Neighborhood Pigs Downunder

coote said:
Here's a photo of the double-leg snare I caught the most recent pig with. It corresponds with the sketch in my earlier post... the sketch that shows two nooses. I think it is important to have that stick in between the two nooses, with the nooses laying right up against the stick. This helps to ensure that the animal isn't standing on the rope when the trap fires.

DoubleLegSnareJune16_zps9bfhswzo.jpg
Click to expand...

Very nice, the stick is a good idea.
 
Always a pleasure to read through your latest adventures..... Always thoughtful and informative....... Thank you for being a part of our group......

All best....

Ethan
 
Thanks for being the reason that this group exists Ethan !

Knives are different things to different people. To me, they are one of our most-used tools. They are also an essential part of so many activities that I enjoy... and a link to our traditions, our history, our ancestors.

Your knives are no-nonsense tools that are held in high regard. You relate well to others. It is no wonder that your forum is a rallying point for folks like me.
 
Very nice post.

One of these days, I'm going to score an invitation to a hog hunt. I'm saving a BK-9HH for just that occasion.
However, it occurs to me that the Bundok Bowie would be an awesome hog blade as well.

P1030984.jpg


P1030982.jpg
 
The only feral hogs we have in NH are escapees from the "Millionaires Hunt Club" - Corbin Park - in the Upper Valley area. As someone has said, when they invent a fence that will hold water, then they have invented a fence that will hold boars....
The wild boars in NH (the first introduced into North America in 1890) are actually property of Corbin Park (where they were first introduced), but they don't prosecute hunters who shoot them as, since the pigs are their property, they are responsible for the damage they do outside of the park...kind of a very weird unspoken contract here. There's no season for boar as technically they don't live in NH, but.....hunters have still killed them nonetheless. This is what happens when people import non-native species - which in the case of wild pigs seems to have backfired in nearly every place they have been introduced. Seems as if there are countless stories of property and crop damage, as well as people being gored (I saw the result of one of those incidents in Costa Rica while visiting in 2000). Good onya, coote...tho I'm curious - how is the finished, cooked product? Heaven knows us Beckerheads love us some bacon....
 
Yep, it takes quite a fence to hold a hog.

It is believed that the first pigs were introduced to New Zealand in the late 1700s. These would have been a useful food source for the Maori people and early European settlers. Many modern conservationists want to eliminate pigs altogether, but I quite like having a few roaming around wild... as do many hunters.

We have no native land mammals down here apart from bats. I like having deer and pigs in the hills.

The quality of the pork can vary. Some folks say that if a pig has eaten a lot of bracken roots it won't taste too good. I've found that generally older, bigger pigs can be tough and dry. Around where I live, I find that anything 100 lbs or under is generally good eating. Some hunters reckon they get a lot of pigs with fat on them, but finding a fat pig has been comparatively rare for me in the areas where I hunt. When I get a pig with fat on it, it is a cause for great rejoicing... young fat wild pork is delicious.

I haven't made bacon or ham yet, but it is something I contemplate from time to time. Traditionally in my family wild pork was something you roasted. Nowadays one of our favorite ways to prepare it is cut into chunks in a casserole dish along with olive oil, sliced potatoes, sliced onion, a heap of fresh thyme and a sprig of rosemary. The dish is covered, then placed in an oven turned up to near maximum for just over an hour or so.
 
Here in the south, the first swine were brought over in the 1500s by the Spanish explorer, Hernando DeSoto, as a food source. Naturally, pigs being pigs, some escaped and procreated.

Then, in 1908, an English business man imported Eurasian boars from Germany for a hunting preserve he set up in North Carolina. The dumbass used split rail fences. The Eurasian genes are responsible for the 300-400# monsters in the southeast.

Then in the 1930s, some dumbasses imported the Eurasians into Texas, with the same escapement issue.

It is estimated that there are in excess of 2.6 MILLION feral hogs/pigs loose in Texas as of 2013. That number was 1.5 million in 1990. Last year, a wildlife biologist estimated that we would need to kill 80% EVERY YEAR to stay even.

Come kill some hogs.
 
Those are sobering numbers. They are a successful species from their own point of view.
 
I've heard it said that if you can design a fence that will hold water, then you have a pretty good chance of it holding in pigs. Luckily for NH, there haven't been that many imported and even fewer escapees - that and inhospitable weather for several months a year have kept the wild population to almost nothing.
 
Here's my nephew with a wild pig that became part of the family in a very short time:

ZachAndOinkThePig.jpg
 
SC, I checked out your diagrams with interest and definitely see the nail trap trigger influence, which makes me wonder. Have you ever seen the Ron Hood trapping video, in which he introduced, to me at least, the nail trap trigger, which started my nail trap trigger passion? He uses it in his video as a trip wire trigger. If not, let me know.

Glad to see you got hooked up with a couple of BK-9s - great blades, great efforts by a couple of unknowns :thumbup: no Cinci BK-4 though. :D

Doc
 
Doc !! No... I don't think I have seen the Ron Hood video. Maybe I can find it on the web somewhere. Any particular keywords I should use for the search? Thanks for that.

The BK4 looks like it would be an excellent chopper. I imagine a determined guy could push it into a pig if necessary... the '9, however, is ideal for pigs and it can chop pretty well. Bring your 4 to NZ and we'll test it.
 
Would love to come to NZ someday, but seriously doubt it will happen. However, if you get to Canada, you can use my 9 to compare it.

BTW, email sent.

Doc
 
coote said:
I haven't made bacon or ham yet, but it is something I contemplate from time to time. Traditionally in my family wild pork was something you roasted. Nowadays one of our favorite ways to prepare it is cut into chunks in a casserole dish along with olive oil, sliced potatoes, sliced onion, a heap of fresh thyme and a sprig of rosemary. The dish is covered, then placed in an oven turned up to near maximum for just over an hour or so.
Click to expand...

That sounds damn good! I think hog hunting with a handgun would be fun.
 
That recipe is great... but of course if you start off with a 100 year old, skinny stinking boar it doesn't matter how clever the recipe is.

The recipe is adapted from a show we saw where the British cook Rick Stein was travelling through some country like Sardinia, Sicily or Corsica. The story was told that Roman soldiers of old used to cook a similar dish in one of their metal shields which was covered with another shield. So we call this recipe 'shield roast'.

Yes.... I think that a handgun would be a good tool for hog harvesting, especially in thick cover.... or when there's a chance a pig may appear when you are doing something else and don't really want to be encumbered with a rifle. However I am unlikely to ever have this experience because we aren't allowed to use handguns for hunting. The only way the NZ public can own a pistol or revolver is to be an active and certified member of a pistol club. And even then the handguns have to be kept locked up in a special safe and they may only be used on an approved range. And you need a special firearms licence.

Now before any of you wonderful Beckanthropists decide it is time to send me pistol, I thank you for your thoughtfulness and beg you to not entertain the idea. We might all get locked up.
 
Thanks for pointing this out Lee.... there are indeed some similarities with my situation and the sort of things Rambo did. However, I feel I should point out the differences....

-On this particular occasion I used a cheap, simple machete rather than a props department fantasy knife.
-There was no dramatic background music playing.... or if there was, I couldn't hear it above the noise of my thumping heart and the crashing around of the pig.
-I do my own stunts.
-I just looked in the mirror and I reckon I'm in much better shape than Rambo
 
LOL. Awesome story. I love living vicariously, as i am in suburban Orlando. Very few pigs here. Bears, possums, coyotes, and such are plentiful. I've only seen one 300lb wild boar and a handful over smaller ones in my 40+ years on this planet
 
Yep Guyon, I reckon the Bundok would be a good hog hunting knife. I can't envisage any huge advantage over the '9 for the way I do things, but if you had to chop through scrub on your way to the hog you might appreciate the bigger size. Plus it looks very nice. If they'd had the '20 back when the Rambo movies were made, chances are the Bundok might have been strongly considered for the role. In fact, any of the large Beckers would probably reduce the need for sexy female lead because we'd all be gawking at the black steel with that undefineable 'x-factor' (The 'Je n'est c'est quoi' as the French state it).

A BK7 would do the business as well, but it is kinda nice to have the extra length of the '9 for a few odd jobs.

Dunno what I'd do if I had to live in the suburbs Neffarious. I might research the family tree to find rural cousins I could visit. I enjoy having relationships with folks who don't mind me wandering around on their rural properties. Public land is good too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top