Hog Hunting in Texas

On a recent deer hunting road trip through South Texas, down by the border, I became obsessed with shooting a big boar hog. I don’t know why. I’ve seen many hogs over the years and shot a few, but for some reason I just wanted to shoot a big pig real bad.

Turns out, it was not easy. While there are an estimated 1.5 million feral hogs in Texas, I couldn’t find one to shoot. Days went by, then a week. Every stand I hunted, hogs would show up somewhere else. Plus, the pigs were acting like Big Deer, largely nocturnal. On most of the ranches we hunted, they moved out into the senderos early and late in the day in low light, especially late in the evenings.

One animal that was not so elusive was the javelina, or collared peccary. Small bands of "javees" popped out in the senderos and sucked up corn morning, evening and midday. I saw at least 100 of the little buggers. One morning at 9:15, I looked down a lane and saw five black blobs moving in the brush. "More darn javelina," I told Danny, the camera operator. I threw up my binos. "No wait, hogs!" You’ll hear me say that just as it happened on TV. I had not expected hogs to come out with the sun so high, but I got ready.

Five or 6 coal-black porkers, I don’t remember exactly how many, rolled into the red-dirt road 130 yards out. I had my eye and Trijicon scope on only one, the biggest by a long shot, an old boar I figured and hoped (the others in the group were good-sized, not small suckling pigs like you see with the sows). The big pig turned, shucked and jived, always moving, sucking corn like a vacuum cleaner. It took a while, but I was finally able to line up the Model 700 7-mm-08 and plant the crosshair on the hog's short neck. He stopped for an instant. I pressed the trigger, and WHAM he went down on the spot. Bullet to the ear hole!  

Awesome pig, look at those tusks, and he had a long, black beard, a lot of Russian boar in that animal. As beautiful as a feral hog can be. I figured he weighed 150. Pepe, the ranch hand, drove up and as we loaded the porker into his pickup he said, "No, man, 180 at least." He sure was stout, short but thick..the pig that is.
 
Back at camp, Pepe cut out the hog’s bottom jaw. He’s gonna boil it, cut out the tusks and give them to me when I come back next year. The tusks are razor-sharp and actually quite long, extending down and back into a hog’s jawbone. Really looking forward to getting those tusks back. Maybe I’ll drill a hole in them and thread them on a necklace, and wear it to look bad-ass on TV like you see some people do... 

Nah, just kidding. But I got my boar hog and that was cool.

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