Help me with advise please.
Going hog hunting for a first time and quality meat is my primary goal. From childhood I remember my grandma (veterinarian) told me hogs must be castrated when young to have good tasting meat.
I am under impression that big hogs are not too great for that purpose. Or am I wrong? Thanks in advance.

I shot a 200+lb boar.  He smelled really, really bad.  TRG told me how to deal with him.  Took him home, rinsed him off until water ran clear.  Most of the smell was gone.  Then I made sure not to cross contaminate using one hand to pull hide and knife hand on meat.  Once hide was removed rinsed again for 15-20mins.  Any remaining hair, smell, nasty stuff was eliminated.  Then we proceeded to gut and butcher.  He had no nasty smell or taste.  Though I would not call him tender he had really nice flavor.  Do not get rid of big boars unless you do not have access to running water.  Then do as you wish.

Testosterone is a hormone that only flows in the blood, once the hog is dead there is no blood flow.

Now, if dogs have chased the hog for a mile or he is on the run, sure he will be dosed/saturated  with testosterone.

But, if you snipe him out standing still and he never knew what hit him, not a problem.

This pretty much, except the best boar I ever killed/ate didn't taste as good as the worst sow I ever
killed/ate. I think once the boar hormones get in the meat, from fighting etc., they don't completely come out. The meat is not
ruined but the boar taint is still there.

I only keep boars if the freezer is empty, which isn't often.

So I guess ~100lb sow would be optimal for good quality meat.

I was always curios watching videos of hog hunt with dogs and a knife how does such stress changes meat taste quality.

15 lb sow is quality meat.  Melts in your mouth

Most depends on what they have been eating. Acorns and corn are good but if they are grazing clover or alfalfa they seem to have the best flavor. If they have been eating rotten carrion they have a tenancy to smell that way when you cook them. The ice and vinegar soak seems to help remove the blood. The old milk soak is a real standby. Sometimes I think some individuals just stink and taste worse than others. I shot a 250# sow last year that was absolutely delicious better than what you get out of the store. I have had some 150#'era that seemed so tough you could not cut them with out dulling a chainsaw.

Actually in my 20s I hunted hare pretty often and soaking in vinegar was a must.

I guess I just stick to low and slow recipes. I do wonder how does grilled chop from wild pig tastes like.....

I've eaten every single hog I've shot, they taste fine. One benefit I have Is to only live 40 min from where I hnt so typically I throw the carcass in my truck, drive home real fast and pressure wash the hogs clean before I even cut into them, it really help for a much cleaner post butchering quality of meat, and I also spray off any blood that is visible on the meat after I cut it up. I've taken 300+ pound boars and gotten some nice tasting sausage out of them, and again these were one shot stops with no dogs chasing them.

Shot a really big one in MS near 350 pounds. It was long before I ever heard of boar taint. He tasted Yummmy!  I did get a tiny whiff of something as I cooked him in the oven..I was super skeptical as it was my first hog..once the meat was thoroughly cooked and tested with a meat thermometer any whiff I detected was gone. BEST TASTING PIECE OF MEAT EVER!!!!

Shot a 140 pounder boar in NC that was horrible smelling. Someone talked me out of keeping him and I regret it! I agree that washing them off is very important and if we would have run him through a car wash, I prolly would have cut him up....

There are a few videos on youtube that show how to get the gland out of the Ham that can be a source of foul tasting meat.

I let all my hogs soak in ice water 24 hours then I leave them on ice about 4-5 days letting the melting ice run out the drain. I also process my own meat and I prefer to smoke large pieces (usually a front or rear 1/4) as opposed to small steaks.

why eat this(stinky old boar)
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When you have these(20 lb piglets)
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LOL @ the eyeball hanging out.

Can you deep fry those piglets like a turkey?

Boar taint is a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boar_taint



The older and bigger, the tougher they will be but its all edible.



Keep the little-uns, keep the sows, let the big balled boars be fertilizer unless you are desperate.

Never tried thedeep fry thing but the piglet would certainly fit in a fryer





And yeah, try not to get shot in the head by a .243, ugly stuff happens.

Two tried and true methods of deskanking meat.     One.....salt water soak        Two.....vinegar soak.    
 
Best results if meat is cleaned processed well and then soaked for 24 hours in one of the two methods. After the soak.....rinse several times to prepare for cooking.

good luck

great info...

age, size, and sex of animal as well as food source all are factors...

a 70 - 100 pound female that has been feeding on acorns and hickory nuts would be close to ideal...

soaking and rinsing 2X is also a key - those giant ones down south would probably still be pretty nasty

Squealers make the best eating.

Few things taste better than wild boar tamales! on the other hand I like smoking and a good jerk sauce for some fine shoulders. Pull the meat apart while still hot, get some of the rubber coated gloves for that and let the meat cool while soaking in the jerk sauce for a day to get some great flavoring. It keeps for about a week in the fridge (if you don't eat it all first) and makes some great sandwiches.

Well unfortunately I think I would never find out the taste of hog killed by me.
After 25 hours over 3 days I did not spot a single hog here. Sitting in stands and blind - nada. Actually I only saw a hare and a coyoty this morning.
It was my first such hunt and I gotta say I am bummed.
Did everything in preparation. Drenched all clothing in scent kill and such. Was sitting as motionless as humanly possible. Still no sighting or even sound or smell of hogs.
Waiting for my last 5 hours sitting but to be honest I don't think I will see anything. As my wife already told me - $900 is a whole lot of pork in supermarket. I can't wait for all the jokes from coworkers upon return. Oh and that 14 hours drive home.

Hey don't feel bad, it's called hunting and not killing for a reason. I dropped over 4k to go on my first bear hunt and ended up watch a sow and 2 young Cubs through my scope for hours. It wasn't legal and more importantly ethical to take a sow with young Cubs like that. But you know what, focus on the fact you spent real time out doors away from it all in nature and you saw things, you didn't think about emails or shit at work, you were doing what real men like to do, it's only money and if you can spend 900$ on a hog hunt you probably are doing ok. Btw if you want to kill a hog come to FL and I'll take you out for a whole lot less, and I'll get you under night vision and IR lasers and Suppressors.

I've read your post about hunting for arfcom and wish Ive read it before booking here.
I don't have hard feelings just a beat bummed it didn't work out the way I expected.
All in all bad experience is still an experience.
Guys here claiming they have tons of hogs but didn't work out for me. I also expected what was advertised as guided hunt. I was under impression it would be me and guide stalking for hogs. It ended up being drop at the stand hunt. They offered me same hunt free of charge anytime I want to return though. So no hard feelings.

Smaller the better.


I don't like the boars.


just the sows


 

Same here I like these!

If they smell we don't keep them.  Other than that boar, sow, big or small, they are best tasting thing in the woods.   The meat is tough though because these pigs have to work for a living.   I'll almost always have a processor make them into sausage for me.  

One thing we do, more a necessity of logistics than anything else, we pack the meat in a cooler full of ice and drain the bloody water out for about 48 hours.   That may help the taste.

Most of the ones I have ate have been 150 lbs and under.  A neighbor was trapping them a few years ago and giving them away to whoever wanted one.  I'll agree with you need to do a good job skinning one and get the meat washed good.  What helped the most I learned from a friend who killed a bunch and would eat them regularly.

1. When skinning the hog make sure you get rid of all the glands on the meat.  If any are left on the meat after skinning the pig it can really ruin the taste, especially if making it into sausage or ground meat.

2. Wash the pig off best you can after skinning.

3. Soaking helps get rid of the "piggy taste" most of all.

Get a big ice chest and put your clean quartered pig in it.  
Fill the ice chest with enough water to cover the meat by several inches (measure your water in a  1 gallon jug this is important).  
Put one 10 lbs bag of ice in with the meat and water.
Add 1/2 to 1 cup of white vinegar to each 1 gallon of water and let soak 12 hours.  (depending on how big the pig was we would adjust the white vinegar added, smaller pig 1/2 cup vinegar to 1 gallon water, bigger pigs 200 lbs size 1 cup vinegar to 1 gallon of water)
After the first 12 hour soak, take out the meat wash it off, rinse the cooler and only put ICE and WATER back in with the meat.  Let it soak 12 hours and look at the meat.  
Cook on smoker and have smoked pig and chopped BBQ.  


We would usually soak a pig with the vinegar and ice water mix once.  Then soak it in just ice water and change the water 2x and usually the meat would have a very good pork flavor after that.  It would get rid of most of the wild pig flavor most people don't like.  The main thing is to look at the color of the water.  If after 3x soaking the meat and the water isn't fairly clear looking soak again (water should be fairly normal looking but the bigger the animal the more soaking it takes to get a lot of the blood out of the meat).  We did this with a lot of pigs for about 4-5 years when our neighbor was trapping them regularly.  Before that we might eat one a year and just have it made into sausage at the local deer processor.  After we started soaking the meat we would eat 3-4 wild pigs a year easily.

I soak my hogs in ice (about 20 lb), vinegar (about 1/2 gal.), salt (about 1 lb.) and water (enough to cover the hog) for 24 hours.
Then I drain the ice chest and do it again for 24 hours.  If the water is still bloody after the second time I'll do it third time.
This gets rid of all the gamey smell and taste.

Soaking wild game in salt water for 12+ hours will kill the strong unpleasant taste and make it lots more enjoyable.    If you want to be sure, soak, rinse and salt soak again....be sure to rinse in unsalted water.

How long have y'all hung the carcasses, generally?

Don't "hang" carcasses to "age". Meat is meat. As soon as the blood stops flowing, the meat basically starts rotting.  The best things you can do to improve the quality of any meat are:
1)  As above, a quick kill is the best start.
2)  Gut the kill where it falls, this gets the most blood out of the system and helps cool the carcass ASAP.
3)  Do not "hang". The very best thing you can do is skin while still warm. It's MUCH easier this way, and is another key to cooling off the meat as soon as possible.

My dad was a poacher. When he pulled the trigger he wanted the evidence to disappear ASAP. He figured out pretty quickly that if you "snipe" an animal as discussed above, immediately gut, skin, quarter, and move the meat straight to the fridge, it wouldn't matter if it was a young doe or an old buck, it would taste fine. Does and younger bucks are definitely more tender though in general.

Had a conversation here a while back with a local who insisted venison was INEDIBLE unless soaked in milk from a dragon for two nights in a row, or holy water blessed by a Druid under an Oak tree on the night of the new moon, or whatever nonsense sorcery they were talking about. I said basically "take the deer meat in thin slices and cook it in a frying pan, good stuff, PERIOD." Another guest there who had little to no experience hunting or eating wild game inquired about how there could be such a wild difference of opinion between two people whom to him apparently knew what they were talking about yet had come up with vastly different conclusions.

So I explained as best I knew how. That it might have something to do with the fact traditionally in the south deer are run with dogs, sometimes for miles before they are shot. Then driven around town for a couple days on the hood of a vehicle so everyone sees you got a buck. The temps can also still be in the 70's or 80's when season starts. Back home we hope to have snow accumulation by opening of gun season. At home it's still hunts, stalking, maybe stand hunting nowadays. Regardless, however everybody else does it, at our place 90% of the time any deer shot on the property is in the fridge the same night.

I have never had wild boar, just assuming the same principals would apply from my (vast) experience with venison and the above opinions from people who have had the same results with with pigs.

I hafta go with Bushy on this one.  

The last sow I got a couple of weeks ago, I didn't even bother to get ice.  Just quartered her up and ran it through the grinder while the flesh was still warm.  Then I double wrap 8 oz of ground meat patties in saran wrap and into the deep freeze it goes.
Most excellent sausage, tamale or tacos.  Or anything else you can make with ground meat.  Its simply the best.   Of course, I'll put some straight into the skillet to sample it.  

I do the same with deer.  The only time would I put it on ice would be because of location and warm temps or time constraints, like maybe I need to get to work in a couple of hours after killing something.  Then when I get home, its processing time.

I don't age, soak, salt or vinegar anything.... just process it fast as I can and get it into the freezer.   I just don't buy into this aging thing.  

I kill boars to get them off the property, not to eat.  Females are the only ones I bother to process for meat.