SHWAT’s ammoland.com press release offers readers a chance to sign-up for a $25 membership that automatically enters them into a series of drawings for rifles, ammo, training classes and the like. While the lawyers amongst us might scratch their heads on that one there’s no mistaking SHWAT’s main mission: making money. Sorry. Killing hogs. SHWAT = Special Hog Weapons and Tactics. While the pedants amongst us might scratch our heads and wonder what makes hogs so “special” and what kind of weapons and tactics they use (tusks and aggression?) SHWAT’s all about hog killing. As you’d hope . . .
There are millions of feral hogs in southern America. They swarm in large packs, hide during the day, rip livestock to pieces and spread necrotic diseases to humans, who then spread the flesh-killing virus by biting others. Hang on. That’s zombies. Hogs. Zombies. Same thing.
OK, yes, a zombie is a fictional creation (really). A wild or feral hog is a live animal. And there are no more millions of wild pigs on the loose in the U.S. than there are 11.7 million undocumented Americans hoovering up government subsidies in The Land of the Free. In other words, there are. And there’s no getting away from the fact that both zombies and feral hogs are considered “pest species.”
Zombies’ dangers are self-explanatory. Here’s the anti-pig agit prop (jk) from feralhogs.tamu.ed:
A 2004 survey conducted by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service placed annual damage to agriculture in TX alone at $52 million with an additional $7 million spent by landowners to attempt to control the pigs and/or correct the damage. This is indeed a very conservative estimate. Other researchers suggest that damage per pig per year averages $200– but the problem there is that the assumption is made that a 40 pound pig causes as much damage as a 300 pound pig, which is unlikely. The total pig population in Texas has been estimated recently (2011) at 2.6 million. However, estimates for the United States population as a whole are non-existent but “guesstimates” place that number between 4 million and 8 million animals. Some reports estimate total damage in the U.S. may be $1.5 billion annually—However, these damage estimates are in part based on population estimates—but again, a figure we don’t have a good handle on nationwide.
Whatever. Kill the bastards.
[Note to the politically correct: according to the book 1491, hogs released by Spanish conquistadors spread diseases that pretty much wiped out the Native American population. If it weren’t for feral hogs, we’d all be singing the Cherokee morning song. Or have sharp burning stakes thrown into our bodies for two hours.]
Here’s the really good bit: while tooling up for zombie killing is expensive, unnecessary (so far) and impractical (i.e. you can’t really use all that kit on anything other than paper and fake blood oozing zombie targets) feral hog killing is totally guilt-free, fully justifiable real world adventure! And it’s good for business.
Want a reason to buy a new Remington 700 Tactical Chassis Rifle in .338 Lapua with bipod and a thermal and/or night vision scope? Sure you do! And you want to be able to tell the ATF/FBI/ATF/DHS/prosecutor/jury why you own such a thing; you know, eventually. See that logo right there? That’s Special Hog Weapons and Tactics. Did you know that hogs kill seven to eight people each year? They’d eat 10 trillion dollars worth of corn—if Uncle Sam hadn’t paid farmers not to grow it.
To paraphrase the Grinch, the toys, the toys, the toys! Trijicon’s ad on the shwat.com site calls their ACOG red dot sight the “Hog Whacker.” Wilson Combat, EOTech, laserdevices.com, Daniel Defense—all the bad boys have their ballistic toys on display. And why not? Hog hunters do it tactically! From helicopters! At night! Bow hunters taking hogs from 30 feet notwithstanding.
But there’s a small problem in all this. While SHWAT and their ilk are into ethical (tactical!) feral hog killing, the animals aren’t all that good to eat. Something to do with roundworms, kidneyworms, lungworms, stomachworms, whipworms, liver flukes and trichinosis. (There’s a reason I didn’t link to any of that.) Even proponents of wild hog eating aren’t that convincing. Here’s dumdum at answers.yahoo.com:
Very good to eat. Just try not to shoot the larger boars, sometimes, not always they have a rank smell and taste. With pork, I’ve found it is best to gut it as soon as it hits the ground. And skin it before taking it to be processed. If it is a little distance to the butcher shop, you need to pack it in ice. To make it fit in an ice chest you may have to quarter it up. Pork, unlike deer, tends to spoil very very quickly. If you kill a large boar, when you get home take a small piece of ham meat and put it in a skillet and fry it up. If the odor runs you out of the house, don’t bother about processing it. But you can actually tell when the boar is on the ground if he has a real strong odor, don’t even bother with processing him. But if he just smells like a hog, he will turn out ok. I don’t really know why the odor is so strong sometimes and sometimes it isn’t. But it may have to do with mating time.
Yeah, no thanks. Besides, they’re pests, remember? So just shoot ’em and leave ’em for the coyotes. We like coyotes, right? Nick?
Bottom line: feral hog hunting is great for the firearms industry’s bottom line. And getting greater. In our pursuit of Kirsten Weiss trick shot excellence we’ve discovered dozens of hog hunting helicopter companies throughout Texas. Morally, ethically, spiritually, tactically and financially, feral hog hunting is like killing zombies on steroids. Only real. How great is that? Hey, I’m in.
One thing. Can someone please tell the hog hunters above to aim a little lower? Thanks!
To a Minnesota fisherman like me hunting the south, hogs were to deer as pike are to muskies. Not the main target but they keep things interesting while you were fishing/hunting for the main target.
Until I saw one dead, I didn’t understand how sharp those tusks are. I figured they were like any predator’s teeth: long and conical but no sharper than a ballpoint pen. Not so. They can be as sharp as a hunting knife. I remember pulling one out of a truck bed and the tusk scratched paint off the bed.
You have a good business opportunity there! Fully organic knives, if you make some sort of hemp grip on it.
Feel free to use the idea to become rich, just thank me and maybe send me a test sample.
If I lived in the south, I’d absolutely go on hog hunts.
But we don’t have to deal with them around here.
Shoot ’em and eat ’em…at least the smaller more delicous ones.
The big fatties are best left for the dogs.
Shoot the big ones and leave them. Inedible, but like all leaders of the pack, they mate as often as possible. I simply do not understand why some people think it is wise to set these critters loose on their property , in the apparent but mistaken belief that it will be good for business when the hunters pay for access. These animals will cause more damage than hunting fees will ever pay to repair. Kill ’em all (not particularly likely). They are nonnative, and heck, there are millions of tasty farm raised hogs left for eating.
Hog hunting would be high on my list other that the 14 hour drive to get where they are. Apparently Texans are not as blood thirsty as I had heard.
We should have tax credits for rifles and ammo used for hog hunting. Especially since the pork isn’t worth the harvest.
Actually they’re quite tasty by themselves. Ribs, pork chops, pork loin (my favorite), breakfast sausage – yum! And, since your venison is going to be mixed with pork for sausage anyway, it might as well come from a hog you harvested.
Like any living creature, they deserve to be treated with respect. Aim (see what I did there) to make quick, clean harvests. Use or donate the meat. Mind you I’m not saying don’t kill them, or even not to try to eradicate them, but there’s a right way and a wrong way.
The Texas DFG seems to agree:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/nuisance/feral_hogs/#meat
We have feral hogs here in SE Ohio now. Not many, but they’ve made it across the river somehow (trucked?). I’d love to do some hog hunting but they are too sparse here, at least for now.
I’ve wondered if there’s work for a dedicated hog hunter down south. . . seems like an interesting occupation.
That may be the case in some locations. I live in rural East Texas, and when I mentioned to my dad that I might like to do some hog hunting, he said “Well, just let me know. All I have to do is mumble ‘hog hunting’ under my breath and I’ll get a dozen invites.” Some large land owners in the area do charge hunting fees, but you really don’t have to look very hard to find someone that will let you hunt to your heart’s content for free.
There are actually a couple of TV shows about professional hog hunters. The catch is they mostly have to live catch the pigs. Their revenue consists both from payments from land owners to alleviate their feral hog issues and sale of the meat, and pork for resale must come to the butchers live by regulation. Once a hunter shoots a pig they can only then either donate the meat to a food bank or keep it for personal use.
I’ve eaten many feral hog ribs over the years. Frigging tasty, but they were mostly from smaller (sub 150 lb) ones. Big ones reportedly taste like rancid ass.
It’s too bad there are difficulties in eating them. IMHO (and this is off-topic and controversial) the crops destroyed by hogs (such as various grains, though hogs destroy many things) are not as nutritious as the meat from the hogs. If they weren’t so destructive towards other things, disease infested, and dangerous for humans, hog hunting for food would be a good way to get nutrition from uncultivated land and keep environmental balance, natural habitat, etc. If only…
Whoops! I used the word “environmental”. Prepare for flaming.
Can we have a herd of these shipped to the Sacramento area? It would be interesting to see how the anti-gun CA legislators would react to an overpopulation of hogs eating the state capital. We can arm them (the legislators, not the hogs) with single-shot .22 rifles and non-lead bullets.
I’m up for arming the hogs too
they’d just register them to vote and further strengthen their constituency.
The only feral pigs in Massachusetts are in the state house, and shooting them is frowned upon.
bwahahahaha!
Got the same problem in Colorady too.
Maybe it won’t be frowned so much on before much longer.
He, he, he.
This is really high on my bucket list. Right next to Montana moose.
Yum.
I hunt zombies with a pointy stick. Hogs? not so much. I leave that up to those chica’s on TV….
I so want to do this, I’m not a hunter but this is hunting tactically which is cool.
I’m going hog hunting at a friend’s farm some time within the next month. It’ll be my first time hunting anything larger than squirrels and I’m a bit nervous given their reputation of being destructive and dangerous beasts. Anyone have any good tips on shot placement, cooking ’em up, etc?
If it’s legal where your at carry a good handgun as a backup. Buddy got seperated from his rifle and chased up a tree. He was there for a long time til his partner came looking for him. He always carries a .357 magnum on his belt now.
How often does something like this happen? Probably not often. But if it’s happening to you it put a whole new slant on it.
Good advice. While field dressing my buck the other day I heard grunting over in the fence line, and that’s when I realized how far it was from where I was cleaning the deer to where my rifle and 9mm were. Keep it on your person. I will be next time. My grandfather was treed like that during a deer hunt once, but by a pack of javelina (smaller, wilder, more elusive, but with even more impressive tusks).
Feral hogs develop a thick plate of gristle on their chests. It’s a natural defense against other hog’s tusks, but has been known to turn a slug from a handgun or light rifle. If possible try for a side shot rather than head on, aiming for the heart and lungs. If the pig is coming straight at you I recommend a head rather than chest shot. Just carry enough gun. I load heavy JSP in .357 and .44 magnums both for primary lever action rifles and backup handguns for hog hunters which seem to work quite well. Of course our hunts are at close range in the brush and forrest of south Alabama, so shots are typically under 100 yards. More open range such as found in Texas requires different tools.
As others have remarked, dress the critter out quickly and get the carcass on ice or refrigeration as soon as possible. Also feral hogs are known to carry diseases so pay particular attention to cleaning yourself and your tools after field dressing. Have the carcass professionally processed and cook the meat well and it’s perfectly safe and very tasty.
Just got my first wild hog the other day (.270, 230 yards across open field). The problem is so bad that I saw three distinct packs on one farm in two days of hunting, about 42 hogs in all. And that, I hear from local ranchers and farmers, is nothing. Seeing them first hand really is eye-opening to the damage they do, and I’m more than happy, happy, happy to help out the farmers & ranchers and hone my shooting skills at the same time.
My best hog storey is one that I encountered after he was dead. The hog was killed by a local man that interrupted it raiding his stock pen. It was after his calves. I saw the dead hog the next morning. It was no hogzilla but it was a good sized animal. The man shot it 7 times with a .30-30 winchester. 7. He was empty when the hog dropped. All 7 hits were in the front of the hog. That hog was coming straight at him and he shot his rifle empty before it dropped.
Not all hogs are that aggressive. But all it takes is one to give you an interesting day.
The hogs feed the coyotes and the coyotes prosper and multiply.
Does it get any better than that?
“The ideal form of government is democracy,
tempered with assassination.” – Voltaire
Great backup gun for hog hunting: Glock 20, 10mm. Drop in a 6″ bbl and use full-power loads, +4 mag extension gives you 19+1 rounds. You can even go so far as to put a red-dot sight on that sucker.
WHY HOG ZOMBIES?
Zombie; an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical or supernatural means.
Over the years we have encountered hogs that perfectly fit this first description. Appearing to have supernatural powers, immortal even. Ghastly beasts bent on killing their pursuer, unwilling to die. They stalk the night leaving an unmistakable path of destruction. Kill or be killed, they rule the environment in which they live.
Zombie can also describe a hypnotized person, still physically able to function and react to their task at hand.
The Guess clan has hunted hogs relentlessly for years now. We are obsessed. We hunt them day and night. When we’re not hunting them, we are subconsciously thinking about hunting them. Seemingly unaware of the thorn covered fortresses where hogs live, the poisonous reptiles, endless miles walked in extreme weather conditions, the cuts, scratches, insect bites and days on end with little sleep. We are always obsessed with finding new methods to locate and remove these prolific creatures of destruction. It’s as if we are hypnotized by the beasts.. It’s quite possible we have become the HOG ZOMBIES™.
if you guys want to see kids and women knocking some hogs down check out the Hog Zombies youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/HogZombies/videos
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