Welcome to the Hog Blog
Welcome to my blog.
Odds are, if you’re here and reading this now, you’re either already a hog hunter or you’re thinking about becoming one. If you already hunt hogs, then I’m sorry. I know the addiction. My name is Phillip, and I’m a hog hunting addict.
If you haven’t started yet… don’t do it. It is the road to madness.
Hog hunting has none of the glamour of elk or mule deer hunting. You won’t often see us (hog hunters) on the covers of the glossy magazines, or smiling back with muddied teeth from your television screen. We’re away from the spotlight, hunting the holes where angels and upland bird hunters alike fear to tred.
While we might be seen glassing the great and scenic vistas from some open hilltop, we spend inordinate amounts of time on our knees, inspecting mud or crawling through briars and poison oak thickets. To the hard-core hogger, no hunt is complete until at least part of it has been spent belly-crawling through a tiny tunnel of chemise and cat-claw briars, face-to-ground in the stink of hogs and knowing at any moment that the next bend may drop you right into the big-daddy boar’s sitting room… and he will not be happy to see you.
We don’t tend to sport the flashy equipment of our fellow big-game hunters either. Our guns are likely to be battle-scarred, stocky carbines with big holes in the muzzle, as opposed to the sleek and shiny custom rigs of the hunting show celebrity. Not many gentlemen who own $3000 rifles would be willing to drag them, or their pressed and pleated high-tech camo clothing through the dust, mud, and filth that wild hogs call home. No sir, this is blue-collar hunting.
When we’re not in the field we’re dreaming of it, while we sit scratching that the bloody, raw welts of poison oak and pulling foxtails out of our socks (and the carpet, much to the dismay of our significant others). We endanger ourselves daily as we drive to work, scanning the hillsides for the telltale signs of rooted soil.
It gets crazy. As I’ve said, if you haven’t already started, don’t. But if you have… and like me you can’t stop now… then welcome to my world.
OK… so in all seriousness, hog hunters and hog hunting come in many forms and shapes. There are those who hunt with guns, bows, spears, dogs, and knives. We are wealthy and not-so-wealthy. We hunt habitat and terrain from the Florida swamps to the California canyons… and even the jungles of Hawaii.
So I welcome you all, and hope in the coming pages to share what I have learned so far, and maybe to glean some of what you all know.
Until next time… let’s go get some hogs!
Yikes!
we are getting feral hogs on our place in Mississippi and it seems like they are spreading like wildfire.
You are welcome to come mow them down, when you get the time.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:31 am
I guess I’m reading backward through these comments. What part of Mississippi are you in? I may be able to organize a small posse to make a temporary dent in your populations.
February 12th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
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