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Wild Hogs

Letemgrowitllshow

Letemgrowitllshow

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 23, 2018
Messages
1,311
Location
Saint Francis MN
Sitting here drinking some cold beers watching the fire burn down and I get to thinking.... What does a wild hog taste like?? Is it like regular pork?

Living in MN we dont have wild hog, but I've always been interested in going south and hunting them. How does that work? Is there a season for them? Where does a fella go to get on some hogs?

If I could put a hog or 2 in the freezer every year, and learn how to cook one in a pit, that would probably be my 4th of July right there!

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Taste like.. pork. They are much leaner than store pork. In SC we are over run. I could kill all I want but my freezer is literally full of them already. Open season year around, no holds barred. They fall under the blessing and a curse category.
 
Letemgrowitllshow said:
Living in MN we dont have wild hog, but I've always been interested in going south and hunting them.

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Be glad. You can come to Louisiana and kill them all you want off my place. No season. Outside of the deer season you can kill them at night. I am going to start trapping them and have live target practice with my bow.

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denots said:
Be glad. You can come to Louisiana and kill them all you want off my place. No season. Outside of the deer season you can kill them at night. I am going to start trapping them and have live target practice with my bow.

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Are they that big a nuisance down there? Sounds like a coyote up here, but I couldn't imagine eating a coyote

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It depends. I’ve hunted pigs from middle Georgia to middle Florida and there are many variables to how the meat is. Most of the ones I have killed in GA were mild. The more agriculture and white oaks around the better. A gilt or sow will be mild almost tasting like store bought but not quite. A small boar up to about 50 pounds is just as good. Between 50-125 lbs you will pick up that boar smell. You’ve smelled it on store bought meat before even though you may not have known what it was when you smelled it. It can be mild to wild. Mild being you can smell a slight smell on the meat. Wild being you force yourself to eat at least one meal of it even though your whole house now smells like a boar. Cooked right it will taste great but if you breathe out your nose you can then smell/taste the slight rankness. Most boars under 90 lbs cause no issues even though you may be able to taste it it’s almost like a seasoning you aren’t used to. You may even like it. The 100-125 lb boars make good sausage. You may be able to tell it’s a boar but anyone not in the know will be trying to figure out what that herb is in the sausage seasoning is that they have never tasted before. It isn’t bad just different. Then there are the rank boars. This can start as small as 90 lbs through huge hogs. I think it depends on diet and breeding competition. The really rank ones are usually over 150lbs but I have had smaller boars be rank. If you ever kill a rank boar and washed your hands several times and were shocked by how bad your hands smelled that night when you layer down in bed don’t cook the meat. Your house will smell like it and the meat will taste like it. I’m talking about a smell on your hands that just has to wear off.
All the hog hunting I did in Florida was with dogs. When you run them with dogs most of them will be rank including sows.

Moral of the story is most animals don’t taste as good after a long adrenaline dump and shoot sows when possible as they are more predictable on meat quality and it helps lower the pig numbers.
 
Killem All ! Let lay like yotes.

When they first moved into our area it took me a few seasons to get to this mentality. After seeing the destructiveness I now have no moral qualms.

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Letemgrowitllshow said:
Are they that big a nuisance down there? Sounds like a coyote up here, but I couldn't imagine eating a coyote

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They are very destructive and very smart. My biggest problem with them is the hurting they put on a turkey population. If they don't completely overrun an area I think they can be a bit useful as they turn over everything and eat up lots of water moccasins and copperheads. Kind of like a tiller, I think they can be beneficial to a point. The problem is they breed worse than rabbits and they eat everything in their path. They get on a hot acorn tree they wipe out every acorn before deer even get the chance. I never seen them personally do it, but I've heard of them killing young fawns as well. As far as eating them I hear real mixed reviews. Some people love them other people don't like them. Like Eric said some of them get pretty rank. I've only processed one hog and it was the absolute worst sausage I ever ate my entire life. I started to cook the breakfast sausage I had made and it stunk the entire house up. I threw the rest away, it was that bad. My biggest problem with Hogs are with the people who transport them from one area to another so they can hunt them. In Louisiana they have made it a crime to transport feral Hogs that are alive for any reason. You cannot even bring them home anymore to grain feed them. I feel absolutely horrible about killing an animal and not putting it to good use but I kind of equate it to the same thing is feeling bad about killing a mosquito. It's just too damn many of them.

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EricS said:
It depends. I’ve hunted pigs from middle Georgia to middle Florida and there are many variables to how the meat is. Most of the ones I have killed in GA were mild. The more agriculture and white oaks around the better. A gilt or sow will be mild almost tasting like store bought but not quite. A small boar up to about 50 pounds is just as good. Between 50-125 lbs you will pick up that boar smell. You’ve smelled it on store bought meat before even though you may not have known what it was when you smelled it. It can be mild to wild. Mild being you can smell a slight smell on the meat. Wild being you force yourself to eat at least one meal of it even though your whole house now smells like a boar. Cooked right it will taste great but if you breathe out your nose you can then smell/taste the slight rankness. Most boars under 90 lbs cause no issues even though you may be able to taste it it’s almost like a seasoning you aren’t used to. You may even like it. The 100-125 lb boars make good sausage. You may be able to tell it’s a boar but anyone not in the know will be trying to figure out what that herb is in the sausage seasoning is that they have never tasted before. It isn’t bad just different. Then there are the rank boars. This can start as small as 90 lbs through huge hogs. I think it depends on diet and breeding competition. The really rank ones are usually over 150lbs but I have had smaller boars be rank. If you ever kill a rank boar and washed your hands several times and were shocked by how bad your hands smelled that night when you layer down in bed don’t cook the meat. Your house will smell like it and the meat will taste like it. I’m talking about a smell on your hands that just has to wear off.
All the hog hunting I did in Florida was with dogs. When you run them with dogs most of them will be rank including sows.

Moral of the story is most animals don’t taste as good after a long adrenaline dump and shoot sows when possible as they are more predictable on meat quality and it helps lower the pig numbers.
Click to expand...

In the commercial pork business we castrate the males at birth so they don’t taste horrible
All boars when they mature will stink



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I haven’t eaten a bad one yet but to me you don’t have as many options to cook them like store bought. I’m not chancing undercooked wild pork so I tend to make pork stews jambalaya etc. something I can cook low and slow and it’s not dried out. Smoked the hams before and they are great. One of the best ways I’ve had... killed some you could fit in a back pack. They were cooked whole on a pit. Meat was super sweet. Now I tend to let the big ones lay and take pics and take the smaller ones out to eat
 
We kill several every year on our place. At first we tried to eradicate them but that’s pretty much impossible. I personally like to eat the ones that are 100# or less, they have a sweet flavor. I usually just cook whole muscles low and slow. The only sausage I’ve ever had tasted horrible. I’ve also read that you shouldn’t cure wild hog meat for charcuterie purposes because they eat dead animals and can carry some pretty nasty diseases. Not sure how true that is but I’ll stick to farm raised pork for my country hams and pancetta.
 
I have a relative that would kill them & let um lay, especially the larger ones. He said all big boars tasted too strong. We killed a couple of good sized ones last year and I told him if he soaked them in ice water with vinegar and lemon juice, he would change his mind. I soaked them and packaged & froze it. Later on I took him some to cook. He was skeptical but called me later and said it was the best pork he ever ate.

I recommend this mixture to anyone that doubts big boars are fit to eat.

WILD MEAT SOAK and TENDERIZER
Skin and Debone or Quarter the animals out and place the meat in a large ice chest with the following mixture:

ICE WATER!! Along with ½-1cup of vinegar and a medium or large (18 - 20 oz) size container of real lemon juice.

Soak large portions of meat for 2 or even 3 days - changing the water as needed and keeping the water ICE COLD and covering the meat.
Soak the meat till it turns white and all blood is leached out.

NOTE, if the meat begins to darken or turn blue then you got too much vinegar! The meat is not spoiled!! Change the ice water and reduce or eliminate the vinegar.
 
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In Alabama, hogs are in season year round on private land. No bag limit. WMA land requires something else to be in season at the time and USUALLY requires you to hog hunt with the legal weapon for the season. Lower Delta is not that way.

Mobile, Al has an airport, plenty of hotels/campgrounds and some walk in land with as good a chance at pigs as I think anywhere. Definitely would be an affordable out-of-state hunt.

As far as taste, they eat right where you hold them. I've never eaten anything over about 150lbs. Big ones in the wild are pretty rare. I've caught them on camera, but never saw one in person. Depending on time of year and locale, they can be lean or fat. The ones in my area put on good fat from the acorns. Unlike deer, their fat is quite good.

I've never had to use any trick to make boars palatable. But I also eat pickled duck hearts, so maybe I'm not the best judge.
 
Ontariofarmer said:
In the commercial pork business we castrate the males at birth so they don’t taste horrible
All boars when they mature will stink
Click to expand...

Thanks, suddenly a lot of this makes sense.

MI DNR says we can shoot them anytime, but I've never seen one nor has anyone I know locally.
 
In a commercial herd boars will not stink until they reach puberty. That is about 120 days old or for a perfectly fed pig. 180 to 220 pounds


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Seasons are different in every state. They do not taste like domestic pork but the flavor is generally excellent. I've only killed a few big boars that were stinky enough (rutted up) to taste really poor. Care has to be taken to keep moisture in while cooking, similar to venison vs. beef. Wild animals are more lean than domestic regardless of the species.
 
Just made s boar stew. I've killed lots. Like more than a hundred. The inside tenderloin is the best meat you've ever had!
If too strong, season to taste and marinade in italian dressing for at least 4 hours. Blacken outside and leave middle red. Let rest from heat a couple of minutes.
Yum
 
All pigs are pigs testosterone will make the meat stink. Maybe you call the flavor good or wild I bet some will call it something else
I think I would rather eat a female or small ones and not a mature boar
Genetics and feed will affect fat levels. But fat is flavor IMO



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I've killed 200+ pound boars that taste excellent and 40 pound pigs that weren't very good. Diet has a lot to do with the flavor of the meat. I shot a sow, maybe 80 pounds, within 300 yards of the pacific ocean several years ago. She was coming out of a thick bedding area in the dunes headed towards the coast. We've seen them eating in the tide pools before and no doubt that's where she was headed. Every ounce of that sow tasted like fish! It wasn't horrible but odd enough to make it hard to eat.
 
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