You guys that hunt these hogs...how you cook them? What they taste like?

Well, of the ones I have taken down they weren't what I would call cooking worthy.  I have had several people I hunt them with cook a few and they seem to think it tastes okay.  Most of the guys cannot stand the smell long enough to load them into the truck.

Little ones become bacon, 40-100 pounders become sausage, anything above that is dog food.

Ok thanks...so mostly they are just sport shooting? My wife is Vietnamese and one of her friends spouse and his buddies trap them on some leased land. They grill them...we were invited once to go to their BBQ but i never had heard of them up to that point so i wanted to do some research on them find out what they were. We had Javelina in Arizona that people hunted and cooked in the ground...wasnt too keen on that as they are rodents and until Armageddon or something like that..i dont foresee eating rodents.

When i was researching the hogs though, seemed to me they were part of the domestic hog family, just a wild version...will have to re look that up.

Again, thanks

I am not sure how many I have shot but I have only butchered 3-4.  I only keep the small ones or a sow up to about 200 pounds.  The 200 pound cut off is more a comfort level for me on what size animal I want to butcher.

Personally, even the big boars I have killed didn't stink to me as bad as people make it sound.

I know one guy that keeps even the boars.  He will take them to the car wash and wash them down before he skins them.  He says it takes away the smell and then he doesn't contaminate the meat as he butchers them.  I cant vouch to that as I only keep sows.

I don't notice a taste difference but the wild pigs don't have as much fat.

As far as cooking, slow cooker in the house, slow cook them over the grill and sausage.  I have a meat grinder and have ran many, many pounds thru it and made breakfast sausage and Italian sausage.

Yeah...in South Dakota i used to deer and antelope hunt...everyone always told us antelope stink and the meat sucks, blah blah blah...so after asking a few of them if they have ever even hunted and/or tasted it, which they said they had not...i did it myself. Some of the best wild game i ever had. I grew to like antelope better then venison...we had 3 seasons for big game in SD that me and a group from the base partook in...prairie deer, antelope and Black Hills Buck. Antelope generally have twins so they usually had a dual any lope and any buck lope for 3/4 cost of 2 tags. Some good eating there.

Once we get more settled here in OK i think i will give it a try. Been here 3 years now and still feels temporary. I personally dont like it here, not enough government land that i am more used to from like SD and AZ, but the woman makes good money here and she doesnt mind it...so we stay....something like the "she who has snatch rules he who dont" thing..hahaha

Thanks for the insight!

You know reading about your sausage...SD Game and Fish had a small booklet you could order...Cooking the Sportsman Harvest. I got that and they had the sausage recipes i used...breakfast sausage, hot italian, italian and country i think was the 4th one...was good stuff...and after a couple batches you figure out what makes what taste and adjust accordingly. Made some smokin hot italian..that was my favorite...ex and the kids didnt like it so they got regular italian. Yeah, that was good times up there.

I don't keep any these time of year. But I have had some in the winter that tasted better than store bought pork. We put ours in and ice chest and put about a cup of cider vinegar in. Then we soak them for three days draining the water off and adding ice as needed. They turn out pretty good that way. Now when you kill one if it smells like it has been eating carrion don't evan mess with it, you will not get the dead smell out of the meat. We killed a sow last winter day before christmas during the cold spell that was mighty fine table fare, she probably weighed in the #250 range.  Good Luck!

Try to get one around 100 lbs if you want to eat it.  If you get one that is bigger you can soak it out in white vinegar and ice water to get rid of most of the gamey flavor.  The shoulders and hams are good to smoke and make chopped barbecue with.  

Best tip is always wear gloves when cleaning wild pigs they carry stuff that can transfer through blood to humans.  Also use a pair of pliers when doing your skinning to pull back the skin and make your cuts.  It keeps you from cutting yourself.  I also know several guys that while skinning have found broke off arrow heads buried under the shoulder and skin.  Makes a really easy way to cut yourself because someone else being careless.

Check out the guys on the hog hunting area of this site, lots of them use the hogs for meat.  There's nothing wrong with eating wild hog, Americans have been doing it for hundreds of years.  We've just become stuck up over meat because of grocery stores offering it up in nice clean little packages.  I prefer venison to beef, unfortunately, I don't have access to it anymore and have nowhere to hunt.  I'd fill my freezer with wild hog in a heartbeat if I had access to a place to hunt them.  I've got the twins, Grendel and Beowulf, chomping at the bit for a chance to whack, stack and pack some piggies out of the wild.

If you're really picky you can do what your friends do and that's trap the hogs, pen them, de-nut the boars, feed them for a few weeks before butchering.  You'll have the best bork you've ever had.  There's a place in OKC that sell Berkshire heritage pork chops, Kamp's Meats, that will knock your socks off.  It's not feral but it is pork from the original bloodline first brought to America.  The bloodline has never been mixed and it's the full flavored pork that pork used to be before being specifically bred for maximum poundage.  Today's pork is practically tasteless, if I had access to my own place to hunt I'd never buy store meat again.  If you're in the OKC area go by Kamp's and ask for the Berkshire chops, they may or may not have them since it's extremely popular.  It's like the premium steak version of pork.  Try that and you'll start to see the potential for feral hog meat.  Obviously, diseased pigs and such that are shot shouldn't be eaten but the majority of hogs out there are premium pork on the hoof.

If you can live trap them and feed them corn for a while it will help the flavor..

What is it about OK that people just are militant about not letting people hunt on their land?

No where else I've ever lived has been this way.

Because people are stupid. First you let your friend hunt... He brings a friend of his, this guy comes back later without asking, with a couple buddies of his own, they tell their friends and so on. People leave trash, steal, leave gates unlocked and basically screw things up.. We still let a very few, select friends hunt but they understand that if anything gets out of hand its over, period.

We have lost good friends because we were too nice and they lost their minds and started thinking they owned the place and had to be kicked off.

We have had windows shot out, horses and cattle shot, people let fires get out of control, run through the woods shooting at deer, etc... I could go on and on..

People are stupid.

This is not a problem unique to OK...i have lived and hunted in a few states and they all the same in that regards. IA, SD, WA, AZ...all the same...SD was premium...some of them assholes wanted 100 bucks per deer tag to hunt their land...so happens to be most of the same ranchers who cry to Game and Fish about excessive deer and antelope populations eating thousands of bucks in hay and the grass for their cattle...one area we hunted in 189A, western Harding County for antelope...we used to shoot the bull with the local wardens and they would tell us who charged and who whined to them...they really frowned on the charging thing, cause not many would pay that so they had no control over the animals, and Game and Fish wouldnt control the animals on their property cause they charged hunters...so we laughed at them. Probably has changed since then, that was in the 1980's/90's. Many ranchers there were just good down home people. Out during scouting in the later part of summer, they brought you into their homes and gave ya lunch! That was the best. I miss it there.

One thing that also helped us in SD...we were USAF there and we had 150 Minuteman II's scattered throughout western SD...one of my friends/hunting buddies was in Security and assigned to one of the Missle Security Squadrons..so he would be out in the missle field on Security Response Team duties for 7 days and back for 3...so while he was out with his team going from their assigned 10 silos, he would meet ranchers and then when he was out of the field, we would drive out and talk to the ranchers and secure our hunting spots. Worked well.

It's unfortunate because it helps everyone but, as mentioned, there are those who do take advantage of the offer and they ruin it for everyone.  I know I'm not the type of person to violate the wishes of a landowner but that landowner doesn't know me from anyone else so while I may be sincere in my promise to uphold his rules he doesn't know that for sure.

Used to be where I used to live I knew everyone and was trusted so it wasn't an issue but even though I've lived here the last 10-12 years I don't have contact with any landowners to have built that trust up with them.  I literally haven't had the opportunity to hunt a single time in over a decade since moving to the city....it really stinks .

People are assholes which punishes those of us who just want to get outside and out meat in our freezer.

I did a lot of hog hunting in Caddo County with some Indian friends.
We will probably start up again one day in the near future. I am pretty limited right now with a bad knee but I am looking forward to dropping some pigs.
Finding places to hunt is not easy unless you are willing to pay for it.

smaller ones than 200lbs aren't bad tasting, brine a 10lb cut in salt water for a few days, then pat dry, dry rub spices and smoke over mesquite and they taste pretty Goddamned good, throw in a side of baked beans, potato salad and some cheese stuffed smoked jalapenos/bacon combo and it's a meal for days

I took a hog earlier this year. He was really small, just the size I wanted. For reference, I took a pic of my ar on top, and the rifle was longer than the hog, loaded him in the truck with one arm while still holding my rifle. My guess was 45-50 pounds.

I cleaned him into quarters and ribs, threw it all on my traeger grill for they day, ribs a little shorter, invited friends and family over, a little BBQ sauce and buns, we had a meal.

Had a good taste, probably cause he was small and the place fed them corn several times a week. I plan on going again soon, it cost me $150 for a night stay and hunting.

Looking forward to trying it out...hunting it and cooking it. Always wanna try something once...dont like it, dont do it again...like duck hunting..did that once, cooked it, didnt like it never did it again. Still wanna do bear and elk. Ultimate i think would be a caribu hunt in Alaska...hear that stuff is good eating.

$150? Yikes, probably cheaper to buy a small one from the butcher.  I just hate the idea of paying someone to hunt hogs off their property and most of them are high fencing their land and stocking them with trapped hogs from other areas.  I think the hog "problem" in central Oklahoma is way over exaggerated.  I'm gonna work on my long range shooting skills.  I figure the only way I'll get a shot at a feral hog is by lobbing rounds down south at the border.

It was $100 for the night stay, $25 for the ~45 pound hog, and a $25 tip cause I didn't have change, and they were really easy going. Only 3 of us hunted out of about 10. The rest just partied, played shuffle board and pool. The owner guy was participating in the party also.

Also had a skeet trap range if you bring your own clays.

Others said that they have paid $600 for the same experience other places.

$25 for the hog is the cheapest I've ever heard of, with the accommodations and tip included that's not a bad deal after all.  Your right, some places charge insane amounts but those are what I call "boutique hunts".  They are for people with a lot of money who basically buy their trophies by buying trophy hunts.  I just want to fill my freezer and hopefully kill one with some big gnarly tusks for an awesome European mount and not have to pay somebody because I don't want to hunt someone's fenced in yard where they buy hogs from one person and then charge someone else a lot more to shoot it.

Statements like this make me feel less guilty about saying no quicker each year.

Not really sure you read what he typed correctly....

I read it to mean that people who screw things up like landowner access causes punishment to those of us who dont screw up landowner access...it makes it bad for everyone...

And one would have to be curious as to why you would feel guilty about denying access to the land that you own?

He doesn't. He is just justifying his reasons to say no to free hunting and justify the reason to charge people to hunt.
Hunting of any type is becoming more and more difficult because of lack of places to hunt and the increasing cost of hunting leases.

Oh i didnt realize he charged people to hunt...wonder if that is taxable income taking money from hunters to hunt on your land.

Just around $300.00 per year hunting income, my Insurance for the hunters is $575.00 dolors a year. I take a lose. I love the way people justify the why as to people cutting access. To answer your question yes I show it on my taxes at the end of the year. Were you wondering if I was cheating you on your welfare check? I do take a few kids free of charge, but if they have relative with a illegal hunting conviction they do not enter my property. You would not believe the sob stories some people will give you to enter your land. Oh by the way my insurance will not cover Hog Hunters because of the hunting videos on TV. My lawyer has also advised me not to let people hunt hogs. I charge for waterfowl hunters.

I used to post up pictures all the time now I do not because of all the insults that fly at landowners after you post some pictures. We have killed a lot of hog this year and it is just not worth the post replies. I post less and less. Dan told me I'd get tired of the BS he was right.

It really depends on the circumstance in my opinion.  If you are overrun with pigs and they are destroying your livelihood then bitching about the problem and then charging folks to hunt them just doesn't add up.  If you have pigs on your property and they aren't a "problem" then charging folks to hunt is your right and I have no problem with it.  Today there are a lot of people who have 100 acres or 200 acres and they buy trapped hogs and "stock" their land with hogs and sell hunts, if you can call them that.  Where it get frustrating, from a hunters standpoint, is when you hear landowners complaining about feral hogs costing them thousands of dollars each year in damage but then they want to charge a hunter to hunt.  Then they say it's this much for a hog under this many pounds and this much more for a little bigger hog ad so on and so on.  It's like buying a whole hog by the pound at the butcher shop except you have to kill, clean and process the pig yourself but after paying for the hunt and associated costs you end up paying more than it would cost fully prepped at the butcher.  Landowners that complain about the hogs destroying their property and costing them all this money and then want folks to pay hundreds of dollars to take pigs off it, shouldn't complain.  

I've got kin that don't live around here that have feral hog issues.  The way they handle it is all the landowners in the area work together to kill as many pigs as it takes to fill the freezers of everyone in the area and allow people come in and hunt.  They can take as many as they can kill and the hog population goes way, way down.  The landowners are happy, the folks in the area who want meat get all they want and hunters are happy because they can take as many pigs as they can use.  Worked so well there is no more hog problems, which was the goal there but that's not the goal in other areas where "getting rid of the hog problem" is the excuse while money is the goal.  Research a guy named Paul Candaleria who runs "hog hunts" in Texas and you'll see the perfect example of how many landowners use the hog problem as an excuse to make money not control the population.

Sparky, post your pics! I'd love to see them.  There's nothing wrong with charging folks to hunt when it's done for the right reasons.  I don't begrudge someone who charges to hunt as long as they aren't the ones complaining about all the damage the hogs are doing to their property or working the system for profit.  I'd pay for a hunt if the costs didn't equal or exceed what it costs to buy the same weight hog already prepped from the meat market.  These guys charging $200+ to kill a 50 pound hog that leaves you 20 pounds of meat at the most and then you gotta tip and all the other little costs that add up are the majority of what's out there.

You're kind of nasty with the attempts at slammin...was a good thread too...thanks for ruining it...

Thanks to all who contributed information here, i learned allot.

SparkyD is a good guy, he is just looking at it from a landowners perspective and, to be fair, last time this subject was brought up it got pretty ugly and he was unfairly singled out.

Yeah, i am sure he is a real stand up guy...the comments he made certainly would point to that anyways...

The game department spent over a million dolors this year on hog control. $10,000.00 dolors damage alone to the duck ponds at coal creek. We have over a million acres of public land in this part of the state. The game department killed a hundred hogs in one day with the helicopter on the McAlester ammo dump. I usually alway straight up tell the folks that ask where the hogs are on the public lands. Why don't you buy a small tract of land down here, it is cheap enough. Then you can join the ranks of landowners. If hunters cannot control the hog problem on public lands how can they do it on private? I make money now off the hogs selling all the traps I can build. I don't give a rat's ass what people think I will figure out how to handle my on problems then laugh at people who are to lazy to go and find a hog. For the record book I killed my first feral hog on public lands 30 years ago. Now as far as going and finding some body a place to hunt if they pay me I will.
They charge me for services rendered what makes city people so special?

The hog issue has several different sides and generally any one of us only see our side of it so let's not be too hard on each other.  I've never been a "land owner" in that respect so I don't know what they go through and I doubt any two land owners have the same situation so there's no blanket answer for anything.  I do know that land owners deal with a lot of crap from people who try and take advantage of them by trespassing, poaching and trashing their land so not being ecstatic about allowing anyone and their dog access.  As I said before land owners have every right to charge folks to hunt hogs for the most part.  The only exception in my opinion are the ones who constantly complain about their land getting tore up by hogs and then want to charge ridiculous prices for folks to help them out and there are quite a few of them.  I know in southern Oklahoma it's a whole different world than it is here in central Oklahoma.  Down there they have a serious hog problem but here in central OK where I am it's all but impossible to find hogs and the land owners aren't overrun like they are down south, so to them it's a money making opportunity, which leaves hunters here SOL.  In south OK you can find hogs anywhere an hunting public land is as good a place as any so you aren't forced to pay those ridiculous prices.  Everyone needs to realize that the hog problem is different depending on where you are so you can't make blanket statements.  Moving to central Oklahoma was quite the culture shock for me, I came from parts of OK where there wasn't much public land but it was heavily wooded and you could generally find a place to hunt.  Here in central OK it's frickin barren and what little good wooded areas there are is heavily protected and you are just SOL if you don't have access to private land.  This area produces a lot of frustrated hunters and folks in other parts of Oklahoma don't understand because they've never had to deal with it.


Sort of off the subject but also on it, I was watching "Helihunters" (I think that's the name) and it was awesome!  One of the guys uses a mag fed AR style shotgun that is like the hammer of Thor on the pigs as they fly over.  Since I can't afford a hell hunt, I live vicariously through TV and it is absolutely insane how well that thing works.  You can see the buckshot group flying through the air and it's literally like the hand of god comes down and hammers the hog.  If y'all haven't seen the show, it's The Sportsman Channel and it is so worth watching.  These guys go out and contract with landowners overrun with pigs then use a little Robinson helicopter to chase the pigs down with a shooter on each side of the chopper.  One guy uses what I think is a 5.56 AR or a 6.5/6.8 and the other uses a Firebird AR style shotgun.  It is spectacular what they can do with two shooters in a helicopter and then the ground team goes out and gathers all the hogs up.  They have a mobile refrigeration trailer where they clean, process and hang the hogs.  Then they turn it into the various cuts or sausage depending on the meat and donate it to various charities and such.  It's really pretty fantastic what they do and how much meat they gather to feed hungry families and individuals in their area.

Fortunately for myself..i dont look at everything as a "money making" opportunity...i guess this fall i will check out some of the public hunting areas down south. Probably too many people here in OKC who want to just driver 5 miles and hunt...in SD i had a forest service map of the Black Hills National Forest. I measured out a 25 mile radius from the western edge of Rapid City and drew a circle...that was my dead zone...where the weekend warrior wanna-be commando hunters would venture out on Saturday afternoon during Black Hills Buck season to hunt..they didnt have it in them to even get up early to catch the morning hunt, let alone travel to the far western hills area the day before and camp it out over night...we did. I can imagine it is way worse here due to the population difference. Probably more people in OKC metro then the entire state of SD.

Yeah, thats what i will do...go get maps from Game and Fish of the public hunting lands and go south and do my own thing....wanna put a pig roast on a smoker...check that out. Venison and antelope were always a very big part of my diet and i miss it. Usually had 4 tags a year, 2 deer (wester river prairie and black hills buck) and the 2 for 3/4 antelope tags...so always had meat in the freezer from that...nothing like a venison steak on the grill!!!

Southern Oklahoma is thick with pigs, if you want to have the best chance that's the place to go.  I used to live up by Tulsa and never saw a feral pig, ever. People would ask about hunting pigs like we were swarmed with them but there wasn't any.  I've heard that some spots have small populations now but probably not many.  People in south OK think there are hogs up here like down there but not so, not even close.  I had hoped when I came down to the OKC area there would be the opportunity to hunt some pigs but quickly found out it's worse here than where I left.  Down south I know folks who filled everyone's freezer in the area and then more.  They hate even seeing a pig...funny how big a difference a few miles make.  I wouldn't mind a bit paying someone to let me hunt on their land as long as it wasn't so much that it made the hunt pointless.  I'd say go straight down from OKC to near the Texas/OK border and look for places from that point east.  Best bet is public land down there, since pigs are so thick everywhere there's not a lot of competition on the public land.  Make sure to talk to the game warden or Corp rangers to find the best places and ask where it's ok to carry a handgun because some of the land you can't carry unless it's changed.

I've killed a lot of hogs in Caddo County but only becuse I am good friends with some Indians near Gracemont.
If the truth be known I am almost positive they took me on places they didn't have permission. I also think some of the land owners didn't care because they knew it was locals out killing pests.
I know that coyote hunters using greyhounds very seldom pay attention to property lines and even less seldom have problems with land owners.
Until landowners realize that hunting leases do not bring in enough money to cover the damage done by hogs to their land then things won't change.
And even then they may care more about immediate cash in hand than the damage done to the environment by the over abundant hogs.
It is a bad situation.

The forest service stations here are the best places to start, then go and see the local biologist. Honobia creek is a small fee area that is managed better than the regular wildlife ares. Check with the local NRCS agency to see who is asking for help with hog problems. That is a starter for most people.

I took a big stinking boar few weeks ago, got back strap out soaked in vinegar and cooked on grill like a tender loin, great taste very lean. Boar was close to 300 or better so I think the right cuts on boar do well as sow just be careful while skinning and allow to soak 3days on ice to flush meat of adrenaline

Makin' me jealous

they be getting plentyfull across the river from me,and north of me across the highway,soon....  

a wet winter and a wet spring and they will get to me,then its a PARTY!!!