Coast to coast hog wild and beyond: Abundant, widespread, lightly regulated, just plain fun to hunt, wild boar make great off-season game or a serious bowhunt in their own right.

I've ceased to remember the number of wild boars I've arrowed in my time. The net sum might touch 100, maybe more; I really can't say. My hog hunting pursuits began in Texas while sweating through college. Soon they took me to California. Today I can also claim to have bagged them in my home state of New Mexico as well as Mississippi, Alabama and several points in between, ultimately completing a coast-to-coast sweep with a pair of Florida tuskers last spring. I've stalked them, guarded bait, chased crazed hounds and still hunted through the thick stuff while pursuing them. I don't mean to brag but to say that while I've bowhunted wild hogs in many places and many ways with success, I never tire of pursuing them. I can't get enough of them. It wouldn't be correct to proclaim them my favorite game, but they certainly mark my favorite off-season game, though I've often traveled to make a serious hunt of them.

Call them what you will--feral pigs, wild hogs, boars or razorbacks, if you are a romantic--wild swine are sheer bowhunting fun. They are often super abundant, survive in any type of habitat and seldom involve complicated game regulations or seasons; many states do not even require a license to hunt them. Hogs can prove super wary or utterly stupid, though I own an impressive scare administered by a mean-spirited boar to prove that wild hogs certainly impart a sense of adventure normally reserved for bears or certain African big game. Better yet, there's nothing better in the skillet or on the grill than a prime wild hog fattened by acorns, agriculture or even grasshoppers.

A tough old boar can test your equipment like nothing else and a man-wise sow your hunting skills, quickly revealing flaws that will affect the outcome of more serious bowhunts for deer, elk or bear later. Hogs don't see quite as well as they hear, but that nose of theirs can't be underestimated, so keep this in mind when hunting any hog. You ground the biggest only with the most rugged broadhead designs; cut-on-contact tips are best to bypass an old boar's grisly, bulletproof rib shield with well-placed quartering or perfectly broadside shots. I once shot a nasty 500-pound stock killer tight behind the shoulder at 15 yards with 65 pounds of recurve bow, 550 grains of 2219 arrow tipped by a shaving-sharp cut-on-contact Bear RazorHead, and received only nine inches of penetration. It was enough to poke a hole in his heart and finish his marauding ways, and it was revealing. Granted, not all hogs weigh 500 pounds, but sturdy equipment is still the order of the day.

As I said, I once used weekend Lone Star boars to preserve my sanity while I was imprisoned in a West Texas university. I make an annual warm-up ritual of those same hog haunts each summer. That's the way wild hogs serve best in my mind. In the wild-hog meccas of California, Texas and Florida, for instance, hogs may be bowhunted year-round with a minimum of regulations and no or liberal bag limits. California requires hunters to purchase hog-tag packets for a nominal fee; Texas requires a $25 nongame license if you do not already hold a license of some sort; and Florida requires a basic hunting permit. Nothing instills confidence in your equipment and bowhunting skills like tackling game that is much tougher in most instances, and sometimes more wily, than the big-deal game you will hunt with fall's arrival. A couple of midsummer hog forays and success on a tenacious hog or two make shooting a deer, elk or bear that much easier come fall.

I use California, Texas and Florida as examples because they are universally recognized as hog-hunting capitals. These are private-land affairs for the most part because Golden State public-land hogs normally receive an inordinate amount of attention; Texas has no public hunting to speak of (a few wildlife areas are the exception, so consult regulations); and Florida landowners protect their hogs to assure paying hunters continue to return and spend money. This is not expensive hunting in the scheme of things. You can book a high-odds, fully guided California bowhunt with the likes of Jim Schaafsma of Arrow Five Outfitters near Zenia for $500, hunt for less on your own on ranches like the historic Tejon, canvas prime Texas property in the Panhandle region (Paducah) or South Texas (Laredo) for $50 to $80 a day or guard fully maintained Florida corn feeders for $250 a weekend. Contact an area wildlife office, or call a local chamber of commerce to secure lists of landowners or guides willing to host bowhunters.

This is not to say you must travel across the nation if you do not live near these places. If you are lucky you might discover feral hogs living in your backyard. Hogs that liberate themselves from captivity have small trouble adjusting to a life in the wild. Any rural area holds feral-hog potential. I have arrowed these incidental hogs in places such as Mississippi and Alabama while bowhunting whitetail, and I hear rumors in many other places I visit. Talk to conservation officers, fall in with the right crowd with a top-secret hog hotspot, and you might become privy to convenient hog hunting. I call the most unlikely hog country of the Southwest home, but I can rattle off six assorted places in New Mexico and Arizona where hogs could be bowbunted tomorrow, four of which are dominated by public land. One population of unlikely pure-strain Russian boars resides on private land surrounding Clayton, New Mexico, where my buddy, Bill Brockman, chases those ill-tempered monsters with hounds for more excitement tha n most bowhunters are prepared for. Ask around; keep your ears open. You just never know.

Of course, there are always game-preserve options for those with a wild-hog itch and no ready access to proven hunting grounds. Hogs are so self-reliant and self-perpetuating that they are the most popular of all preserve quarry. Ads for such hunts are easily found in the back of any hunting magazine-on-your-own, baited or hound-chasing affairs-in such unlikely places as Ohio, Pennsylvania or Nova Scotia, Canada. I think of operations such as Ken Moody's Clark Range Lodge near Clark Range, Tennessee, as highly exciting, physically challenging hunts with success practically assured, oftentimes on a no-kill, no-pay basis. These hunts are typically quite inexpensive.

I will always hunt hogs, even if I see the day of my 200th, or even my 1,000th hog. They are simply too much fun, such a great warm-up for my bowhunting skills and test of my gear, and let's not forget that they are fine on the table. Make it happen for you this year, and discover just how addicting wild boar hunting can be.

"Trail's End" columnist Jim Dougherty and son, Darrall, enjoy the fruits of a post javelina hunt in the shade of a mesquite tree.

Taking aim at a feral hog that displays his European wild boar ancestry, this bowhunter is poised to make a well-timed instinctive shot. No matter where you find them, wild pigs are intelligent, tough and often dangerous, providing challenging bowhunting opportunities.

The South Pacific world record boar, taken with a bow, was collected by the author while buffalo hunting in Australia's Northern Territory with guide and outfitter, the late Rob Mann.

This behemoth wild boar, tipping the scales at more than 500 pounds, had made a pest of himself by killing and eating a rancher's sheep. In circumstances such as this it is easy to gain hunting permission to normally off-limits land.

RELATED ARTICLE: Javelina: Perfect for kids

Jim Dougherty

A bunch of pigs just crossed the sendero," announced my rancher buddy from the bed of the pickup where he could glass the nearly flat Texas landscape from its slight height advantage. My youngest son, almost 11 at the time, snapped to attention.

"Pigs or javvies?" I asked, both of which are residents of this wild, sweeping country.

"Javelina," he responded, "about a dozen just eas'n along, but they'll be in the high brush pretty soon."

"Let's go," was my quick decision. "If we can't find and sneak in on them in the short stuff, I can probably call them to us."

Though most often called pigs or hogs, javelina are neither, being only distantly related to the prolific mixedrace true pigs, those cagey feral swine that sare expanding over much of the country, creating problems in the process. The javelina is a Collared Peccary, short, coupled little guys that rarely exceed 50 pounds. They are long-haired; beadyeyed; armed with sharp, overlapping canine teeth; and possessed of a spooky nature. Unlike wild pigs, their range is restricted to Arizona, Texas and a corner of New Mexico. Except for their pig like snouts, the smallish peccary hardly resembles the larger true pigs. And, most important, they're fun to bow hunt, especially for kids like my son, Darrall, who matched our silent hurry-up footsteps along the powdery dust of the sendero. That was near 20 years ago, one of many times I've led a young bowhunter to a confrontation with these critters that I am inclined to call pigs.

Javelina are not difficult to stalk, which makes them ideal for a youngster learning to step one careful foot at a time while adrenaline surges through them. They're rather nearsighted, but their sharp ears and keen noses are ever alert; they'll quickly explode with noisy commotion when sensing a threat. They can be difficult to see even when very close, their natural camouflage and smallish size blending all to well with their native surroundings.

They were close. I could smell their distinctive pungent odor and hear their soft, guttural grunts as they fed. One heel-to-toe step at a time we eased closer. Arrow nocked, my sons fingers had a white-knuckled wrap on the string. He was a kid only experienced with rabbits and squirrels; in his mind this javelina business was pretty big stuff.

Like his older brothers before him who had experienced hunting javelina at young ages, Darrall was primed, cocked and anxious. So too were the javvies. It was suddenly very quiet, then a single "woof" cut the Texas morning's stillness: They knew we were there. A single boar stepped into view, his dorsal guard hairs flaring upright in a posture of nervous awareness. "Shoot him!" I whispered. His short bow spoke with a subtle damp thump; a handful of long guard hairs puffed in the air; the brush all around us erupted in chaos. "Nock another arrow!" I ordered, fumbling for the raspy-pitched varmint call looped around my neck. With the hard, harsh screeches filling the air, the band of pigs milled in confusion, woofing and popping their teeth. Then came a bristling boar on a run from the right. As Darrall spun to the throes of brush-busting confusion, I shot the boar at less than 20 feet. Suddenly it was silent, the soft Texas dust hanging like baby brown clouds in the still morning air.

It was a typical javelina experience. A shot aimed too high, a misread provoked by upright long guard hairs, an illusion that the target's much bigger. The stalk was near perfect, and the calling? Sometimes that works, and it's a riotous hoot when it does.

The morning was warming under a sun rising higher in a cloudless blue sky. "We'll start calling the heavy cover now," I told Darrall, "along the dry creek bed where it's cool. Don't worry, you'll get some more chances. Just aim low on the white collar you can see on their shoulder."

"And don't be surprised if a coyote or cat shows up," added our rancher friend as he started the truck.

I've hunted javelina all over Arizona and Texas, stalking them often, but calling's my favorite tactic. Putting Darrall on some stalks was excellent experience; calling up a bunch of frenetic pigs would add spice to his lessons. There's no danger in this, just wild, fast action.

I've mentioned javelina are not hefty critters, not nearly as sturdy as their distant feral cousins. Big hawgs of the feral variety require a pretty solid whack; they're heavier boned, thick of hide, often layered with fat and mighty tenacious. Peccaries, on the other hand, are relatively fragile. I've taken wild pigs that weighed nearly six times as much as my heaviest javelina dressed at 48 pounds. I had no doubt that my son's 40-pound bow and Easton razor-sharp tipped arrows would zip a javvie with ease--deer too, which would soon be next on his list. He just had to concentrate under pressure. Don't we all.

The thought of the pressure called to mind an experience of my son, Holt, at a similar age. His first javvie encounter took place in front of a camera crew, which added to the tension. It was more than a comfortable father-son hunt. The stalk was carefully made with on-camera live sound. The band of peccary feeding on a naked Arizona mountainside was wonderfully cooperative, to a point. At 25 yards our presence became obvious. The biggest boar fuzzed up in alarm...then took Holt's broadhead through the shoulders. He's handled bowhunting's pressures quite well ever since.

Now it was Darrall's turn. There was no camera pressure, just Dad and a friend--pressure enough? On the last calling stand of the morning came a single agitated boar. At 20 yards he presented his light-collared shoulder in a broadside. The shot was perfect.

My five sons are grown now with sons of their own, one of whom has already taken big game with his bow; the others are still working on rabbits and squirrels. As a Grandpa now, I often reflect on those javelina hunts with my sons in hope that I can share similar adventures with their sons. Those neat little javelina are perfect for kids.

Pigs Of The World

Bob Markworth

Whether you live in Los Angeles or Kansas City, Paris or Sydney, there is one species of animal that can usually be found within a day's drive from home, an animal that presents a thrilling challenge to any hunter who is looking for a tough, intelligent and often dangerous quarry. This tenacious and elusive critter is the wild pig, and it comes in as many different varieties as Imelda Marcos's shoe collection.

In the United States you are likely to encounter the European (also called Russian) boar, which was transplanted to both North and South America by the early European settlers, mainly the Spaniards. These animals--along with their diluted offspring, the feral pig (a crossbreed of the wild European and domestic hog)--can be found from California to New York and in many of the states in between.

Most of the European wild pigs that have been transplanted abroad are solid black in color. However, the true Russian variety may appear to be a little lighter in shade due to the fine, split ends of their body hair that tend to catch the light, causing a silver-tip appearance. Domestic pigs, once released into the wild, readily return to their wild state and easily breed with other wild pigs, creating a feral pig. The feral pigs may come in a variety of sizes and color phases, from black to pure white and varied mottled shades in between. The offspring that carry the true European blood lines are easily identifiable by the horizontal, dark stripe that extends the full length of the young pig's rust-colored body and then disappears into a solid-black coloration after a few months of maturity.

In the southwestern United States, especially Texas and Arizona, one can readily encounter the White Collared Peccary (javelina), a smaller but no less aggressive pig-like creature that thrives on prickly pear cactus. Farther south, throughout Central and South America, additional varieties of the javelina can be found including the White-Lipped Peccary and the rarer Chacoan Peccary, a protected larger variety with a habitat limited to Northern Argentina, Southeast Bolivia and Western Paraguay, where they overlap with the introduced European pigs.

The cousin of the European boar, the Eurasian wild pig, can be found in large numbers throughout Asia and the South Pacific. Additional Asian species of wild pigs include the Javan Warty Pig from Indonesia, the Bearded Pig from Sulawesi in the Celebes and the two rarer and protected species, the Pygmy Hog from the Himalayan foothills of Assam and the Barbirusa from the Sulawesi, Togian, Sulu and Buru Islands in Southeast Asia. The latter is a very curious-looking hog, with an extra set of tusks protruding through the top of its snout.

The continent of Africa offers three distinctively different species of wild hogs, the Warthog, Bushpig and the Giant Forest Hog. The Warthog is extremely prolific and can be found throughout Africa, south of the Sahara, and is easily recognizable by its protruding facial warts (two on a female and four on a male). The Bushpig is also widely distributed south of the Sahara and in Madagascar. This animal is more nocturnal and is seldom seen during the day. The Giant Forest Hog, which frequently exceeds 700 pounds and also sports facial warts, can be found in the Central African Congo basin and parts of West and East Africa.

One common characteristic of all the wild pigs and boars is that they have poor eyesight but a good sense of hearing and an excellent sense of smell. Making a silent stalk downwind often results in a 20-yard shot at a totally unsuspecting animal. Let the wind change unfavorably, however, and a nose-sensitive hog will turn on his hooves and head for the high country even while several hundred yards away from you. One of the better shots with either bow or gun is to hit the animal behind the shoulder as he's quartering away. A straight-on broadside shot at a mature boar is often ineffective if the arrow or bullet strikes the tough shield that covers most of the animal's shoulder area. The hide on the shield is much thicker because of the excessive scar tissue caused by continual fighting among large males.

In the U.S. and Australia the use of hounds to hunt wild boar is popular, and many a heated encounter between dogs and a large boar will cause one's adrenaline to flow. Anyone who has hunted these tuskers without the use of dogs can tell you that it can be a very hair-raising, dangerous experience--one that is seldom forgotten. If you've ever been chased up a tree by an enraged 300-pound tusker, you'll know that it puts new meaning to the phrase "Bringing home the bacon."

Hog Hunting

California Department of Fish & Game

1416 9th St.

Sacramento, CA 95814

Florida Game & Fresh Water Fish Commission

620 5. Meridian St.

Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600

Texas Parks & Wildlife Dept.

4200 Smith School Rd.

Austin, TX 78744

Year-Round Exotic Game

Jeff Grundhauser

Arrow One Ranch

[phone]

email: [e-mail]

Ken Moody

Dept. PB

Clarkrange Lodge

P.O. Box 2008

Clarkrange, TN 38553

(800)585-HUNT

www.kenmoody.com