Hog Anatomy: Where to shoot'm!! Gory pics!!

[Nswish]

Whats the advantage to using a spear with dogs?

Its 48" safer than a knife with dogs!

[ROPO68]

Its 48" safer than a knife with dogs!

exactly. the one time the dogs (not pits, these are catahoula's) decide to both let go while the pig is still alive but manages to play dead while you are fist deep in his throat, you can damn the dogs all you want or wait for the bastard to bleed out while hes chasing you. I have seen people use pits, but they go into lock jaw mode and dont stop chomping until they are head to toe in blood. If you arent careful a pit will bite you no matter who you are when they rage like that. Pits remind me of Mike tyson. Anywho, back to the thread. Good info earlier, these are really tough and nasty animals. Someone should demonstrate the proper way to clean a hog too! From my experience, if you plan on eating them, the smaller ones (less than 80 lbs) taste the best.

[EGarza04]

The best way I have found to clean a hog is the same way you would do a deer. This is because it is how you are already used to cleaning an animal. My preferred method is to have them hanging from their legs on a gambrel. It allows me to clean the animal without getting organs or intestines everywhere. The down side is that you will need to cut between the sternum and rib cage, but at least you do not have to wreck your knife while breaking the pelvis. It also allows me to debone everything while it is still hanging. Everyone just please remember to wear rubber gloves if you are going to be cleaning them, these animals carry way too many diseases that can be transferred to humans.

as far as size I would say anything under 100lbs is great to eat, anything over 100lbs should be a sow. However, taste can vary quite a bit with how you treat the meat, (prior to, during, and after processing) and to some extent, their diet.

[Stephen O]

HTR nailed it for dropping hogs in their tracks. When they are on the run and population reduction is the goal, instead of eating them or for trophies, any of the shots listed here that lead to the death of the unwanted, damaging animals is good.

[FrankT]

With you all the way HTR, I pick one of the 2 spots and shoot all but 1 DRT.

Since we eat our kills there is not a too large 350 down to about 50/60lbs, we jaw hook them and hoist it up. Typically if not taking the whole hog, I am lazy and don't like to skin and gut...we skin the back and take the straps, skin the rear hams and take them, our gator pond gets the leftovers they share w the hogs, yotes and buzzards. I salt water brine all wild game meat and never have a taste or smell that is different than store bought!

[OPERATOR84]

Whats the advantage to using a spear with dogs?

Makes you feel more like a man. A Neanderthal. A hunter gatherer. =P

[TEXASLAWMAN]

Whats the advantage to using a spear with dogs?

Dogs are not very efficent in my parts. Not only do they scare off the deer but the hogs have learned to keep running. My friends ranch had guys running dogs on it before I showed up. They would get a few a weekend I think the most was seven in a weekend. I killed 40ish in the first hour on my first trip. Now his hog problem is gone. People who run dogs do it because they love the dogs and the thrill off stabbing a hog to death not population control.

[Identmarking]

Dogs are not very efficent in my parts. Not only do they scare off the deer but the hogs have learned to keep running. My friends ranch had guys running dogs on it before I showed up. They would get a few a weekend I think the most was seven in a weekend. I killed 40ish in the first hour on my first trip. Now his hog problem is gone. People who run dogs do it because they love the dogs and the thrill off stabbing a hog to death not population control.

Agree with this statement ^

[Aspp]

Dogs are not very efficent in my parts. Not only do they scare off the deer but the hogs have learned to keep running. My friends ranch had guys running dogs on it before I showed up. They would get a few a weekend I think the most was seven in a weekend. I killed 40ish in the first hour on my first trip. Now his hog problem is gone. People who run dogs do it because they love the dogs and the thrill off stabbing a hog to death not population control.

Yup. Same deal out here.

Sent from my DROID RAZR

[ROPO68]

Agree with this statement ^

well after losing track of shooting so many over the years, the spear thing is amongst the exotic ways to hunt these pests, i.e. shooting them from helicopters. I havent done the helicopter shoot yet, but I plan on it. As far as the eradication effort in my area, I shot 2 on my property this past july and havent seen a single one since.