As a boy we fished a great deal in southeast Oklahoma where there has long been good number of Choctaw mule foot hogs, descendants of the original stocking that came with the Choctaw people when they made their Trail of Tears journey all the way from Mississippi back in 1831. I remember asking my daddy if those tracks we often encountered were made by a ‘baby donkey’.
With solid hooves that aren’t split like other hogs, the Choctaw hog is quite unique. The fact that the breed also has waddles hanging down below his jaw makes them even more unique. I’ve had a lifelong fascination with hogs, both wild and domestic.
As a youngster, I remember picking pecans and making enough to buy a couple of pigs from a neighbor. My goal was to sell them in the fall and earn some money to purchase my first horse, which I did. Back in the late fifties and sixties, wild hogs weren’t nearly as plentiful as today. Back in the seventies their numbers greatly increased across much of Texas, thanks in part I believe to stocking by hunters that wanted wild porkers on the lands they hunted. I know because I was there and witnessed this on many occasions.
For the past several years, I have had the privilege of hunting on sections of the more-than-40,000 acres of beautiful mountain country owned by the Choctaw Nation. Dusty Vickrey is the manager of the Choctaw Hunting Lodge but he says his wife Nacolh is really the ‘boss lady’. Nacolh does an awesome job with the many tasks involved in running a hunting lodge that serves double duty as a destination for events such as weddings and family get togethers.
Nacolh is, hands down, the best cook I know and she does the lion’s share of cooking for visitors at the lodge. I think she needs to compile a cookbook of her many mouth-watering dishes. She doesn’t know it yet but I plan to propose that idea in the near future.
I’ve hunted eastern turkey and deer at the lodge in past years but I expressed my interest in the Choctaw hogs last year and when I visited last week with my friend Larry Weishuhn and a group of writers, editors and folks in the outdoor industry, Dusty asked if I wanted to try to put a Choctaw porker on the meat pole after hunting deer. I think he knew I would be at least as fired up over the opportunity to finally take a Choctaw hog as the biggest whitetail buck on the property!
I was targeting a ‘management’ buck and although some bruiser bucks came within range of my 6.5PRC CVA Cascade rifle topped with a Stealth Vision scope, the mature management type bucks eluded me. I did take a very heavy doe near the end of my hunt which allowed me time to go after a trophy (to me) porker.
Dusty explained that many of the hunters during the late winter hog hunts have taken the mule foot hogs but, to date, I am the only hunter that has had a lifelong desire to harvest one of these unique animals. As the old saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!”
Drake Stowe, who guides at Choctaw Lodge, suggested we set up a pop-up blind on the edge of some very heavy cover where a big sounder of hogs bed up during the day. The plan was to bait an area a few yards out from the cover and attempt to wait until the smell of the Vineyard Max deer attractant drew them out of the brush.
The smell of dried, crushed grape skins mixed with corn chops and rice brand has proven very effective on my past hunts and I felt confident these Choctaw hogs would also find the aroma irresistible. I settled into the blind a couple of hours before dark full of confidence the smell of grapes would pull the porkers out within range of my CVA 50 caliber Optima muzzleloader.
Then, a streak of bad luck -- the wind changed and my scent was being carried directly to the bait pile and thicket beyond. With about 20 minutes of shooting light remaining, I knew if I was going to get my trophy Choctaw hog, I would have to take the hunt to the hogs. I could hear them back in the brush milling around and an occasional squeal when a larger hog would whack a pig with its snout.
Weishuhn was with me with the intent of filming the hunt for an upcoming segment for our TV show A Sportsmans Life.
“Let’s try to put a stalk on them,” whispered my friend.
We were soon easing back into the cover, me in the lead with the muzzleloader and he with the video camera rolling. Drake was off to the side listening as the hogs moved along and pointing the direction of their travel. By the sound the hogs were milling around about 50 yards back in the thick stuff and I slowly circled around downwind and picked my way through the brush. Thank goodness hogs are vocal critters, I stalked them by sound and it appeared they were working they way toward me.
I knew if they smelled me and spooked, the whole sounder would vamoose and I paid close attention to the wind. I guessed their direction of travel and picked a small opening in the brush about 50 yards down the hillside. Good fortune was smiling on me; maybe it was the spirit of the Choctaw people that originally introduced their hogs to this country.
I saw a couple of smaller hogs walk into the opening and then disappear into the brush. About 15 hogs followed suit, mostly sows, pigs and smaller boars. I waited in hopes of a larger boar but my hopes were beginning to fade. Then I spotted a larger hog, jet black with waddles hanging down from his jaws. THIS was my trophy Choctaw boar, the one I had been hoping for.
A KABOOM sounded from the muzzleloader and my trophy was anchored in his tracks. Choctaw hogs aren’t big by feral hog standards. This one might have weighed 130 pounds but he had all the characteristics of the breed with long waddles and little mule foot shaped hooves. I will have my good friend Joe Parker with All American Taxidermy create a gun rack, highlighting the mule feet hooves.
My Choctaw hog was the fulfillment of a long time dream. As I stated, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
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