Okay, here we go, some bigger pictures. Pigs in California are a mixed strain of feral and true European wild boar that was imported into Monterrey by a publishing tycoon to release into his ranch and escaped. These have now interbred. (Monterrey is close to the world famous Pebble beach gold course)
This is the only pig I had mounted by a taxidermist. Hunted all day in Nor California. I had seen a track coming vertically down from a hill (pigs tend to move straight up hill unlike cattle that move diagonally)
We parked and waited, I told my wife to keep quite and pointed out the big boar coming straight downhill. She whispered that's too big to be a pig, its a calf. Like most big boars this one was alone. He was big and black and had a slow swagger to his walk. Like he knew he was the big and bad dude in that area. I waited, he turned to take a look at us, he was down wind, must have been some instinct that alerted him. I tie some cotton thread to the hood of my front sight so I can track wind direction while stalking and he was upwind of us.
He crossed a small ravine, I was waiting, I always stalk to within 100 yards even though I can put five shots into a couple of inches at a 100 yards from the bench, you stand up and shoot freestyle and it is now within 10 inches. I was hoping that he turned broadside but he just turned away from us and started moving away. i aimed in the center of his shoulders and the base of his spine and gently squeezed of a round. He squealed and fell, spine severed.
I ran up to him, he was huge, I stuck my muzzle into his eye to make sure he was dead. His tusks were three inches long and he had silvered hair around his face. Some may describe a boar as a brute but there was a certain character to him.
Now started the fun part, we had a hog that was 325 ponds field dressed (we weighed him at the butcher later) and a ravine between the Toyota and us. Had my wife (thank god for true blue Sardarnis) help me push pull and drag him up. Learnt my lesson, now I have a 9,000 pound rated winch on my Landcruiser for hoisting an animal. We had a tough time loading him into the back. Field gutted him, had forgotten the game hoist plus it was dark so we decided to drive home with him.
Stopped at a gas station on the way and bought several bags of ice, everyone at the gas station steered clear of me. I was surprised, we were in California where there is a healthy diversity what was wrong with these people? Got back in the car and mentioned it to my wife, she told me that they probably thought I was a serial killer that was relocating a body and she pointed at my tee shirt, it was full of blood and soiled. We drove back expecting flashing cop car lights pulling over the serial killer.
Got back home, pulled up my pick up and moved the body into the bed of my truck, we lived on the top of a hill and had old retired couples living around us. In the morning one of my neighbors politely told me that there was something in the bed of my truck, there was blood ripping down the white truck.
My usual butcher was closed, made a few calls and one said he would make it into sausage. When I showed up, he saw the wild pig and said, no, no I thought you had a domestic pig. Few more calls later we located another butcher 30 miles away and took it to him. He advised us to get the complete boar made into sausage, I insisted on getting the legs made into ham. It sure tasted awful, all the big boars do.
Ones around 60 - 80 pounds are the best eating.