Successful Hog Hunt

[npaden]

Well, I've had several different folks down to my property to hunt hogs but never been able to have it all work out until this weekend. I've shot over a dozen hogs in the last couple years, but it seems like everytime I take someone with me they make themselves scarce. I took a friend from church down this weekend,and he was able to shoot his first big game animal. He was pretty pumped!



I nearly posted a novel on my blog with all the particulars if you want to do some reading.

http://padens.blogspot.com/2009/06/successful-hog-hunt.html

Nathan

[zrexpilot]

Cool, tell him congrats.
I know what you mean about it all coming together. For me hog hunting is way more difficult than deer hunting. Deer can easily be patterned, hogs cant, and they are very very smart animals and very nocturnal. To me they are more challenging than deer, unless the area is just over run with them.
What caliber ? time of kill ?

[npaden]

I didn't put the caliber in my blog story, it's a .30-06. Time of kill was 9:15, right at the end of legal shooting light (although that doesn't apply to pigs in Texas). I told him to shoot it in the front shoulders to anchor it since I didn't want to trail it in the dark and he ended up hitting it behind the shoulder but a little high and it still dropped on the spot.

[SWThomas]

Very cool!!! It's always awesome when you can put someone on their first animal. I'm currently trying to get my buddy his first pig but they are giving us the slip.

[falcon]

Tell your friend congrats on the nice hog.

[leadoperator]

Great job! congrats!

[npaden]

Thanks for the comments.

I butchered the pig last night while Ben watched and helped a little. I let them soak in salty ice water for 4 or 5 days before processing them. He was willing to help more, sometimes it was just easier to do it myself than to have him help. I did try to explain what I was doing as I went, and while I don't think he is ready to butcher his next one on his own, with a couple more tries I think he might be able to. Took a little less than 3 hours start to finish including cleanup.

Ended up with a 13lb boneless ham, 21lbs of pan sausage, 8lbs of steaks/chops and 8lbs of stew meat for right around 50lbs of meat. I didn't weigh the ham as my food scale only goes to 7lbs but it was somewhere in the 12 - 15lb range.

Sealed it up in foodsaver bags and put it in a box for him to take home.

I think he is hooked.

[SWThomas]

That was very good of you to butcher and process the hog for him. You'll have a hunter for life now.