Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Pigs, what do you prefer?

I know many hog hunters that wont even touch a big, over 150lb boar. They insist that they taste awful. I don't know how they know that, as they've never tried one. The larger boars do tend to have a stronger smell, but that's on the skin. I always thoroughly wash down them down before skinning and gutting, making sure there is little contact between skin and meat. I also try to keep my hands clean so they don't transfer either. There is little wrong with the smaller ones, but the larger are just as good. capt david

I have to agree with you. I know a bunch of hunters that will not mess with any boars and especially the big ones. Some of them smell stronger than others but I clean all of them even the really big boars. If they have a bunch of fleas and/or ticks on them I either hit them with a pear burner or spray them down with a spray bottle of everclear grain alcohol and throw a match to them. You get a little bit of burnt hair smell but all the fleas and ticks are dead and gone. 9 times out of 10 the big boars are just as good as the smaller ones once you cook them. Every now and then you will get one that is pretty strong but those are few and far between. One thing that I think helps on the big boars is to throw the meat in an ice chest with ice and water and let it soak some and then drain off the water and leave them on ice. This seems to pull allot of the blood out of the meat and I think makes it eat a little better.

Anyway the way I look at it the bigger pigs have more meat and in most cases it is just as good to eat if you take care of them properly.

We butcher them all

Mohawk,

To me alone, I prefer the "wee piggies" that dress under 60# & that can go onto the BBQ pit whole.
(IF I'm cooking for a crowd, like for our church's Brotherhood, a BIG sow is FINE, too if you have a day & a big enough pit to cook it slowly/throughly.)

just my OPINION, tex

the ones here in nor east fla any over 40lbs an got nuts you cannot get the stink out of them .I have tried for 45years

My dad's side of the family has hunted hogs here in FL and south GA going back to just after WWII well before I was born; over 75 years since my grandfather shot his first one. They've come from south east FL, central FL, north FL, and south GA near the state line. Big pigs pushing 250 lb, little pigs in the 35-40 lb range, swamp pigs, hardwood creek/river bottom pigs, Kissimmee prairie pigs, pine woods pigs and it hasn't mattered. Every one got processed and only a few in all that time were "rank", the rest went to sausage, backstrap, tenderloins, and roasts. One of the nasty ones was a big sow I shot that that had just weaned a litter. It's not only boars that can be off.

Some were certainly better than others for flavor; diet related we always have assumed; but only those few noted were discarded for nasty. Notably, a few of the best were boars in the 90-120 lb range, so we don't discriminate. My youngest son shot a 104 lb boar two weeks ago that falls into that group, as well. Plenty of fat on the hog and good flavor from the first cuts we've had.

If there's a choice for me to make in deciding which one of a group to shoot, I'm more concerned with how tough the meat might be than afraid of the flavor.

I kill dozens of them, clean a hundred pounder once in a while. Only a few smell bad.

Had a big boar absolutely run us out of the house it smelled so bad when we tried to cook some of it. One huge sow was so tough as to be unchewable. Since those two episodes I’ve not butchered one over #150 or so and haven’t had any more bad ones.

Generally I can kill 3-5 before they get out of sight with my personal best being 9 out of a sounder. In those cases I pick the smallest 2 or 3 and remove the loins, sometimes I’ll take more of them depending on how close I can get the truck. Rarely I’ll remove a couple hams off a #50er to smoke and pull.

“Pigs, what do you prefer.” ...dead

We've had ones that stunk bad when we walked up. Doesn't matter what we did they smelled when you cooked them too. Yes we know how to clean a pig properly etc... Didn't taste bad but the smell made it tough to eat.

Our rule now is nothing thats old, they are generally tough. Even sows. And if there is a strong odor when you walk up, no way at all.

Beyond that doesn't matter to us, male/female, the rest have all been very good, not just edible.

Seems our history mirrors the kid's too. LOL.

FLNative my family turned the hog lose in fla when the place was found hundreds of years ago they did not eat boar hogs they cut the nuts off and killed them later no fla people eat stink hogs

All I care to hunt here anymore are hogs. Cleaned and eaten all sizes, boars and sows. Prefer smaller ones as they are easy for me to handle if alone.

100%

That's my rule. If you can smell a boar fifteen feet away when walking up, leave him for the buzzards.

Other wise, fair game!









I've got to where in my old age, I don't alway skin em' out completely

Lotsa times these days, it depends on the time of year and whether it is morning or eve. Due to a lots of hard knocks, at 67 I've got to where if I've been up since five and it's just getting dark at 9 PM and I don't get the critter back till 10 or 10:30 PM, I just take the backstraps.



An example.

Where we hunt there is no cell service except in a couple areas. My bud and I left camp about 10 PM to go down to one of those area where we could get signal and call our wives, make sure no state of emergency existed. On the way back we decided to check a pen I've set up with trap door for catching hoglets. Well as it turned out we had about 15 hogs in the pen. I had my shotgun with 5 rounds and my glock 43 with 7 rounds. Bill had his Kimber and 8 rounds IIRC. Well we killed till we ran out of bullets. Now mind you we are in the dark, holding lights while these pigs in a 30' x 30' pen are going bat-schitt crazy. So we made our withdrawal, drove the mile back to camp and got my trailer and more ammo and came back and finished the job. Next was to get them out of the pen. Well Hog panel is 32" high and the trap door is about 30" wide and 2' high. Good bit of liftin' went on. Two old farts who both have back problems. By time we got back to camp it was 1:30 AM..
I was in the mood/need of a beverage and 4 Ibuprofen. I stripped the loins out of one and called it good. As it was 90 degrees or so at 1:30 in the morning, wouldn't bee too long before the meat was green.

So I just take the backstraps/loins and don't bother to open them up.





ya!

GWB

Trailer full of pigs, I like that!

Well, I've fattened up a share of bar hogs, too. All depends on the situation, of course. As for ancestry, that's impressive, tracing all the way back back to the 1500's here in the peninsula. French Huguenot or Spanish conquistador? Either way, I reckon you got me beat, since my ancestors were still in Scotland and Italy back then, near as I can tell.

As for no FL folks eating boar hogs . . . good to know. I'll take it under advisement . . . while I continue to enjoy smoking, grilling, and frying this 104 pounder that tastes better than any grocery store pork anybody will ever buy.

"Well...bye"

I'll go with what Geedub said...cause hes shot a couple more than I have....

Personally I like sows at 100 pounds or less, though I have eaten them up to 169 pounds with no complaints. Every boar Ive killed over 125 lbs fed the buzzards and the coyotes cause they didn't pass the smell test...

I prefer the huge sows, sober even.

GW’s second to last picture looks like how the buzzards find them when I’m done. No mess of blood and guts and I can strip the loins off one in just a couple minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever gutted a pig, even taking hindquarters I just skin them from the top down to the knees and then disjoint the hip and roll out.

Only bad one I have seen was the first. My father shot it in central CA and it was easily the biggest boar I have ever seen. It smelled bad and died in an eroded creek bed and we had a miserable time getting it out to where we could work it over. We tried to eat it. I have shot a good many since, in a good many different States. Have not had a second bad one. Did have one on Hawaii (the big island) that was as parasite infested as a critter can be that we did not salvage. Other than that they have all been very good. Looking to find a spot to shoot some this winter.

10/4

The hoglets where i hunt have large shouders and small hinds. Lotsa' times its not worth the effort to skin out the hinds. However, if I'm gonna have sausage made or want pork chop and ribs





then I skin and gut.



Most times these days I take the backstraps and if I'm in the mood and the hoglet warrants, then its the loins and shoulders, then take a knife and work around the ball/socket joint on both sides, lower the pig down where the head and front shoulder are on the ground. Takes most of the stress off the hinds. Free one hind from the carcass, then do the other.





Wrap a strap around the neck and drag to the bone yard.

ya!

GWB