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Big boys

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My bro shot this monster in Tx in 2010 IIRC. 270 lbs. one shot from like 70 yds w/ 130 AB from .270 WSM:

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I always hear about how these big boars are gamey but this dude was tasty!

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That's about the size of my best. It tasted great. Captdavid


"It's not how hard you hit 'em, it's where you hit 'em." The 30-06 will, with the right bullet, successfully take any game animal in North America up to 300yds.

If you are a hunter, and farther than that, get closer!
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Biggest I have shot was a bar that went 405# in central FL. Punched him twice behind the shoulder with an AR and cheap 55 grain bullets. He took 5 of us to load him and he filled the bed of my truck, easily.


Since then, I have only seen 2-3 that I thought were in that ball park. They either had more Russian in them (could be pure) or were typical scrub/feral bars. I won't say typical boars dont get that large, I just haven't seen one that didn't show more influence from Russian genetics. When I was a Hog Agent for the state of FL during college, I got to hunt and shoot a lot of hogs. A 225 pound boar is a lot of hog that appears and acts even bigger.

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In my life I have killed some 300+ hogs in East Texas. Most are feral hogs that show some color of blooded hogs, but the build of "Piney Woods Rooter" stock and are definitely wild.

Most of these hogs will weigh 125-150 pounds. An honest 200 pound hog is uncommon, but certainly not rare. Any hog that approaches 300 pounds is bragging size.

Some 30 years ago a group of hunters brought in hogs that were supposed to be pure bred Russian stock. Of course , being hogs, they soon escaped the property where they were held. Most of the larger hogs we see show definite signs of having Russian blood in them.....and sometimes appear almost pure Russian.

Occasionally (rarely) I have seen hogs that would weigh 350 pounds or more. I personally have taken 2 animals of exceptional size.

One of these was somewhat of a fluke (or freak). This hog looked like a pure blooded hog. It was snow white and the only "wild" trait was it's tail that was like a wild pig not a domestic breed.

This particular animal had lived and fed on a local farmers property that was planted in corn. When I shot this animal I thought I was shooting a huge sow, but upon rolling it over It was discovered that someone had been "working" hogs in the past and cut this hog when it was young. Such "cut" animal tend to grow quite large.

We put this hog on a scale and it weighed 435 pounds. It had very small "tushes" for a hog of this size....maybe 2 1/2" long. This hog had 4" of fat covering it's entire body. This was the only "wild" hog I've ever killed that we could obtain bacon from due to the excessive fat. This hog was a fluke as it obviously had a lot of blooded hog in it's history, had exceptional food and was "cut" at a young age. However it was a wild hog and did weigh more than 400 pounds.

By far the largest hog I've ever killed (or seen) was what appeared to be a pure Russian boar. For years I'd heard the stories of 500 pound wild hogs. Most of the "500 pound" hogs I'd seen were 300 pound, not weighed, hogs killed by others. I'd have bet you $100 that there was no such thing as a wild 500 pound hog....until I killed one.

We caught this hog in a trap and when we first saw it couldn't believe what we had. This hog stood some 4 1/2 feet at the shoulder with tushes better than 7" long. It was pure Russian (apparently) with high shoulders, tapering to smallish hips. A ridge of stiff hair stood along it's back and neck and the head alone was more than 2 1/2 feet long.

When I shot it we tried to drag it out of the trap, but three men could barely move it. We finally tied a rope and used the truck to drag it out. Fortunately there was a swale where we could back the truck so the tailgate was level with the ground and loaded the hog. He was so long that we had to "fold" his head down to close the tailgate. Laying on his side in the back of the truck, his off side was 6-8" above the sides of the truck bed.

At the camp we tried to weigh him but our scale only went to 450 pounds....and it bottomed out. We finally caught the guts in a tub and weighed the guts, head, hide and meat separately. The total came to 525 pounds. Considering the blood loss and such we "estimated" this hog would have weighed 540-550 pounds "on the hoof". Even if we guessed a bit high this was definitely a 500+ pound (525 actually) wild hog.

I never expect to see another hog like this one and have never seen any killed by others that comes close. A very large wild hog will go 200-250 pounds. An exceptional animal might go 300.......but there are the rare (very rare) "freaks" that will go over 400 pounds. From personal experience a 500 pound wild hog is not impossible.....just damned unlikely.



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Last Monday late in the morning I went from Jacksonville back to Palestine on Hwy 79, and about 2 miles outside of rhe 256 Loop in Palestine I saw 2 road killed critters barely off the roadway, laying on the paved shoulder...that had not been there 2 hours earlier when I went thru there the 1st time.

One was a mature WTail laying on his side paralleleing the Hwy with no body damage in evidence from behind the wheel at 65/70'ish, and the other was mebbe tha largest road killed hog I've ever seen.

The hog was on his belly almost stradling the white line that seperates the shoulder from the roadway, and covered more than half the paved shoulder also laying parallel to the roadway, stretched out perfectly upright and apparently fresh killed as his 7-8+" tall ears were flapping in the wind off the passing traffic. The only damage I saw was a massive Kenworth bumper sized bloody swath on the left side of his head. I'm guessing he was 5 1/2-6'+ long from the withers to the base of his tail, and about 36" tall thru the shoulders from the pavement.

I've hunted the other side of Palestine in the past in the Trinity River bottoms and saw a live hog with his sounder that the TPW Warden running the WMA grinned and said was a well known character that probably weighed well in excess of 300 lbs, and agreed that it would have taken cutting at least 2-3 strands off the bottom of property owners 5 wire fence to drag him out of the creek bank he was dozing on...and this hog on the hwy made that one look like a younger brother.

If I were to guess I'd say this guy on the hwy was well over 250-300lbs and possibly a lot larger than that...and all East Texas Rooter bloodlines for sure with his little not so scrawny arse & long bristle ridgeback laying 2 feet off the hwy.

Ran the errands and came back about 2 hours later and both critters were gone...somebody got a nice set of cutters for sure off the big boy....mebbe some illegal venison too.
Ron

Last edited by verhoositz; 02/19/17. Reason: my spelling is crap sometimes

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I shot a few up toward mid 300s , many 200s. In my opinion like with any other animal taste has more to do with age , general health, what they are eating and what they are doing combined with how you care for it after the kill. All things consistant you will likely have better meat from a smaller sow or boar than a really big one. Not to say the larger one will not be good. What would you think would be more tender , a young heffer or steer or an old bull?
I alway look for signs of infection. Dog bites , general injuries and parisites are all possible sources of infection that can effect meat quality. After 30 years of doing this Personally For meat and easy cleaning I would rather shoot four 50lb hogs than on 200 and up.


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As I've stated before, where I hunt there is little crop agricultural. It is basically dry. Our pigs don't grow as large as those where it's wetter, or there's more agriculture. Anything over 150 is big, over 200 is huge. I've killed two, over 200, a buddy one. All were excellent table fare. All were solitary boars. The worst I've eaten were both around 100lb sows that had been nursing. If I had my choice it would be the fattest non nursing sow or boar in a sounder. Hopefully it will weigh 125 or better. FWIW the live wild hog buyer, to be slaughtered for sale to Europe pays a premium for the larger hogs. Captdavid


"It's not how hard you hit 'em, it's where you hit 'em." The 30-06 will, with the right bullet, successfully take any game animal in North America up to 300yds.

If you are a hunter, and farther than that, get closer!
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Captdavid,

We kill feral hogs in the 300# range here in LA. A couple of year ago, I shot a 300# boar in the early morning fog at 225 yds. Drug him to the scales and weighed him, was 300#'s even.

My buddy, Hastings, also a Louisiana hunter, has killed some big ones, as well. Here's a big one he killed last year, didn't weigh him. It looks about as big as my 300 pounder.

Here's his hog.

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Dirtfarmer, 300# plus pigs aren't unusual around my place. I weigh 210 and lots of them out weigh me by a bunch. I'm glad I have a stout 4 wheeler and a Ford tractor to move them. We have certainly made them more intelligent and harder to kill. Do you have a picture of that big Russian boar I killed last year?


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Another big Louisiana hog from Hastings' place with some Russian characteristics. Another bud from south of us, got a load of Russian hogs from Tennessee and turned them loose in the Red River hardwoods. That was a mistake, IMO. Like Hastings said, crossing them with Russians just makes the problem worse, the hogs tougher and smarter.

My bud's thinking was, if we gonna have hogs, lets raise some good ones to hunt. Knowing what he knows now, he wouldn't have.

DF

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That second post by C ROY that has the little girl standing by a big hanging hog appears to be a Russian influenced animal. The hair and the hide alone looks like it would weigh 50 lbs. They probably needed a lot of hair and smarts to survive in a Eurasian climate.


Patriotism (and religion) is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

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Hastings' first hog looks typical feral, the second shows a lot of Russian traits, including reddish color, ridgeback hair pattern. There would be more differences if they were standing side by side, not hanging from a front end loader.

After watching trail cam evidence of hogs eating hog carcasses, I've about decided to get my pork at the grocery store; I'm done eating these critters.

They're as bad as possums. The old folks would catch a possum, feed him out then eat him. I've kicked old cow carcasses in the woods, had possums run out of the cavity. Yuck.

Hogs are about as bad. They're known to carry a host of diseases; we wear gloves when cleaning them.

I'll keep shooting them for control, not for my freezer.

Just saying. Will probably get push back on that, undoubtedly from those who've not seen the trail cams I've viewed.

DF

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I shot down a big boar one night about 10 PM. He fell DRT in the corn he was eating. Went back after daylight to drag him off, and the corn was gone. Checked the trail camera and found that a bigger boar had rooted him out of the way and ate the corn. Got him the next night. They eat fish heads and guts, calf crap, etc. I've quit eating them also and wear tough gloves if I clean one for someone else.


Patriotism (and religion) is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

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Yep, we can't quit shooting them, trapping them, etc., trying to control the population surge.

My feeling, we're slowly losing the war. Hopefully the nitrite poison technology gets worked out before too long.

We need all the help we can get before we end up looking like Texas and some other areas...

DF

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Originally Posted by kaywoodie
This one is not all that big as far as pigs go, but it was an accomplishment for wifey. She shot it off back porch of the house here, a month after open heart surgery to install an LVAD heart pump.
This was the 88 she gave to our granddaughter this past Christmas as she is no longer able to to hunt.

[Linked Image]


Nice shooting... heck wiith the pigs ,looks like you have a feral CAT problem!!!!!!

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While sitting on a porch watching over a valley in Central Texas a Gentleman I only had just met said when asked... " We used to shoot a lot of 300-350 lb pigs here, Then I went and bought a scale. I ain't seen one over 245 lbs. since!"

I shot a 225 lber and 60 lber.....

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Originally Posted by wyoming260
Originally Posted by kaywoodie
This one is not all that big as far as pigs go, but it was an accomplishment for wifey. She shot it off back porch of the house here, a month after open heart surgery to install an LVAD heart pump.
This was the 88 she gave to our granddaughter this past Christmas as she is no longer able to to hunt.

[Linked Image]


Nice shooting... heck wiith the pigs ,looks like you have a feral CAT problem!!!!!!


No they aren't feral. My farm cats. Of those in photo, none of those are alive today. Between coyotes, owls, FedEx driver, etc.

As far as pigs go, we haven't had any locally since 2014. I think the folks moving in the bottoms here are eating or shooting em as fast as they can. The're just isn't any. And we had bunches.


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Have their round haunches gored."

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