I’ll be upfront with you. I am not a fan of hunting big wild hogs. Note I didn’t mistakenly call them “wild boar.” Oh, I used to target the big ones and I’ve killed my share of ‘big hogs’ but I love eating wild pork and much prefer targeting smaller hogs weighing up to about 130 pounds.
Disregard most of those 400-pound monster “wild boar” you’ve read about; rest assured that an honest 250-pound truly wild hog is a very big one and in every place I’ve hunted, pretty rare. The heaviest wild hog I’ve put on the meat pole to date weighed 210 pounds, live weight. I’ve come close to killing bigger hogs and three years ago, I shot a real monster that made it across a fence into property that was strictly off limits. I’ll tell you about that hunt in a bit.
The truth is, many of those 250-pound hogs people brag about killing, if put on scales will weigh closer to 175 pounds, or less. Unless you have actually weighed a great number of wild porkers, it’s easy to overestimate their weight. A wild hog weighing 175 pounds is an impressive animal, he will usually have broad shoulders and ‘rabbit’ hams, which make him look even bigger.
I’ve only hunted true wild boar once and that was on a ranch with a game fence where the owner bred feral sows to true European wild boar, not pure wild boar because of the mixed bloodline, but close enough.
The offspring of the mix produced a big, stocky hog that even within the confines of the 500-acre preserve in East Texas, was extremely wary. I encountered but was unable to kill a really big boar there, one I am sure tipped the scales somewhere around 300 pounds.
Some feral hogs are more detached from farmer Browns pig pen than others. I’ve shot many, many wild porkers that looked very similar to their true domestic counterparts and I’ve shot others that one would swear were right of the wilds of Siberia.
Even in a state such as Texas where I live, it’s virtually impossible to encounter a true wild European Boar outside a game proof fence. But the European Boar bloodline traits do quite often show up in sounders of feral hogs. It’s common to encounter hogs with longer than normal snouts, big wide shoulders and small hams and long guard hair. I’ve encountered such boar running with a sounder of hogs you’d swear were escapees from a nearby hog farm.
When watching outdoor shows on TV or reading about hunting hogs in Texas, many newcomers to the sport are misled by piles of hogs stacked in a trailer, killed by guys shooting AR style rifles at night using thermal scopes. To be honest, shooters using this method account for a great number of wild hogs. But this is not my style of hunting. I was raised between the Red River and Sulphur River in northeast Texas close to some of the best hog hunting the state has to offer. I cut my hog-hunting teeth way before hog hunting became a ‘thing’.
I’ve been hunting hogs for many years and have always hunted them one at a time. The sport to me is getting up close and making a clean shot that drops even the biggest hog in its tracks. Shooting hogs today for many consists of driving up to a field at night, using thermal imaging to locate the porkers, getting set up and bam, bam, bam! Shooting a couple of stationary hogs and then banging away at the ones trying to escape. Nothing wrong with this style of hunting, but as a means of thinning the herd I know for a fact that trapping is much better. A skilled trapper with a modern cell phone activated trap can quickly reduce the number of wild porkers on a ranch and then sell the live hogs to a meat processor for a profit. Blasting away at night does kill hogs but it also pushes them to nearby ranches.
I absolutely love using my ATN Thor LTV thermal, it’s easy to operate, dependable, affordable and more than capable at shooting hogs within the range I like to hunt. In my opinion, thermal scopes are the best thing that every happened to the sport of hog hunting. Wild hogs have always moved best after dark and with the pressure on and popularity of hog hunting today, nighttime is by far the best time. I just target one hog at a time rather than shooting at a spooked sounder running full blast across a field. I like playing the wind and stalking up close for the shot but that’s just me and the way I like to hunt.
Monster hog close to home
A few years ago, a farmer just down the road who allows me to hunt his land told me about a giant boar he had encountered while cutting hay along a big slough that ran through his land. He had sighted the big boar twice and he described it as a monster. I hunted his land a lot back then but had never seen such a hog on a trail camera showing up around any of my corn feeders. I really began wondering if my farmer friend had been mistaken. A 200-pound hog in the wild looks mighty big when one is accustomed to seeing lots of smaller hogs.
Then about midnight one winter evening while driving out of the place, I had what I first thought was either a Shetland pony or donkey step right in front of the truck. With headlights on bright it soon became apparent this was not a donkey but rather the biggest boar I had seen, anywhere. There he was 30 feet in front of the truck standing still for a good 10 seconds. To this day I don’t know if this was the boar my farmer buddy had seen or one simply passing through but he was truly a monster and I would bet my best rifle he weighted in excess of 300 pounds, possibly a good bit more!
A couple years ago, I was hunting the same farm at night and shot a good-eating, 80-pound young sow on the far side of the property. On the way out, I stopped the truck and using my thermal monocular, looked a big field of maize over. Right in the middle of the 100-acre field I spotted a hog, a BIG HOG. Adrenaline got the best of me and I approached from downwind to within 75 yards and then closed the distance to 40 yards. I watched the big boar throwing dirt 10 feet in the air with his snout as he rooted the ground.
I remember thinking to myself, “Now, how smart is this? There wasn’t a tree within 200 yards. What if he charges?"
But the adrenaline rush got the best of me and my hunting blood was boiling. I wanted to kill that hog, the biggest by far I’ve even encountered in the wild. I was even thinking about the wall mount I would have my taxidermist make to preserve my trophy. I was shooting one of those one-shot wonder PCP air rifles at the time that pressured up to around 4,500. It was 50 caliber and I knew I had to make that one shot count.
Just as I touched the round off, the hog quartered and I hit him right behind the ribs. I was filming this hunt through the thermal scope and you can go to YouTube right now, type in A Sportsmans Life and view Segment 199 and watch the event I am describing. Up close through the thermal on a pitch dark night, I knew I was looking at a really big hog, one weighing well over 300 pounds. He was built like a small tank. I wondered if this might be the big hog I saw in the headlights? The hog was obviously hit hard but he made it out of the field and through a fence on the property line. The land was posted and I knew it was useless to ask for access, the owners would not grant it. A couple days later, I watched buzzards roosing in a tree about 50 yards into the heavy cover. I know my shot had killed the hog but no still pictures. Thanks goodness I caught the action through the thermal scope. Take a look for yourself at the video and I think you will agree he wasn’t the kind of boar to be up close and personal with in the middle of a field while shooting a one-shot airgun, regardless how powerful!
About sunset this evening, I will join my friends Edgar Cotton, his son David and Larry Weishuhn in Kaufman County for a chance at a ‘biggun’ that has been jumping over 4 foot fences into deer feed pens. Wish me luck!
