[Sca-cooks] Boar vs. Pig

[John Kemker]

What is hunted Down South is feral pig, for the most part.  While Texas 
and Arkansas do have populations of javelina/peccary/razorbacks, the 
Southeastern states, such as Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama, etc. are 
home to numerous feral pigs including not a few Russians.  They are 
domesticated breeds gone feral after escaping the farm. 

What makes feral pig (or any boar hunt) so dangerous is the tusks on the 
boar.  The lower tusks are kept sharpened by grinding against the upper 
tusks.  How sharp?  Wouldn't be surprised if you could give yourself a 
rough shave with one.  A dominant boar protecting his territory can open 
a man up from stem to stern with one pass.  To make matters worse, he 
has hard, bony plates of cartilage protecting his vital organs, just 
outside his ribs.  While deer and other large game in North America are 
taken with soft-nosed bullets because of their expansion, it is best to 
use a solid bullet with little-to-no expansion when taking feral pig.  
Otherwise, you might just p*** him off, which you DON'T want to do.  
Also, choose a cartridge that has enough range for you to be WAY far 
away from the piggie when you shoot him.  Gives you time to reload, just 
in case. 

(According to Georgia Outdoor News, a hunting/fishing publication 'round 
these parts, a family farm had been terrorized by a particular wild hog 
for several years.  Many people had shot at the boar, all thinking they 
had hit him, but he never went down.  One day, one of the teen-aged 
young ladies of the family ran across him while she was in her truck.  
She pulled out a .30-06 with old military surplus Full-Metal Jacket ammo 
and shot him dead.  When they butchered him, they found several spent 
bullets, mushroomed out and lodged just under the skin of the cartilage 
plate.)

--Cian
Only Hunts Boar using Mundane, Modern Weapons

Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Bear commented:
>
>> Just to add a little to Phlip's answer, wild pig is sometimes used to 
>> refer
>> to the peccary (AKA javelina).  What they are hunting down south are
>> probably feral pigs, but i could also be peccaries, which have had a 
>> very
>> wide range in North and South America.
>
> The javelina is common in south Texas. I also seem to remember them 
> being smaller than the wild pig but much meaner in temperament.
>
> I remember some discussions on the bbs or Rialto shortly after I 
> joined the SCA about the idea of organizing some hunting of javelina 
> using period weapons. The ones who actually had experience with this 
> were having nothing to do with it, or at least not without suitable, 
> large-bore modern backup weapons. Some of them reported being treed by 
> the javelina in the past.
>
> Stefan
> (yes, that discussion is probably in the Florilegium. Somewhere.)
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
> StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
> http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/sca-cooks