Having grown up in a German speaking family, in the Zimmerscheidt Community in the northern part of Colorado County, Texas I caught enough of my Austrian guides whispered words to comprehend I had best watch where I stepped. In the cold pre-dawn, with barely enough natural moonlight to see logs and large rocks, we had walked into the bedding area of European wild hogs. The “wildt schwein” had crawled under piles of dried grass and soil to keep warm. Good, for the true wild European hogs. Bad for my guide and me. We were walking amongst piles that housed sharp-tusked wild hogs which would likely would not appreciate being disturbed by “mere humans!”
“Rickvets!” whispered my guide. Cautiously the guide and I backtracked our steps out of where slept wild boar; possibly sows with pigs, or even 500+pound “Keilers,” older boars with nasty dispositions.
Having safely backed out of the “wild boar bedroom,” my guide let out a loud sigh of relief. So did I!
We had left camp very early, well before any hint of a graying dawn, to reach a ridge where two days before my arrival, had seen an old Alpine Ibex within the Silver Medal Class, the size I had traveled to Austria to hunt.
Throughout our hunt for Alpine ibex I saw wild boars, lots of them, including 500-pound boars with impressive tusks. I had long wanted to take a true European wild boar, and wanted to do so while in Austria, until…I asked what a big, mature boar with long tusks would cost. The price scared me! The charge was the same as what I was paying to take an Alpine Ibex. That rather destroyed my desire!
I also learned if I did shoot a wild hog, even if defending my life or of those around me, I would still have to pay a huge trophy fee.
After taking an ancient Alpine ibex, I hunted mouflon sheep. The last afternoon of I shot a really nice ram. After the shot it ran down the steep-sloped mountain. My guide suggested we go back to the vehicle and go drive down to the next switchback. That way we could drag my ram downhill rather than uphill. It took about 15-minutes to get where the guide thought my ram should be. As we approached that area, a huge wild boar ran away. Moments later we realized the big boar had been feeding on my ram. Closer inspection, it looked like someone had taken a chain saw and length-wise cut my ram in half, starting just behind the ram’s right ear on down to the tail. Skin, muscles and bones on that one side were GONE! What was left of my ram was his head, horns, and the left half of his lengthwise body.
Nothing boring about my Austrian wild hog experiences. Matter of fact they increased my resolve to do more “boaring” once I returned home to Texas.
Some of my other “Boaring Adventures” have taken me to New Zealand where several years ago hunting with Wanganui Safari’s owner Paul Bamber we spotted a huge and long-toothed boar high on a ridge. It had “turned over” easily 3-acres of soil and rocks. Not sure what he was digging for, but evidently he was finding it. Paul suggest I attempt to take the destructive black boar!
We headed the ATV toward the top of the ridge, but out of sight and sound of the boar. Once there I loaded my single shot .30-06 with a Hornady round, peaked over the edge then made my stalk. Taking advantage of wind in my face, using brush to hide behind I got to within 75-yards of the old boar. There got a solid rest. My Hornady bullet dropped the boar in his tracks. At his side, the boar was big of body, and had long lower tusks. Later, pulled out of the jaw, they measured 11-inches. Unfortunately, I never got the tusks, they disappeared in route back to the States. I do have photos and great memories, especially since on that trip I got to hunt with my friend J. Wayne Fears. It was he, Johnnie Hudman and I that coined the phrase, “poor man’s grizzly.” The title I used on the joint book I did with Luke Clayton about hunting wild hogs which also includes wild pork recipes and some most interesting stories. POOR MAN’S GRIZZLY is available through my www.larryweishuhn.net website or Luke’s www.catfishradio.org.
One of my more exciting wild hog hunts happened late one evening hunting just south of the Red River which separates Texas from Oklahoma. I walked out of the river bottom where I had been hunting whitetails until near last light. I walked onto a wide and long slightly sloping toward me grassy field, there spotted a huge black hog running in my direction. Hurriedly I set up my shooting sticks, bolted a Hornady round into my .270 Win Mossberg rifle and started tracking the obvious boar through my scope.
I waited until the trotting boar got to within 75-yards before I shot. He ran faster. Ten steps later he tumbled to a stop. I chambered another round and shot him a second time. He got up took a few more steps. I put a third and fourth shot into him. At that point I was pretty sure he would not get up again. But just to be safe I replenished my rifle’s magazine, then slid a round into the chamber. Reloaded I started walking in the downed boar’s direction, walking slowly and cautiously. It looked like the boar was done for.
When I got to within ten steps of my “dead boar”, he suddenly jumped up and charge directly toward me. There was no time to shoulder my rifle. I pointed it in the direction of on-coming boar and pulled the trigger. Thankfully my bullet hit him in his raised snout, passed his sinuses and stopped in his brain. His forward sliding movement stopped a foot from my boots.
No doubt, wounded, later inspection showed each bullet should have killed him, the boar laid in ambush until I got close. Thankfully my fifth bullet had stopped him otherwise things would have gotten “a bit more western” and really badly for me! Talk about tough and tenacious!
That boar later weighed on livestock scales showed 315 pounds, the heaviest wild boar I have ever taken that was actually weighed.
Over the years I have taken wild hogs with a wide variety of handgun and rifle actions and rounds; muzzleloaders using lead and sabot modern bullets; numerous shotgun and shot and slug loads.
I am not a bowhunter. I have not hunted them with a bow and arrow. However recently I procured a TenPoint crossbow with which I will be hunting black bear this coming October on the Choctaw Hunting Lodge in Oklahoma. Prior to that hunt I intend to do some hog hunting with it this spring and summer to become more familiar with how it works and shoots.
With deer and most other North American big game seasons closed, at least for a while, I intend experience a bit more of a “Boaring Life”. How about you?
