Texas Hog Hunting?

Heading to Texas in January. Was thinking about trying to get in a little gulf coast fishing but that might not work out. Plan B is a hog hunt. Got some relatives down there that might be able to help set this up for me. Just looking for some additional info. I’m assuming mid January is still a decent time to hunt hogs? Looks like as far as a license goes I can get a 5 day out of state. Most likely looking at hunting on a ranch or with someone my relatives know. I currently hunt a 30/30 with a scope. Is that big enough for hogs? Next is what to do with one once shot? Got no problem bring my buck knife and diving right in to field dressing but being a MN boy have no idea about dressing a hog. Then there is prepping it to get home. Good chance Ill have my truck with and some coolers to get it home if needed.

Just looking for any tips or ideas if you guys can help. Blasting a hog sure seems to be a way to make my January.

Where in Texas?

Texas is where you go to escape ice fishing. And hopefully shoot some pigs.

Haha, where In Texas are you going to be?

30-30 will work. As for the rest, I’m no good to you.

Ben Putnam wrote:

Haha, where In Texas are you going to be?

Got relatives just north of Forth Worth so assuming somewhere around there. Was checking on line yesterday and looks like plenty of Ranches around that offer pig hunts. Prices seem to start on the low end $100 and up depending on what you want. Even found one place that offers helicopter pig hunts. Think it was around $400 a hour for blasting pigs out of a helicopter. Might have to pass on that this trip.

When I was living in San Antonio, there were some ranchers/farmers that were paying bounties for taking pigs off their land. I don’t know if there are any still doing that, but that’s a 4-5 hour drive at least. I can try to dig up some info for you if you’re interested. A 30-30 should be fine, but a 45 on your hip can’t hurt… I’ve seen some huge hogs out there! A lot of the guys will take them out of their tailgates just so they aren’t on the ground for any surprises.

My trip is going to take me to Fort Worth and Austin so think I need to stick to something in that area. Did find this forum for this morning while looking on line.

http://texashuntingforum.com/

Check out the tusks on this pig. This photo is off the Texas Hunting forum.

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Mike is there a limit on hogs or do they want them all dead.? Maybe you can bring back enough meat for BK to make his own spam.? …rrr

This is a bucket list item for me. I want to go somewhere you can whack and stack as many as possible. Let the glutten out of me. The helicopter hunt is also something I plan to do when I’m down there also. After watching the documentary call Pig Bomb, it’s hard to believe we can ever shoot enough of them.

Mike, I’ve had good success with smoking them. Since their wild, they tend to be on the lean side – or at least the few we did up.As for field butchering, keep it simple.
Hang by back legs and skin. Much easier to skin sooner than later.
We cut out the inner loins and back straps, clean off and vac seal in the Vac Master bags. I kept the ribs, so I wasn’t too concerned about being a little sloppy and leaving meat on them.

I left a lot of the front flanks on the ribs and cut out the front legs/shoulders. The lower of the legs are super tough meat and I don’t salvage a lot. I cut up from the inner side of the leg bone and debone the leg/shoulder. I don’t follow the “typical” butchering since I am just smoking and making pulled pork out of them. Vac seal and on the the hind quarters.

I do similar for the hind quarters. Only cutting more roasts. Had good success with wrapping these cuts in thick bacon/season, and slow cook in the crock pot with beer or red wine

I cut the rib off and cut in half – long ways so I get 4 racks of ribs.

I hate the neck. Tried a number of different things with it and haven’t done well. Can take a long time to trim all the tendons and crap out. We’ve ground it up and made jerky, added it to hamburger….just anything so it wasn’t wasted.

Just a suggestion on transporting meat. The investment in a GOOD vac sealer like the Vac Master 305 will pay for itself. The 305 runs about 250ish compared to the 170’s on other brands or smaller units. The seal strip is wider and the vacuum pump is much more heavy duty. Stay away from the Foodsaver bags – they are over priced, thinner mil, and a single ply poly. The Vac Master bags are cheaper in cost, 2 ply poly with an inner design to allow much more air to be pumped out. By sealing your meat, you can pack in ice and keep your meat dry and not water logged by the time you get home.

Good Luck down there and let us know when dinner is served!

Thanks for the info Randy. Sounds like my sister has a employee that has a lease down there that might get me set up for a hunt. Smoking a hog sure would be a great way to redeem myself from this years poor showing at deer hunting. Looking on the texas hunting forum there seems to be plenty of ranches all over the state to hunt them. Prices look to start at about $150 a day and go up from there. A day hunt down there looks to run 24hrs. Plenty of night hunting going on to.

Jon sent me this helicopter video the other day. This looks like more fun than what should be allowed. All it needs is a shot of some guy kicking empty beer cans out of the helicopter. Towards the end fo the video they really start smoking some hogs.

Okay. Might of been off on the price of helicopter hunting. Looks a little closer to $2500 a hour. Looks like they supply just about everything including the guns and ammo. Tac-12 A1 tactical 12 gauge looks like fun to shoot.

At over $41.00 per MINUTE for the hunt in the air, you could buy a heck of a lot of baby backs

http://www.helihunter.com/book-a-hunt.html#year=2014&month=12&day=11&view=month

Hunted down near Hondo TX a few years back. It was an archery only ranch. I shot two and saw a lot of others in three days of hunting. One of them was about a 150 lb blonde russain strain hog. The rancher tried to talk me into a full body mount. No way! But I did get a rug made. Probably should have my head examined……..It’s pretty much the same as butchering a deer. We flew down so we just froze the meat in big chuncks and wrapped it in our sleeping bags in our duffels and it was still froze when we got home. I cooked a lot of it in a crock pot. Very tasty! It was a very fun trip.

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super_do wrote:

Hunted down near Hondo TX a few years back. It was an archery only ranch. I shot two and saw a lot of others in three days of hunting. One of them was about a 150 lb blonde russain strain hog. The rancher tried to talk me into a full body mount. No way! But I did get a rug made. Probably should have my head examined……..

That rug just makes me smile, Super-Do. What an awesome trophy. I’d chuckle ever time I looked at that.

I’d love to do a hog hunt in TX. I looked at it a few years ago, but I was put off by the prices. Despite hogs being deemed this huge problem in TX, the ranchers still wanted to charge big bucks for the privilege of helping them with this “huge problem”.

It seems like prices are more in the reality range now. May have to look into this again.

Grouse

Great Monday morning video. Still working on putting a hunt together for January. Videos like this just get me pumped up to shoot a hog. This video is on the texas hunting forum. 300# hog that just will not go down.

http://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/5505526/300+_Pound_Zombie_Boar!#Post5505526

Ended up staying at Wild Turkey Ranch just north of Stephenville Texas for my hunt. Very nice place to stay. Almost no stop animals running around. Ended up shooting my two hogs no problem. Shot the 1st one after dark. Night shooting was a new experience. Will be bringing a light for the riffle next time. Got a feeling Ill be heading south again next year for more pigs. Bigger hog went 135# field dressed. Smaller was about 90# field dressed.

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I thinkl you’ll be very pleased with the meat on those smaller hogs. From the FB pics and this, i see you had a great time. Loved that grill they were using!!!

So where have you hog hunted Randy? Anyone else got any recommendations? Texas was fantastic but a heck of a drive. Never to early to start planning for next winters trip.

There’s enough of us on this forum that would like to do a hog hunt that I wonder if it would at all be possible to lock down an IDO hog hunt? I remember there were a few of us that were going to head to Lake Erie and fish walleyes once and it all fell apart so I know it’s easier said than done but……. wouldn’t that be fun??? I promised my son a caribou hunt before I start chasing anything else and right now it looks like 2016 may happen. After that though, I could see a TX trip being an annual adventure. Maybe we’ll grow a group hunt somewhere in the future? I’d rather do that than ice fish for sure!!!

Getting a few guys together would be the right way to go. Had to do this hunt on my own so needed to limit myself on certain situations like night hunting and size of pigs shot. 2 guys would be good. 3 guys to a vehicle would be about a perfect way to split things up and not be to over crowded. Some ranches if you get as few as a half dozen guys together you get the entire place to yourself. Shiloh ranch in southern OK has a 6 or 8 person limit for that. Take a look at their facebook page and they are shooting some scary big hogs.

I know Ill be going hog hunting again somewhere next winter.