Taking care of all that good eating pork after a successful hunt is of prime importance and it’s a relatively easy task when hunting during the cold weather months but, what about those of us that enjoy hunting wild hogs throughout the year? If we’re hunting a ranch with a walk in cooler to quickly chill the meat, all we have to worry about is a quick field dressing job and hanging the meat. But many of us hunt some pretty remote country where we simply don’t have time to skin and quarter hogs in the field, especially after a long night hunt.
A few years ago, I learned a quick and easy method of taking care of the meat. Trust me, skinning and quartering a hog at two in the morning is not what this ole’ hog hunter is looking forward to after a night hunt.
I learned a much faster and more efficient way of taking care of the meat when the animal is harvested away from my truck or ATV. I quarter the hog, hide on and remove the backstraps without ever “gutting” the animal. Granted, a little meat such as the tenderloins and ribs is lost using this method but a wild hog packs the majority of its pork in the hams, shoulders and backstraps. These choice cuts can easily be removed in the roughest of country in a matter of ten minutes.
Picture this: You are hunting a remote spot; its midnight and you just downed a 170 pound sow that will make some fine eating. In a perfect world you would field dress the animal, back a truck up and you and a buddy would toss the carcass in the bed and go, post haste to a walk in cooler. But in this situation there is no walk in cooler and you don’t have a buddy handy to help. Besides, you’re getting a bit sleepy.
Here’s the solution: Simply remove all four quarters, hide on. With a little practice, it’s easy to find the ball joint on the hams and the shoulders because they are not connected by bone, are easy to remove. After the front shoulders are removed, the entire backstraps are easy to access and removing them simply requires a cut close to the backbone and a bit of ‘filleting’ to remove the straps from the upper ribs. You will note that it’s much easier to keep the quartered sections clean in the field with the hide on and it’s also much easier to transport the smaller “chunks” of meat out of the field. I simply lay the four quarters on the ground, hide down and place the backstraps on top. If you are not around a camp with electricity, make sure and have a couple of electric lanterns in your truck. Drop the tailgate and you’ll find that the quarters are very easy to skin out, and having them waist high makes the task even easier. Use your knife and disjoint the quarters, discarding the lower portions (shanks) of the leg. This task can easily be accomplished in a matter of fifteen minutes, even the first time you try it. By removing the shanks, your quarters will consist of prime pork and take up much less space in your cooler. Chunk all that fresh pork in your ice cooler (make sure and pack ice before the hunt), I usually bring two coolers on summer hunts, one filled with ice and the other empty to place the meat. I toss some meat in the bottom of the cooler; add ice and then more meat, making sure all the meat is in contact with ice so that it will chill quickly.
By the time you have your meat on ice, it’s well past midnight and you are really getting sleepy. You no longer have to worry about the meat. I’ve kept pork perfectly fresh for 3 days during the summer in a good cooler by draining the water and adding ice periodically.
I’ve also developed an easy and painless way of packing the quarters. Up in Colorado’s high country when I was outfitting and guiding elk hunters, we used pack frames to remove the heavy elk quarters from rough country but pack frames are a bit of overkill for hogs, at least in my opinion. I needed something that was light and easy to carry on these hog hunts and experimented with various straps until I found what works best for me. Take a 3 foot piece of nylon rope and attach a ring on each end and then wrap the rope with duct tape which serves as shoulder padding. Then simply tie an 18 inch pieces of cord on each ring at the end of the sling. When you are ready to pack out the quarters, slit behind the tendons and tie the cord on each piece. Pack the two hams together on one strap and the shoulders on another strap, this will insure that the load is perfectly balanced. I usually cut a small hole in the backstraps and thread them on above the quarters or place them in my hunting pack.
Hopefully these tips will help you on your “warm weather” hog hunt.
