I'm really getting into this wild boar hunting in a big way. Year round hunts without a sideways glance from Game Wardens? Love it!
Anyway, I learned a couple of things that I thought I'd pass on to you...
1. They have built up scar tissue which explains why they're so hard to put down and why bullet placement is so important. It runs from the neck past the rib-cage which is why you can hit them and they bounce up and scamper away.
2. They're a bigger problem than most people are admitting. The PETA types are putting our natural resources in jeopardy because of the restrictions on hunting that they've put in place in some of the more liberal areas of the country. They're called a nuisance species for a reason.
3. There are actually people that kill them with knives. I don't have the courage to try that. 250 pounds of wild boar trying its best to rip my throat with its tusks indicates a need for firepower. Still some are really into it.
4. Trained dogs make it easier but I just couldn't see risking it with my animals. I've seen pics of dogs that got shredded and its not a pleasant sight.
5. They make you earn the kill. Unless you have scouted the area pretty thoroughly and know there patterns (which could change if they start seeing TOO much human activity). Expect to find them in the thickest, swampiest, rat and snake infested areas of a property...unless you're able and willing to set up feed stations for them...even then it can be hit and miss.
6. Sows are good. Piglets are good. Boars are terrible. Tasting that is. I never took the chance cause the meat always smelled so rank when I tried to dress one big boar I took. It was confirmed by some old timers I talked to. Don't even mess with them...and definitely don't try and cook it out. You won't be able to stay in your house for a week. You can cook it well, chop it up and feed it to your dogs. Don't let them eat it raw though. The dangers of that should be obvious.
Last but not least. If you care for your natural habitat then do your community a favor and kill a wild pig.
I live in Barcelona, which is a _densely_ populated area (the county is about 4x the density of the city of Chicago) and boars come down from time to time from the nearby nature reserve (almost a wilderness park, in US terms). Sometimes with cubs. Humans are not much of an issue for them.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, they get shot down. In fact, from time to time, they enter into the "plague" list, which is as close as a "free for all" as you can get in Spanish law.
Ferran, BCN
you ever eat the sows or piglets?
DeleteI don't think wild piglets are legal targets. I'd have to check the law on vermins, though. I'm not a hunter myself. Father was, but he was a bit out of date when he died (didn't hunt any for 35+ years).
DeleteTake care.
I shot a male wild boar in 1971 in Northern Israel. I used an AK-47 and hit it in the right eye. Death was instantaneous. The thing was big enough to supply a barbeque for a kibbutz with 60 families. Not very kosher, I know, but delicious!
ReplyDeletethat pretty much confirms it. its a world wide problem...except in Africa. the one place that needs a wild, invasive food source and they don't have a wild pig problem. amazing and a bit depressing. all the starving people there and its the one place that doesn't have this issue.
DeleteI believe the taste thing is testosterone.
ReplyDeleteIts why (or one of the reasons why) castrating food animals took off in a big way.
I never got the trend towards ever smaller bullets and now apparently knives to hunt.
If that was a boar, the hunter in the video would have lost a dog no question.
Track it with a dog, kill it with a heavy rifle, or lose to PETA.
Boar is a meat you can prepare, it's been a stapple of european meals for about 3000 years at least, until the 18th and 19th centuries brought more delicate meals... Boars are to be roasted, boars are to be cooked in brown beer sauce, cut in chunks, or boars are to be prepared using recipes from the Romans, from the medieval period, etc... Killing a wild boar with a spear and a knife, helped by dogs, was for a long time the test of courage of the younger men, the rite making them adults. They can be pretty dangerous, as is shown in ancient greek myths from 2500 years ago (remember the Calydonian Boar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calydonian_Boar or the Erymanthian_Boar, one of the works of Hercule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erymanthian_Boar) !
ReplyDeletei forgot all about greek mythology (and its some of my favorite reading!)...the rite of passage is also something i forgot about but brown beer sauce and wild pig sounds good..time to google it(the sauce)...
DeleteYou may also look for boar with red wine sauce, that's also a classic, with mushrooms for example. We also serve boar with red wine sauce and berries (especially those we name in french Ayrelles). (what ? old Europe has nice recipes for everything ? sure we do ! we're old :p)
DeleteIn La Pampa(Argentina), the dogs are not only used to track but to keep it still while the hunter kill it with a knife. I am not brave enough to do it but is traditional over there.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n8iTF5Mzxc
i like to think i'm all man but i just can't do it. i'm an ambush hunter. the pigs wander into my kill box and its dinner time!
Deletea hunt is a hunt solomon.
DeletePS: Usually the dogs are hurt by the will hog. They will just be treated on site by any of the hunters. And of course you risk your life doing it.
La Pampa is a great place for hunting, I never hunt anything bigger than a rabbit with a shotgun (the easy thing to use when you are on a truck at 60 km/h running behind the animal on a open field .
better video look from 3:24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n8iTF5Mzxc
ReplyDelete