I have never forgotten that day so many years ago, and have reflected on it many times over the decades. A few days ago, I mentioned the wild boar to my Dad and Mom, W.R. (Dub) and Thelma Garner of Hardy. "The boar was not one of those tall skinny Razorback hogs like the ones you see pictures of," my Daddy said. "It was a wild hog, but it was out of the domestic hogs." This was back in the days when everyone let their hogs run wild. Once or twice a year the farmers would round up the hogs and mark them by cutting notches in their ears. Everyone had a specific notch that they used, and which was different than the neighbors. If you rounded up a hog, regardless of size that didn't have its ear notched, it was your hog. If you rounded up a hog with a notched ear that was not yours, you turned it loose.

I still remember the hog roundup times, the ear notching process, and the fact that not everything always went well. When cornered, a wild hog often becomes a force to be reckoned with, and many men found themselves in a one-on-one confrontation with an animal that was going to hand out pain and anguish in the form of ripped legs from sharp tusks, and often much worse. This and the fact that open range soon ended in the Ozarks brought an end to the annual hog roundups. At the time, hogs were worth very little on the market, so eventually a good number of the hogs were never caught. These domestic hogs gone wild established a good population wherever they were found, but also caused destruction of environment and to other animals. Hogs are rooters which eat about anything that they can find on or below the ground, and it is their nature to root up everything that they can. They also eat and destroy the nests of ground dwelling creatures, along with the creatures themselves. A wild hog will eat any critter smaller than themselves that they can catch. A mature wild hog can outrun a deer in a short burst, so they can catch most anything in the woods that they want. Because of this, the wild hog is unwelcome in most places.

Though, a lot of deer hunters like my Dad killed hogs while deer hunting, most hunters did not get into hunting wild hogs as a sport. In Arkansas and every other state in the south were wild hogs thrived, there were a few dedicated hog hunters which used packs of dogs to hunt the wild boars. Some of these still exist today, but with the changing dog running regulations and land use changes, many of the packs of hog hunting hounds have disappeared. For many years, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission basically chose to not get involved with the wild hog issue, but not long ago they changed their stand on the issue. The current regulation states that any hog which has been out, has escaped or turned loose for more than five days is considered a feral hog, meaning it is fair game to any hunter who has a current hunting license, and who is packing a weapon that is legal to be in the field with at the time. This clear defining of what is considered a wild or feral hog has made hog hunting more attractive to many hunters who were not interested in getting into a confrontation, should they kill a wild hog only to find that someone decides it is their hog which has escaped captivity several months ago.

Hunting wild hogs can be an exciting adventure, sometimes it can get down right dangerous because of the unpredictable nature of the beast. They are very dangerous when upset, wounded, cornered or just having a bad day. The wild hog's ferocious nature has been well documented for years, and my pal Larry Weishuhn, Mr. Whitetail™ himself, has a new book in the makes titled "Wild Boars: The Poor Man's Grizzly". Wild hogs are tough critters and shot placement is critical. As a general rule, you don't want to use anything less than deer hunting weapons for hunting them. My Dad killed the big boar in the sugar cane patch with a Marlin 336C chambered in .35 Remington, and the big round nosed bullet put the hog down in its tracks. Bowhunting for wild hogs call for heavy poundage bows, extremely sharp broadheads, accurate placement of broadheads, and maybe a tree to climb if things don't go well.