Hi all,
Myself and some friends are planning a trip to hunt whitetails in Alabama. We may have a chance to shoot a hog also. My questions is, are they good eating? Are they better than grocery store pork?

Thanks,
kstockfo

I think they taste great and I'm not a big fan of pork! Like anything it comes down to how they are cared for in the field and prepared on the dinner table.

Depends on what they eat. I've killed pigs at Colorado Bend State Park that were eating Cyprus berries I guess. Their fat was bright pink, and they tasted like chit. They won't taste like domestic store bought pork though.

We give almost all our hogs away, to a long list of people that want the meat, we will eat a young what we call a eater pig,every once in awhile, smells and eats like roast pork, the way we fix it. Rio7

They are ok but in my opinion not as good a farm raised pork. i hunt them in South Florida. They are best made into sausage mixed with boston butts. I have ate plenty of them. Goes without saying its how you take care of them after you kill them. We butcher ours and get them in the ice within hours of the kill. I soak my for about four days in ice water draining the water out daily and adding ice. The meat turns white.

This year I was able to get in on a lease while in FL and shot 5. Did not bother with the bigger boars but did shoot a couple of sows that I butchered and ate. The largest was about 140 while the smaller one was maybe 110. They were excellent.

Made pulled pork with most of it. Coated them with a honey barbecue sauce and made a rub from garlic flakes, onion flakes, cajun spices, pepper, some herb, italian seasoning and one or 2 other spices I cannot remember the name of. Marinated it for 24 hr then slow baked it @ 215 degrees for about 8 hour. Just excellent and fell apart. Took some and mixed in crushed pineapple and a little soy sauce and served it over steamed rice. Absolutely superb. Everyone thought it was great. Also marinated some in a Jack Daniels mesquite sauce, sealed it in one of those baking bags and cooked it @ 225 for about 4 hours, that was real good too.

So absolutely you can have some good eating from them!

The ones that Jr. and I brought home from Texas this year have been delicious.

I'd really like to do some pig hunting in Florida, if for no other reason than to pull a tag in another state.

A nice, sub 100# non-breeding pig is a truly wonderful critter.

Don't care for them unless they are pretty small. I brine them for 48 hours before cooking.

They're delicious. We never soaked ours in anything. We just cut as much fat off as possible so it didn't flare up on the grill. Then season to taste while on the grill.

Another favorite is deboning a deer and hog hindquarter. Then roll them up together and put it on the smoker. Season to taste.

Would love to find a cheap or free place to hunt them here in Al. I've eaten it a few times and liked it.

Ditto what most everybody has said... they're tasty, as long as you do a good job of cleaning/cooling the meat promptly, just like any game.

The hogs I've shot on my 2 leases have been delicious. The flavor reminds me of the free range hogs we raised & slaughtered on the farm when I was a kid. Not the bland tasteless pork you get from Hormel and the other factory farms, but a richly flavored tender pork.

It helps if you shoot 'em at about weaner size... 125-150 pounds or so. These are invariably delicious. I've not had the courage to eat any of the big hogs I've killed, though. They look and smell pretty nasty.

I've been hunting and eating them since I was a kid in FL and south GA. Mostly gonna echo what most of the other guys have said. The smaller ones are usually excellent eating. We don't hunt them with dogs, so they never get all jacked up with adrenalin, etc. We hunt them the same way we do deer; stands or quiet stalk/still hunts.

My wife would rather eat wild pork from a 60-110 lb hog than venison. I wouldn't go that far, myself, but they are better than grocery store pork. Lot more flavor, usually very little fat.

If you're looking for a mount, shoot a big one and make the meat into sausage. If you're looking for a decent amount of roasts, chops and and such for the smoker or bbq pit, shoot one between 85 and 120 lbs. Certainly not an absolute, but a general rule of thumb if you're meat hunting: never shoot the biggest one in a group. Shoot one of the mid-size ones.

Lastly, if you shoot one and it absolutely reeks when you walk up to it, it won't be much good for anything but sausage, if even that. That's more common with big ones, and I don't bother shooting the biggest ones unless they need culling. With smaller hogs, I've only had that happen a few times and I've shot a LOT of hogs.

Odds are, you'll very much enjoy the meat if you get one in that 85-120 range.

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kstockfo ,

Like any game animal getting them skinned cleanly and on ice is the main thing to good meat.
I skin them on the ground but hanging them up with a chin hook is best especially if shot through the chest/guts etc..
Don't cut the hog up until it has went through rigor mortise [sp?] -ice them down -I wait 24 hours or so .




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This 140-150 sow was great -skinned her out right in front of my shooting blind on a piece of Tyvek -temperture about 38* .
The odd looking light color is coming from a Texas Boars night hunting light two green and one red lens LED runs off my trolling motor battery -will last all night long.
While I was skinning her out a couple of wild dogs started barking at me real mean like from the dirt road about 100 yards away -turned the light that direction but couldn't get a shot.
Good luck getting a hog for the freezer !

Pick ya out one with a set of nuts about the size of a basketball and he oughta be good!!

Yeah! Kill one with a set of nuts about the size of a basketball and it'll be delicious!!

I bone out the meat and smoke it in big disposable aluminum trays, after coating it all with a dry rub. I lay some of the trimmed fat on top of the meat as it smokes and squirt it with apple juice every now and then when I check how it's doing. I smoke it for about 10hrs at 225F or so and then shred it all to make trays of pulled pork. It never goes to waste....

I don't fool with boars, and prefer 100-200lb sows.

I'll never waste an ounce of effort on a pig that smells when you walk up to it.

We tried that a time or two even after aging for a week on ice.

Nope, not worth the time and effort, it will smell when you cook it and you'll never get that smell off your tongue. Even brined and smoked like hams when you cook it, its BAD>..

Caveat to say I likely have only killed a couple hundred wild ones.