I also 100% agree that a front end loader is a wonderful thing.

Gatogordo,
Can you repost those photos of that big hog from SW ARK that you posted several months ago?

270lb Louisiana Boar - most of the rest of the country considers Louisiana a Banana republic right?

Two of the most inert things in the world are a big dead hog and a big dead bear... moving either of them can be a tough job.

I saw a full-size pick-up truck, doing 50+/-mph on the highway hit a smallish domestic hog that had escaped from a pen and ran onto the highway. Driver never touched his brakes and stopped like he hit the end of a chain -- don't think he moved that hog more than a couple of feet and of course beat the hell out of his truck.

This hog was taken near Silverton Texas
My buddy from the Phillipines shot it with a 25WSSM. We estimated 400#+
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