an old Cuban boss of mines father raised pigs and would kill them with a single well placed knife thrust into the spine/brain stem, but never got him to show me how . like a matador, would drop the pig in it's tracks with no head or upper body movement. now I'm a newbie to hogs but have seen deer run fairly far with a bullet in the heart, so even if you stab a hog directly in the heart, he will still have complete use of his motor/nervous system for a short period of time I would guestimate at least 15 seconds, which can be a long time with a sharp tusked animal. I'm sure it only took a fraction of a sec to lay that hunters scalp open. had that tusk hit his jugular/carotid he would have been done for. call me a big P---Y if you want but for now If I have a choice I'll put a round behind its ear or between eye and ear, or in where the neck meets the head. somewhere thats gonna stop him, even breaking the hips/shoulders should slow one down enough to stay safe. I bought a gerber guardian 2 a long time back with black teflon 6" fixed double edged blade and thick in the center, that I have never even carried in over 25 years, too scary if your hand slipped onto that blade you'd loose some fingers. but thats what I'd like to do that matador manuver with.
When you put a knife in their heart and twist it around like you are mixing a bowl of mashed potatoes....it takes the fight out of them pretty quick.
Most of the time hogs are caught in some thick, nasty stuff. I had my .44 mag with me on the last two hogs that my buddies and I caught....we had to bellycrawl into the thicket, floating down a stream part of the way, in order to get into the bays. By the time we could see the bay, we were close enough to touch the hog....have two dogs hanging on to each ear slamming it into the ground while it's spinning like a rodeo bull......so thick you can't kneel all the way up. There was no shooting the hogs without killing a dog. I pulled the pistol and evaluated the situation for about three seconds before reholstering it and tossing it off to the side and pulling my knife.
please excuse my hog hunting ignorance. I understand the danger of using the gun with dogs around, the part I didn't get was wouldn't it have been easier to tie it up after it was dead. I could see snaring a head leg or whatever so you could to help control it. not trying to criticize or anything, just trying to learn as I have never been there/ done that. seems incredibly physicaly demanding and dangerous to belly crawl thru that muck to come face to face with a pissed off hog or possibly snake or gator. if you have the guts and are in shape enough to do that ,more power to you ,good luck and stay safe.not physicaly able to do that myself at this point, mentaly not sure I'd be willing to trade the risk for gain. but love hunting with/ watching dogs do what they have been bred to do ( for me birds only so far )maybe sometime in the future when I'm in better shape I could tag along/observe and see first hand and get off your case.
Your good Nacho,that's the one thing I don't like about hog hunting. Belly crawling and getting into places that are so tight you can't stand up or see what's going on 1' in front of you. A couple good dogs can handle most hogs but there's always that one that kicks everyone's ass. We got one a few years ago that ny friend said was a bad hog and he got his dogs off of it and let it go.Well of course I said screw that and I came around and dumped my dogs back in on it. After 30 mins of dogs getting there ass kicked we killed it. It costed me my one dog for about 4 weeks healing up a pretty big hole.
