Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hog Hunting/Eating Questions

My buddies and I are up around 50 taken so far over the past 8 years. We drive 10 hours to get to south Georgia, & take 'em in a swamp. Sometimes they're eating acorns, other times just eating whatever scrub is down there. We have noticed some differences in flavor, but haven't tracked it down to diet just yet. We once shot some in a different area that tasted noticeably better, and they were regularly parking themselves under corn feeders.

Across all those swamp hogs, we've not yet gotten a bad one, even with 3 or 4 having gone over 200 lbs. This includes boars. I did walk up to one smelly one, but he surprisingly ended up eating just as well as the rest. A good hose-down seems to be important, but I don't know if power washing or shampooing them would be worth the extra effort.

As a rule, though, we look for 100-ish pounders or less. We haul 'em intact back to the cabin and dress 'em there, then put 'em in a walk 'in cooler. When we're ready to leave, we section them with pruning loppers or a sawzall, then toss 'em in coolers & cover with ice for the ride home.

My buddies make sausage with their meat, but I've never cared for it. I don't know if they add domestic hog lard, or what, but it's not my kind of sausage. I've not had much luck with grilling it - any off flavors seemed to be accentuated, and it cooked too fast. If I don't watch that meat carefully on the grill, it'll clunk-up into shoe leather in a hurry.

I smoke my portions whole, and that seems to work out best. 225 degrees or so, and it cooks much more quickly than domestic pork. The pieces are far smaller than a domestic hog, and there's precious little fat to work with. Those that do have fat have carried it on their backs, rather than as intramuscular fat (marbling).

Brining for 10 hours and/or injections really improves things. The meat retains far more moisture, and those hogs that might have had some off-taste have it greatly reduced, and usually eliminated. I did a test at a New Year's party where the guests could choose from 2 piles of pulled meat. One was a domestic shoulder (took 20 hours to smoke it), and the other was brined shoulders, hams, and a loin from my trips (took 6 hours to smoke). To my considerable surprise, everyone chose the Georgia boars.

Still, I dunno that I'd look at it as a reliable way to feed my family. I know that if I keep at it long enough, I will get a nasty one that won't make it into the cooler. The flavor profile across individual hogs will vary a lot. Smaller critters means more processing time for less usable meat. The drive is a pain. And I've had trips where I only brought back 1 hog across a 3 day hunt. Then I compare that against my local grocery occasionally having butts on sale for < $1/lb. Kind of an easy choice.

As a, "Guys Spring Break" trip, though, it's a hell of a lotta fun. We go down again 9/30.

FC

I'll second the vote for using a Havalon! For long cuts through that thick hide, though, I keep a box cutter with replaceable blades handy.

I personally LIKE venison, but on average a good woods hog is better than an older buck.

About the only "wild" animal I haven't or won't eat found in my area is a possum. Armadillos are sort of a toss up.

I have to disagree with you, Simon.

As a former Wildlife Specialist trained in this very subject, I can tell you that the information is compiled by years of study, field necropsy, and actual data.

This isn't a "scare story" as you put it, but merely a warning of the possible threats to disease and parasites wild hogs are proven to carry, and how to avoid getting said disease and parasites when near or handling wild hogs.

As with anything else, just take from it what you will. Or not...

http://noble.org/ag/wildlife/feralhogs/disease/

They do carry diseases. We are not faithful about gloves but should be.

That said, we've been really lucky. But what do they say about life vests and fire extinguishers and rubbers... yeah, you don't need em until you need em and then its often too late....

Agreed. Brucellosis and Trichinosis are transferred from one meat eater to the next. Hogs, bear, lions better be cooked well or you are taking a risk with a nasty payback. Check out the symptoms and you'll be wearing kitchen gloves to clean the damned things.

"My buddies and I are up around 50 taken so far over the past 8 years."

We (8 of us) usually kill 70 plus during bow season alone. We don't kill as many during rifle season because the hogs go nocturnal real quick after they get shot at. We still kill 10- 20 during rifle season.

So, there's a long list of possible stuff that hogs carry. OK.

Is there any statistic on the rate of occurrence on any of those?

Is it 1 in 5, 1 in 10, 1 in 10,000....?

Not being difficult, I'm genuinely curious.

That would be interesting to know. I'd bet accurate statistics would hard to come by, being largely based on self-reported incidents. I remember from my days pushin' pork for a prodigious packer, that trichinae are killed at 137 degrees F. The other nasties, I'm not so sure about.



Trust me, if we lived down 'mongst 'em, we'd sure shoot a whole lot more of 'em.

FC

Look, just cook it like any other piece of game and any and all diseases (if any) will be destroyed. Been eating them for years and as others have said, they eat well, especially if properly prepared. Personally, I'll take it over venison (deer) any day.

Backing up rockinbbar post .most inclusive post ever. When you see the results of samples sent in ,on blood, tissue, glands ,all the parts, why would anyone eat it??? But some people eat $hit, so knock yourselves out.

CDC (yeah, I know) recommends wild pork be brought to 160F internal temp for safe consumption.

They actually have what appears to be a pretty reasonable PDF of how to handle the meat.

https://www.cdc.gov/brucellosis/pdf/brucellosis_and_hoghunters.pdf

Mostly focused on brucellosis, obviously, but seems to be a "catch all" on how to handle/cook it and be safe.

I stopped counting at around 200 and that was 15 years ago. But I dont care if you have butchered 1 or 1000 I would use gloves and caution. Never gotten sick myself and I dont intend to. I am willing to take the word of our wildlife professions down here that say to do so. If any we kill show any sign of sickeness or injury we toss them to the buzzards. Where I hunt you cant count on them all tasting good but you can count on another one being out there to kill.

Sure hope you don't look in the kitchens of places you eat out at either then.....

Shadow, meet scared....

I'm always amazed that humans survived until now, since untold generations butchered, cooked and ate wild animals long before government guidelines ever appeared.

Some didn't.

A friend of mine lost his dad to tularemia he contacted while cleaning rabbits he killed for eating.

Of course that was humans as a whole, but I get it totally.

I have a sister in law thats scared of her shadow.

Damn sure won't wade fish on the coast, but if you ask her WHY, its sharks. Not rays, not flesh eating, not rattlers, not alligators(not sure she is even aware of those) but sharks.

And she thinks dolphins are cute....

Thats a shame on the tularemia. We should really all be a bit more careful, but in the end, I've always opined... as long as you don't have an open cut, or cut yourself in the process(glove being of no help there) and wash up post haste and not touching mouth/nose etc.... you are likely to live a long life in regards to the chances.

Godchild of ours.. father an anally clean freak dentist... didn't like him playing outside or in the dirt and wash wash wash all the time... kid has been sick with colds and such probably twice the average kid...

You can go to extremes on either end IMHO.

Wife and I won't eat our steaks any other than rare and I prefer my burgers that way also... that may well not be good in the end...

It's the government guidelines that get you. We will have a lot more if Hillary wins

a lot of the hogs I shoot in Georgia are not worth processing. Male hogs seem to be the worst. Young females are not bad.
Here in North Florida, they don't seem to be as bad. We butcher and process our own. Not that difficult.

On our lease, some of us shoot the hogs, butcher and eat them. Others claim that they don't like the taste or that they carry diseases and are not safe to eat, so they just shoot them and let them lay down and die. Usually, they are eaten by something in the next day or two. None of us who eat them have ever gotten sick from them while cleaning, cooking or eating.

Either way, the wild hogs are a problem for the farmers and ranchers. They also reproduce like crazy.

We only shoot them when no one is deer hunting but regardless of reason for killing them or what you do with them the farmer is happy to hear we killed some.

In my experience, the best are the ones less than 150 lbs and are shot in the colder months. Clean them quick and soak them in brine for a day or two before eating, if you have not made them into sausage.

The smaller ones eat real fine,the larger ones not so much.

We shoot all we see at the least but haul the large boars up the hill to use as varmint bait.

If they are not cooled down fast they will get rank,even sows.
My hunting bud shot a large sow and gave me some ribs.They were broiled in the oven and then thrown out with the pan they were on.

The dogs wouldn't eat them.
Killed some 75-125 lb. hogs over in Jack county and after the chores were done the backstraps were cut about 1 in.thick and butterflied.
Had some fried potatoes as well as some beans.
Made you glad that the bunks were close by,we were full.