Going Hog Wild for Off-Season Pigs in Texas
By Lynn Burkhead
Herald Democrat
A couple of weeks ago, with the smell of fresh pork backstrap grilling on the barbecue, this thought occurred to me once again.
That depending upon your perspective, Texas is a state blessed – or cursed if you’re a rancher or farmer – with an abundance of wild hogs.
While no one seems to know for sure just how many feral hogs there are in the state, some estimates have placed the Lone Star wild swine population at least at one million pigs.
My guess would be that it's even more than that.
First introduced into what is now Texas in 1539 by Hernando de Soto, feral pig herds expanded in the mid-1600s when the LaSalle expedition brought hogs to portions of the Texas coast.
Down through the years since, plenty of other porkers have escaped from farmer’s corrals, adding even more rooters to the state’s burgeoning herd.
While most of the state’s wild pigs are simply domesticated hogs that have escaped and gone wild, some hunters claim that the occasional Russian boar still exists. You'll still hear that claim a lot in East Texas.
Regardless of the wild pig’s lineage, coloration can vary from solid colors to various spotted or belted combinations. While the occasional monster hog weighing 400-pounds plus and sporting five-inch tuskers is harvested, most boars average between 100 to 200 pounds with smaller tusks. Sows generally average slightly more than 100 pounds in weight.
Instead of telling you where to hunt feral hogs in Texas, it might be easier to tell you where not to hunt them since wild hogs can be found in river drainages in nearly every corner of the state.
Including this one. In fact, find a creek bottom or drainage in Grayson County and odds are good that you'll find pigs nosing around.
One friend of mine has regular luck hunting pigs west of Sherman. My wife's uncle, Larry St. Clair, finds them in eastern Grayson County. My pal Jim Lillis finds hogs not too far southeast of Sherman.
The wild porkers also run through southern Grayson County between Van Alstyne and Whitewright. Ditto for areas just south of Sherman near Texas Instruments. Areas east of Denison have fair numbers of pigs. And northwest of Sherman, wild swine literally run roughshod on lands that border portions of Lake Texoma, even on portions of famed Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge.
Got a deer lease somewhere in Texas? If it's near a river or creek bottom, the guess here is that you'll have pigs from the occasional interloper to an outright infestation of the hogs. One deer-rich spot I hunted in South Texas had swarms of pigs roaming around and rooting up the prickly-pear flats not far from Pearsall.
If you don't have a lease, wild pig hunting is available on Texas public lands through the purchase of the state’s $48 Annual Public Hunting permit.
Public hunting is also available through TPWD's annual draw hunts that offer permits on a number of Wildlife Mangement Areas. While the deadline for applying for permits to hunt a feral hog on TPWD managed lands has already passed for the current year, standby spots can sometimes be available. For more information, visit TPWD’s website at
www.tpwd.state.tx.us or call 1-800-792-1112.
Two final hog hunting options include either a day-lease operation (check the Dallas Morning News classified ads) or booking a guided hunt through an outfitter like J.J. Kent (
www.kentoutdoors.com ; (903) 271-5524) or Tim Hall (
http://texomaoutfitters.com ; (903) 786-2748), both of the Pottsboro area.
While wild pigs are an unprotected non-game animal that may be taken by a properly licensed hunter employing a variety of hunting methods, the two primary methods are hunting over bait and spot and stalk hunting.
By and large, most Texas wild porkers fall to hunters around corn feeders or food plots. That includes a 230-pound boar with a long snout that tried to sneak into a whitetail food plot I was guarding a few years back. My Mathews compound bow spoke and the Muzzy broadhead tipped arrow filled my freezer with pork and gave me a unique trophy for the wall.
But spot-and-stalking pigs is one of the most fun and challenging ways you can hunt them. I've killed them with a gun in South Texas sneaking up on them and in North Texas doing the same.
Got a Western big game hunt planned this fall? Then pigs provide the ultimate warm-up act to fine-tune your spotting and stalking skills. They may not look bright but they are, sporting keen senses of smell and hearing to go with fair eyesight.
Throw in the bearish attitude that some big boars sport along with their razor sharp tusks and stalking these animals can hold just a twinge of danger. While stories of charging pigs are often more legendary than factual, they can indeed charge when cornered or wounded.
And when they do, a big wild boar can easily pass for a poor man’s grizzly bear, looking for a fight instead of flight.
Regardless of how you choose to hunt porkers, wild hog sign is hard to miss. Look for tracks, smelly wallows in swampy areas, muddy rubs on fence posts or trees, coarse hair left at fence crossings, and torn up turf where the swine root for food, and you’re in the ballpark. Most trophy boars are solitary animals, preferring moist, dense cover and associating with family herds of sows and piglets primarily during breeding times.
Keep in mind that feral hogs are tough critters to bring down, regardless of how you choose to hunt them. With a tremendous will to live and a tough callused shield covering much of their vital area, harvesting one of these stout animals requires a razor-sharp broadhead and a minimum draw weight of 55-pounds or better or a well-placed bullet. Due to the cartilaginous sheath and heavy layers of fat, take only broadside or quartering away shots on wild pigs, making the first shot count.
One final word of caution: while wild razorbacks provide excellent table fare, some precautions need to be taken. Since heat can spoil meat quickly, be ready to almost immediately track and field-dress a killed wild pig.
And since wild pigs can occasionally carry trichinosis, use the precaution of wearing plastic gloves while dressing them and making sure that the meat is properly cooked to a high enough internal temperature.
With months to go until next fall's deer season, wild pigs offer the perfect way to keep your hunting skills sharp, actually get to hunt an abundant creature that is in need of herd thinning, and getting to sample some great pork cuisine.
All to which I say a hearty “Here piggy, piggy, piggy!”
Thought that I would share...
J.J.
