I recently killed a hog in OK and the meat was terrible. I had it gutted, washed off and to the processor in about 2 hours. The sausage turned out good, but the steaks and chops smelled like burning piss when I was cooking it. Couldn't even eat it. Tougher than boot leather also.

I took the rest of the whole meat and put in a crook pot to make BBQ. The house stunk, but when I put the bbq sauce to it, it wasn't bad at all.

Anyways, is this common with wild pig, or did something go wrong between the processor and the time it took to get it home. I had to drive to South Dakota with it in a cooler of ice. It stayed cold the whole time.

I'm not sure I want to shoot anymore after this.

It's dependent a lot on what they are eating. I shot one on a ranch in a 100 acre pen. Didn't seem to be a lot of feed around, but plenty of dead hogs other hunters had shot and not recovered. The sow I shot was nasty. Got fed to the dog mostly. She has no sense.

Eat the small ones. Leave the big ones. That's my rule.

yeah, mine was a 100lb female in a 500ac lot with tons of feed. The place was very clean and well managed. Feeders threw corn twice a day, and the roads were lined with protein pellets.

I just couldn't get over how bad it tasted after every one on here talking about how great it was. Maybe i did something wrong, don't know..

I only do the backstrap, the rest gets fed to the 'yotes.

You gotta be from Texas to know how cook it right

that is part of the problem with wild hogs. Some are as good or better than any pork you buy while others are not. Usually it is the big ones that have this problem but sometimes the smaller ones are that way also. Had one that wasn't but 60lbs live weight that I would not eat after taking all the time to process, while I have also ate 250lb boars that were great.

I think it has to do with the diet the pig has more than anything else. Even though the pig might have allkinds of good stuff if it found a dead coon pr opossum it might have been eating that also.

Sometimes they are that way from what I hear, especially the boars. I trapped 4 hogs all about 80 lb's, the two boars definitely had a little odor to them but the 2 sows didn't have any. These were not corn fed except to get them into the trap. An old timer once told me the best time to shoot them is right after acorn crop is finished, the theory is they put on a little more fat.

I smoked one of the 80 lb gals this weekend for my daughters graduation party, it was very good. I took a lot of steps to maintain the moisture. You can see how the meat fell apart getting it from the pit to the house.

My rule of thumb has always been, never try and eat a boar over 100 lbs. Sows are generally pretty good no matter the size. Piglets under 60 lbs seem to always be good. Any sow with milk in her teats is the best!!!!!!

A lot goes in to the taste. Shot placement, processing, diet, everything! I have had white tail that ended up throwing away because every bit was nasty, and that was from a processor. Now shot placement is key to a hog in my opinion. If i am going to eat one i go for the head shots, that way none of the internals are exposed to to them meat, vise versa on cleaning, if urine gets exposed to meat it can ruin the meat in a second! I have had meat frmo big hogs be real good, and some little ones not so. But i didnt have any handling of dispatching them either so can not say. just my rule of thumb if going to eat shoot the head, and be careful on cleaning, i dont rush through cleaning them.

Next time wash it off with dish soap before a blade even hits it. we dnt even gut them untill we get them back to wash them off. What happens is when you get that rank smell from the hyde on the blade it will go into the meat as well. Usually the bigger ones will smell the worst and thats why you hear alot of people say stay away from them. I have cleaned and eatin chops of a 250lb boar that taste the same as a 100lb one. its all about how its prepared.

How game is taken care of is important, keep it clean, get it cooled off quick, avoid contamination. But some animals IMO just will not be good, especially ones like hogs which have a very diverse diet.

I have done the processing the exact same with 2 hogs taken the same day with one shot at the feeder. One weighed 140lbs, the other weighed 60. I did the work on both, but the meat was kept seperate. In this case the 60lb pig was IMO not fit to eat.

Call me crazy, but from my experience it has alot to do with the pigs activity before it dies. Ive killed and cleaned many hogs and the ones that were calm, i.e. grazing, unspooked, hadnt been running, were always the best. The pigs that Ive spooked and shot after chasing or pigs that ran after being hit seemed to have the more stinking meat. I think it has to do with the body temp at time of death.....

Shoot a calm cool hog, even a big boar, clean it and compare the meat to a pig that was spooked or running.

Trick to cooking wild hogs?? Getting them to shower & shave before you shoot them.

The half dozen hogs I've taken from east Texas, 100 lbs up to 250, all tasted great, and they did not stink when butchering them in the field.

However, the first LBJ/Decatur hog I shot, a big sow, smelled rank before I even took out my knife. Tried brining/salt water for 3 days on one shoulder after I got it home, could not get the stink out. Cooked it anyway, it stunk up the house and tasted terrible.

A second LBJ sow, maybe 150 lbs, is not stinky but does not taste as good as the east texas pigs. They are all butchered and prepared the same way, and taken during cold weather and 90 degree heat both at LBJ and east TX. The only difference I can figure is their diet. Too bad since LBJ is only a 60-minute drive for me.

Of course how you take care of your game is extremely important BUT, IMO the pig's diet is the biggest determining factor when it comes to how it will taste. I prefer corn fed oinkers & head shots.

mine is always tough as a boot

Guess I've been lucky, never gotten a "stinker" yet in the 5-6 yrs. we've been shooting/trapping them, and I've butchered them all from 60 lbs. up to a 330 lb. sow that had an inch+ rind of fat on all of the chops after processing.

how did you cook it? i never had a problem with mine , are you sure you got the hog you shot from the proscessor ? a 100 pound sow should be perfect for eatting ,

My limited experience has been that most hog meat smells a little bad at first when being cooked, but the smell goes away as the meat gets closer to being done. It was a little off-putting at first, but then I observed that even ground beef has a somewhat bad odor (although not nearly as strong as feral hog meat) at first.

The thing I notice most is that the larger hogs are usually tougher, however slow cooking can overcome that for the most part. Still, I've had a few that ended up going through the grinder, even the back straps, because they were just too tough. Tasted good, though.

Ive killed and eaten wild hogs ranging from 15 lbs all the way up to a 300 lbs boar and never had one taste bad or smell. I process everything myself. Have fed several hundred church members over the years at cook out with them and everyone loves them.

And, Ive read about the smell and taste being tainted quite a bit online. Not sure if its its just a local area thing depending on what they eat or what.

Feral pig flavor is probably too variable to generalize and everyone has, at best, anecdotal evidence based on personal experience within a limited geographic range.

I powerwash prior to quartering if I can. I'm not sure if that really has any effect on the intrinsic flavor of the pig, but others have noted, I think you can taint the meat with that layer of filth they wear around if you aren't careful.

The nastiest pig I've ever tried to eat was a 220 lb. boar taken in Bee County on a very well managed property with feeders running constantly. The pigs may eat a lot of skunk down there for all I know, but it seems like corn and protein may not be an ideal diet for flavor characteristics.

The best pig I've ever eaten was a 200 lb. pregnant sow taken around the Brazos/I-10 junction. That sow had a belly full of duckweed, pecan and acorn. Seems like pretty clean food to me...

Another consideration may be the ancestry of the pig you're trying to eat. Is your feral pig descended from some sort of heirloom slaughtering hog that a rancher in the 1800's used to free-range that was really delicious? Is it descended from some really gnarly Russian boar that was introduced to King/Kennedy County? I have no idea how homogenous the feral pig population is, but it's probably a good bet that it's fairly diverse from region to region and I would be a little surprised to learn that they all taste just alike. Just a thought.

That said, brine and/or smoke the big ones. 80 lbs. or under you can generally throw 'em on the grill like store bought pork. Also, they all seem to pair well with pineapple.

I have never tasted one that was just amazing, most all have a very wild taste to them. I usually just shoot them and feed them to the coyotes now!

I have eat a lot of them and it was very good.If it stinks when I shoot it ,I just leave it lay. I have kill a lot that do not stink and taste great.