2019-01-20 Tasty Piggie
So about a year and half ago, Alan had introduced us to the
idea of shooting our own wild pig and subsequently eating it. Great idea
right? We thought so. So we got our hunters safety certification
and did some practice shooting and even went on a scouting trip in San Luis
Obispo; there’s even a blog post about it.
This trip is the culmination of all that preparation where we go to
Alan’s home town, Cameron, TX, to hunt piggies… tasty piggies.
January 19, 2019 – Austin, Texas
Into Austin airport we fly, Adam coming in first, followed
by Alan and Winni, then myself and lastly Whit.
First up, buy our hunting licenses at a massive Cabela’s. This is the first Cabela’s I’ve even been to,
and man have I been missing out. It the size
of a Walmart Superstore, it has several hundred mounted animals throughout the
store, an aquarium complete with a catfish the size of a Labrador, a gun
library with collectors guns dating back to the civil war, an archery range, an
IR shooting gallery like what you would see at Knott’s Berry Farm, and every
piece of equipment you would ever need for outdoor activities. Cabela’s was purchased by Bass Pro Shops so
you will see a lot of similarities between stores.
After a bit of shopping and a lot of perusing, it was time
for BBQ. Alan decided to try out a BBQ
place that was right next to us that was not only fast food BBQ, it also had a
drive thru. Alan’s verdict… not going
back to Bill Miller’s Bar-B-Q. But it
was still better than ANYTHING in LA, so we were happy!
January 20, 2019 – Cameron, Texas
Alan’s parents, Daniel and Dodi, live in Cameron, TX,
population ~5,500. That would explain
why there was no food open at 5:30 am, EXCEPT for Juanes. This menu was stupid cheap, like $2.50 for a
breakfast burrito, $1.25 tacos, $2.50 for eggs, bacon, potatoes and toast, or
if you’re feeling spendy $6.50 for a ribeye and eggs. So naturally, we assume that all these dishes
are small since they are so cheap, and we order a bunch of food. We were wrong, stuff was just cheap, and I
ended up storing my breakfast burrito in the glove box of our rental car.
With breakfast settling in our stomachs, we head to Daniel and Dodi's where we meet Precious, their cute grey poodle mix. She does this great trick where she stands up
while sitting on her butt and continuously flicks her paws up and down. She does this until she gets what she wants…
First task of the day is practice shooting the guns we are
going to hunt with! We take a couple
shots each with an AR-15 and a Remmington bolt action. Alan set up a target about 25 feet out and
marks all of ours shots while Daniel gives us shooting tips. The most accurate of the newbs… Winni, who happens
to be the least experienced with guns.
Go figure. Apparently, women are
more accurate shooters then men, guess this is the pudding.
On to the hunting site we go! Daniel has been baiting the hunting grounds
for the previous two weeks and had lots of footage of deer and hogs eating in
our hunting area, so we know that there are plenty of hogs to hunt. Alan decides to split us up into three
groups, one group for each of the two deer blinds and Alan and Winni walking
down the perimeter of the property to herd the hogs our way. As Adam and I sit silently in our deer blind,
we hear a crack that doesn’t come from the other blind. Adam and I look at each other, confused for a
second, then we realize that Alan has found something to shoot at. 5 minutes later, another bang… 5 minutes
later, the buzz of Adam’s phone showing Alan and the 350 lb sow he just
dropped. We sit tight for another 30
minutes until the cavalry comes back to get us.
Alan grabs the truck, unloads the 4 wheeler, and we are off to find Alan’s
kill.
So this is where I try to set the scene for everyone. I know that guns and hunting are very
controversial. What you may not know is
that Texas is overrun with hogs, their population continues to grow
exponentially. A group of hogs can eat
acres of crop in just a few days, threatening the lively hood of these Texan
farmers. Rural Texans HATE hogs,
probably the same way we hate roaches or rats.
With that in mind, if you don’t want to see picture of dead
hogs, probably skip to the middle of this post.
Otherwise, “Go on with the chlorophyll”.
It’s a short walk to where Alan downed his sow (female
pig). We were told that if you want a
tasty piggie, you want to kill a sow, not a boar (male pig). Apparently boars smell awful and taste just as
bad. Lucky for us, Alan found a sow who
was feeding her days old piglets. After
the sow got shot, she rolled down the hill and stopped just short of the
creek. Alan took a shot at one of the
piglets, but after a last minute turn, the piglet ended up getting hit near the
midsection and all but disintegrated. We
found the other two piglets not far away, and when I went to go inspect one, I
freaked out when it moved. I picked up
the little piglet and just kinda held it; I had no idea what to do with
it. Adam and Whit tried to wrangle the
other piglet but it got away in the brush.
In the meantime, Alan had dragged the sow up the other embankment with
the 4 wheeler. We loaded the hog onto
the 4 wheeler and headed back to the trucks.
I ended up bringing up the piglet back with me knowing that I wasn’t
supposed to let it go and possibly grow up to reproduce. Daniel handled the piglet with a bop on the
head with a pair of pliers and left it for the coyotes. Whit, Winni and I were very conflicted with
what to do with the piglet, but we did know we weren’t ready to kill it but
that it would have to be dealt with.
Alan let us know that even if we had left it, the coyotes would have
found it on their own, so I guess that makes it better???
What do you do with a wild sow that you just shot? Well you gut it and clean it of course. Daniel breaks out a pocket knife, makes a
small slot in the sow’s leg, and we hang the hog upside down in the
carport. We put the hog’s head in a
bucket and Daniel starts opening the hog starting at its neck. He cuts down the sternum of the hog’s rib
cage, stopping just after the last rib.
He then opens the skin near the thighs and cuts around the pig’s
anus. Out comes a bone saw to open up
the rib cage, then with a simple cut from top all the way down, the sow’s
internals all fall out into the bucket.
It smelled, intense. Also, there
was A LOT of large intestine, and it was really big. However, a few seconds later, the sow was
completely empty. Now to skin the
hog. This looked surprisingly simple,
just pull and cut. The final move was to
cut the spine at the base of the skull.
And there you have it! Fresh
piggie!
After
lunch and a nap, we headed out for our night hunt. This ended up being just a lot of
sitting. No matter, we know the pigs are
there and the deer feeders continue to bait our hunting ground. So we try again the following morning, and we
are back in the blinds before sunrise.
It was a frosty 28 degrees in the blinds and it was a very long sit. Thankfully, Alan decides to take us on a
walking hunt. This turns out to be me
scampering about taking pictures while everyone else walks through trees and
thicket. We followed hog tracks for 3 or
so miles making a lap around the hunting grounds.
With no action today, Alan decides to open up Daniel’s
arsenal along with 2 lbs of tannerite. So
we grab some targets, a bunch of guns and the tannerite and head out to
shoot. Daniel has some awesome rifles,
my favorite being the Thompson Contendor.
It looks like a hand gun with a mid-length barrel. It also has a literal hair trigger. You breath on that thing and it goes
off. There are so many guns, I’m just
going to list them. The biggest gun was
a custom Weatherby .338/.378 with a muzzle break. Adam’s favorite was a Weatherby 7mm. The Remmington .243 bolt action and the AR-15
.223 were our hunting guns. The Thompson
Contendor was a .223 and had a pistol style barrel. One of the last guns we hunted with was an
AR-15 .308. We shot another Remmington
.35 with lever action. The last rifle we
shot was an Optima 50 caliber black powder muzzle loader, super fun. We shot a couple shotguns, a Mosberg 12 gauge
pump action shotgun and a Remmington 20 gauge single shot. Oh right, we also shot a Remmington .44
Magnum revolver. Yeah, that was a lot of
guns. We got to shoot at this steel
plate that gave a satisfying “tink” when you hit it. Lastly, we mix up the tannerite and stick it
by the targets. The game is now, who can
hit the tannerite. We are trying to hit
a 4”x10” cylinder from about 150 feet.
Adam goes first, bang! …silence.
Next up Whit, bang! … BOOM! She
nailed it. At this point we are
thinking, I thought it was gonna be bigger/louder/have lots of flames. So of course we immediately start scheming on
how to make the explosion bigger next time.
I think we are planning on something like a pipe bomb. Plenty of time to research before the next
trip.
Now with all that shooting at targets, we are all pumped to shoot some hogs. We decide on another walking hunt and we are all carrying a gun. At some point I say something to the effect of “I’m going to shoot some hogs like Biggie Smalls and Tu-Pac”. Whit must’ve had her Wheaties that day because she followed up with two of the best word play jokes. She’s excited to shoot Piggie Smalls and Tu-Pig. Unfortunately, we shot absolutely nothing that trip. However, Adam and I did sink knee deep into some silt while Whit nailed her forehead with her rifle.
At this point Alan is frustrated with the lack of hog action
and we start talking about what options we have left. We can stay in the blinds through dusk,
and/or do a night hunt and/or do a sunrise hunt. We decide on dinner. Dodi made us a true Texas meal, baked chicken
in a country gravy, corn off the cobb, green beans and biscuits. Oh, and butter. Lots of butter. It was the perfect meal for our Texas
trip.
Daniel had no intention of letting the hogs off the hook
tonight. He went to his brother’s and
got us two night vision scopes, a pair of night vision goggles and a pair of
Flir thermal goggles. So we say, “Okay 2
hours in the blinds in the dark, then we call it and find a bar.” We head back out to the blinds, but park the
trucks a bit down the way from the hunting grounds. Daniel leads the way, making sure we are
silent. He takes a look in the thermal
googles and comes back in a hush “The hogs are here…” OH ITS ON!!! So we have two guns and so we
will have two shooters and Daniel while the rest of the people stay
behind. Whit gets the first nod and Adam
gives me the nod. WOOooooOOO ITS
ON!! Daniel herds Whit and I close to
him while he watches the hogs through the thermal goggles. We get within 20 feet of the baited area and
I can see the hogs in the moonlight.
They are actually on the other side of the fence about 40 feet
away. Whit and I crouch down and have
great shots. Daniel says to wait, that
these are small and the bigger ones are coming.
I want to pull the trigger so bad.
The hogs meander and end up running away out of sight. Damn.
Daniel leads us to the next deer blind, I can hear them! He huddles us in a single file line and tells
us to stay close. We find one of our
blinds and hide behind it while looking through the thermal goggles and the
night vision sights. Everything is green
except the trees and the outlines of the hogs.
I count 5 or 6 but its hard to tell what part of the hog I’m looking at
since its just a blob of black outlines. Daniel tells us to follow him and
starts to crawl towards the hogs. We army
crawl for about 50 feet. We meet up at a small tree and Daniel tells us to find a rest for our rifle barrels and for Whit
to sight in a hog on the left and for me to sight in a hog on the right. Once we are ready, he is going to count to
three and Whit and I are going to shoot at the same time. We are watching these black silhouettes move
around in our sights and I think I’m ready, then suddenly my hog turns into a
giant black blog merging with several other hogs. I have no idea what part of which hog I’m
aiming at anywhere. Daniel starts his
countdown and I scream in my head “I’m not ready!” 1… 2… 3! Bang! I realize Whit pulled the trigger and a
moment later I squeeze my trigger. Whap, whap! Whit hears our bullets hit their targets.
Daniel says, “You can shoot again” OMG, I didn’t even consider more than one
shot. My night vision scope turns back
on and the hogs are running both directions, and I fire off one more, a second
passes and my scope comes back on and I get a third shot off. In the commotion, we have no idea if our
other shots hit anything. We walk over
and survey the situation and call the rest of the gang down. Daniel finds a drop of blood and we start to
follow it. There’s another drop, and
another drop, and another. Every 4 feet
or so is another indication of where the pig had gone. Some splatters, some are drops, some on the
ground, some on bushes, some on tall plants.
It super slow going trying to find the blood with flashlights, taking
care to not step on any tracks before we find the next one. Alan has a hand gun out just in case the hog
turns around and attacks us. This is
totally surreal, tracking a hog that we shot, with nightvision scopes, under a
Blood Wolf Lunar Eclipse. We finally
track the trail of blood to a creek about 10’ wide. Daniel has been very active during this
entire hunt, but now his hernia tells him to let this one go. He decides to find it the next day and we
head back to end our night.
The next day was a haze, partially because Adam and I
covered a nightstand with two layers of empty coors light cans while watching
Escabana in the Da Moonlight, partially because I started the morning with a
couple shower beers or because I had a monsterous Michelada for breakfast. Our only task for the day was to drop the pig
off for processing. So we grab the pig
that Alan shot, wrap it in a sheet and throw it in the back of the
truck. Then Whit goes, “Hey Rob, Pig in
a Blanket!” Genius.
I didn’t realize that the processing place that we brought
the pig to was actually a taxidermist!
There was two ceilings worth of antlers and horns, skins, marbles used
as eyeballs, and pretty much every stuffed animal possible. I could’ve stayed
here for at least another 10 minutes…
All
and all a fantastic trip especially for our first hunting trip. Thanks to Dodi and Daniel for all the
hospitality, and the guns and ammo. I’m looking forward to the next hunting
trip!
This recipe is for a St. Louis rack of rib (meatier with a good amount of chew).
Pull the skin off the inside of the rib
Apply dry rub and put it in the fridge overnight.
Place in a smoker at 225 deg F for 3 hours. Sprtiz with a 50/50 beer and apple cider vinegar mixture every 30-45 mins (top and bottom)
Place rib in a single layer in a turkey oven bag and continue to heat at 225 for 90 mins with a half cup of the spritz.
Remove, from bag and continue at 225 for another hour
The meat should have recessed about ¼” to ½” from the edges of the rib bones and then you pick up the rib from one end, they should bend over and the crust should crack.
I personally don’t like to wet mop my ribs but you can coat with your favorite bbq sauce or variant then finish on a hotter grill for a saucy rib.
If you sous vide, slice the ribs and store them in vacuum bags, then reheat in a sous vide.
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