Hunting Wild Boar

Our newest member, Wannabebwana, mentioned that he’s hoping to set up a wild boar hunt in the Ukraine this year.  I hope he gets to make such a hunt. I’ve hunted them, and they’re the second most fun you can have with a gun.

Let’s get two things straight. In the second place, with one notable exception, the so-called wild boar hunted in America are not wild boar.  They are feral pigs. Don’t get me wrong, if you get on the wrong side of one of them he can do some serious damage with those tushes. Odds are, however, he won’t.  And that’s because, in the first place, there’s been more BS written and talked about wild boar than you can shake a stick at.  I’ve hunted them in Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee, for instance, and if I hear one more tall tale about having to climb a tree to escape one I’m going to go in the corner and throw up. 

Wild boar are not, repeat not, dangerous game.  If one seems to be charging, and you take two steps to the left, he’ll go right past you. My very first pig---which happened to have inherited enough genes to look like a pure Russian---did just that. I stood on tip-toe, and shot him in the back of the neck as he moved past.

Lions, tigers, bears, and oh, mys do not behave that way. When they charge you better hope you can drop ‘em before they reach you. They have only one goal; to rid the earth of this pestilence with the loud stick. And nothing deters them from that goal. It’s like the old story about the professional hunter who seemed to have fallen off the end of the earth. When asked about him, a mutual friend replied, “something he disagreed with ate him.”

Nor is it all that difficult to put one down, despite what you’ve heard about that back-plate that turns bullets. Friend Wife dropped her first one cleanly with a single shot from a .45-Colt revolver.    

The European or Russian wild boar is a different ragout of pork altogether.  This is a critter who has always been wild; who, for time out of mind, has depended on his wiles, strength, and, yes, fierceness to survive. Like any wild animal, if he has no other choice he’ll fight back.  In his case, he’s geared with the equipment to do it. Those three and four and even six-inch tusks can do a number on you, no question about it. 

Given a choice, however, he would rather run than fight.  So why all the horror stories. Well, back in the days of the British Raj, there were a lot of officers with more guts than brains. They engaged in many frivolous activities, one of which was the high art of pig-sticking.  These idiots would go after wild boar armed only with swords.

Let me tell you something. If some maniac was poking at you with a sword, you’d poke back. So did the boar, often with catastrophic effects on the British officer corps. Thus began the legend of the terrible wild boar.

That out of the way, let’s talk about the exception to the feral hog rule.  Back in the early part of the 20^th century, a group of wealthy sportsman had a hunt club in western North Carolina. They had actually stocked it with true wild boar, imported from Europe.  The pigs thrived there, and multiplied, and provided years of sport.  After the Great Depression, however, things took a turn for the worse, and the club slowly fell into disrepair.  In the late 1930s, a hurricane swept through, and drove the final nail in the club’s coffin.  The boar all escaped into the wilds.

Normally, in a situation like that, the wild critters will cross with their domestic analogs, with the result that all purity is lost.  In modern times we see that with domestic turkey, who cross with their wild cousins, diluting the stock.

But there was another aspect to the story. In 1935, North Carolina had enacted a fence law---perhaps the first southern state to do so. Livestock could no longer wander the woods at will.  In effect, the domestic hogs were isolated from the wild ones, and the wild ones bred true in an environment they were very suited to.  They’re still out there today. And they’re the ones I had the opportunity to hunt, with some folks who ran a hunting lodge at the time.

Let me tell you about the land in southwestern North Carolina. To call it mountainous is an understatement. We’re talking about rough country; with steep ridges, deep hollows, and few roads. Getting around is, itself, a challenge.  Just one example: A farmer had called my host about having picked up one of his dogs. As the yellow hammer flies, it was about 20 miles, door to door.  To pick up that dog, however, my host drove in excess of 200 miles. 

So, rule number one: If you hunt this area, for boar or anything else, you better be in great physical shape. Which I was, then, but certainly am not now.  Rule number two: Expect to cover a lot of ground. A lot of ground if you’re going to take a stand, and incredible amount of ground if you opt to follow the dogs. Which raises rule number three: if you expect to be consistently successful hunting wild boar, you have to do it with dogs.

Fine by me. Anything you can do with dogs is better than anything you can do without them. And if there’s anything in the woods prettier than a pack of hounds in full song, I don’t know what it is. Well, maybe a setter quivering on a hard point, haloed by the setting sun as the covey busts wild. But that’s another story.

There were three of us, spread out along a ridge, maybe an eighth of a mile apart. When the dogs let loose we could hear them just fine. They seemed to be driving a hog towards my right, towards the other hunters.

Of a sudden, a young pig, perfect eating size, was coming towards us on a game trail. I was using my Dan Wesson .357 Rmax---arguably the finest hunting handgun ever built---and waiting him out. I wanted that pig in range.

Meanwhile, my guide, paying more attention to the dogs than to what was going on just down the hill, was unaware of “my” hog.  Step by step he got closer. After several minutes, that seemed more like that many hours, he was almost in range. It was then that the guide first noticed him.

Ever been in a situation where the guide gets more excited than the sport? Alas, that was the case. He suddenly noticed the pig and shouted to me (mind you, we were practically shoulder to shoulder) “Shoot him! Shoot him! Shoot that pig!” Of course, by the time the first “shoot him” echoed through the hills, the pig had turned aside and was running full out.

Yeah, I threw a shot after him. How could I not? But it was a hail Mary, and I knew it as I squeezed the trigger. 

Meanwhile, the dogs were in full cry.  A few minutes later there was a shot, and a cheer. And we knew somebody had scored.

Shall I tell you the most dangerous part of wild boar hunting? It’s chancing a cardiac event as you drag 185 pounds of wild hog the half mile it took to rendezvous with the pick-up jeep. For the record, and despite physical rules to the contrary, in western North Carolina, every direction is up. So, even following rule number one, you might wish a long, healthy life, to every wild boar in the state.