Pig houston

I shot him right behind the shoulder. Even on an animal with rather large lungs, like a whitetail or pronghorn, the lungs stop very shortly behind that shoulder; too shortly in my opinion. Looking closely at the overall kill zone of these animals will quickly reveal that through the shoulder, NOT behind it, puts the bullet in the center of the kill zone. That allows the most leeway for error. The situation is particularly pronounced in the case of feral hogs. If you must body shoot a hog, please make it squarely through the shoulders.

That is a deadly shot, but finding your animal may be quite difficult, and death may come slowly and painfully. Losing animals, or failing to dispatch them quickly, is not very sportsmanlike. Besides, cleaning a gutshot animal is no pleasure.

Over the entire chest cavity, boars develop a shield of cartilage-like material. It is intended to protect them from the tusks of other boars in fighting over females and territory. This shield maybe three inches through, or even thicker on a very large, old boar. It will stop arrows, shotgun slugs, black powder balls, even many modern cartridges. Because of the way the shield is made, and the way deep penetrating bullets stay together, there is seldom ever a good blood trail.

There is a trackable blood trail on maybe one out of 50 shoulder hits on large boars. Well, a real sportsman will know his limitations and that of their weapon and stay within those limits. That might mean passing up the shot, but few have that kind of willpower.

If you are not close enough and good enough to put a shot in his ear canal, straight to the brain, then here is the best second option. Wait until you can get the boar in a quartered away body position. This should make the bullet or broadhead enter behind the shield on the close side of the animal or at least where the shield is a lot thinner , and then pass through part of the stomach, the liver, and at least one lung, hopefully both lungs, and maybe catch the aorta, too.

The bullet or point will stick in the base of the neck or opposite shoulder. A pass-through is nearly impossible. Done properly, the animal will not go far or last long.

They do it in a series of photos, depicting a real hog stripped of its skin, then shield, then muscles, then rib cage and shoulder bone, to reveal those small lungs and small heart, hidden well forward in the chest cavity. The hog shown is a young boar of maybe 70 , and even he has a half-inch thick shield, plus two inches of skin, muscle, and bone covering his vitals. I do this because it puts the animal down on the spot, and they are usually dead before they hit the ground.

It also makes for better eating, because an animal that is dispatched instantly never has the chance to pump itself full of adrenaline and lactic acid, both of which toughen the meat and impart a poor flavor. Using the behind the earshot placement, I have dropped pound boar with a. Not everyone can. Know your limitations, and those of your weapon of choice, and stay within those limitations. Nearly every time one of my hunters shoots a hog, I hear that question; how old do you think that pig is?

All you have to do is examine their teeth. The exact things to look for are all to be found on the rearmost jaw teeth. You can ignore the front teeth, the tusks, and the Euro teeth, if present.

The Euro tooth is a very small tooth, a short distance rearward of the tusk on each jaw. Only European Boar and hybrids of domestic pigs and Boar will have these teeth. On sows and boar less than 18 months old, there will normally be three adjoining teeth in this rear most position. The first two are thin, looking much like a human-canine tooth in shape. The third will be a tricuspid molar. Tricuspid means it will appear to have three parts or columns joined together to form the one tooth.

From nearly two years old, until about 2 and a half years, the pig will lose the first three teeth, one at a time, and replace them. The two thin tooth replacements will look the same except newer. The tricuspid molar becomes a large, bicuspid molar. By the fifth year, that sixth tooth will fully erupt. From now on, the only way to know how old the hog is is by the amount of wear shown on the teeth.

No more teeth will show up. When all these molars are all worn out, at about age eight, the hog can no longer get the nutrition they need from what they eat and they rapidly begin to decline in health. It is rare for a wild hog to live past eight years old. To oversimplify this whole process, you can generally just count the rear jaw teeth on one jaw, and subtract two to get the age of your hog.

That is, as long as they are less than four years old. If that sixth tooth is fully exposed all three cusps , the pig is at least five. Serves 8 to 10 real hungry fellars. Start with the ham of an 80 pound hog, or two smaller shoulders. This should be about 7 — 8 pounds of bone-in meat. Place meat on a rack in a large roaster pan. First Last. Free Same-Day Pickup. Need a pigtail, ASAP? No problem! Pick it up, today. Saturday pickup, too.

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