Apologies if you’ve heard me say this in talks at Conventions or read it in my previous articles or books. I love hunting what others might consider strange game animals. From my first African trophy being a Vaal rhebok to heading to the Yucatán Peninsula for Brocket deer and the tropical birds, Crested Guan and Great Curassow, I go after what many other hunters have never seen, or desired. No apologies for my idiosyncrasy of preferring the weird among game animals. Maybe it’s because I started my biological studies with New World Leaf-Nosed bats, a group including the blood-feeding, ‘Vampire’ species. I suspect God provided me this predilection. Morgan Freeman, in one of his movie roles, reflected this divinely-awarded bias well when he answered a little [white] girl’s innocent question, “Did God paint you?” Freeman smiled broadly and stated, “Yes! Because God loves wonderful variety!”
Regardless of why, my desire to hunt the unique was the reason I immediately perked up when Larry “Mr. Whitetail” Weishuhn mentioned the existence of feral, Mule-footed hogs on one of my favorite hunting grounds located near Blanco, Oklahoma – the Choctaw Hunting Lodge land. As the name implies, the Choctaw Nation owns and operates this property, in this case under the leadership of managers Dusty and Nacolh Vickrey. The Lodge environs include 21,000 acres of prime, Southeast Oklahoma hunting grounds, consisting of a mixture of dense forests and open meadows.
The Choctaw Hog found its way to this corner of Oklahoma with its Native American agriculturalists. The forced migration of the Choctaw from their homes in Mississippi to the reservation established for them in Oklahoma in the 1830’s marked the first of many mandatory relocations down the infamous Trail-of-Tears. The Choctaw Hog was well-suited to the semi-feral system of husbandry then followed. Highly aggressive and a great forager, the Mule-footed animals survived well in the forests and prairies until rounded up by their masters. Unfortunately, with today’s swine industry dependent upon concrete-floors with many pigs in the same enclosure, animals with the solid hooves and bad attitudes of the Choctaw hog are not in favor. This means the potential loss of an amazing breed. This is where hunters like me enter the frame. Our interest in hunting a not-your-common-garden-variety-feral-hog, provides value for these animals, making the maintenance of populations worthwhile for outfitters like Dusty and Nacolh.
On the afternoon I arrived, Dusty filled me in on the Mule-footed hogs I might encounter. In particular, he pointed out that not only were the animals typified by solid hooves, but that they also possessed so-called wattles. These wattles are gristle appendages, two-to-four inches long, and covered with hair. This made the hogs even weirder, and thus of even more interest to me.
It took me three days and six different stand sessions for success in taking one of the Mulefooted hogs on the Choctaw Hunting Lodge hunting grounds. It was worth the wait. As I knelt down beside this trophy that had come from such a long distance in space and time, I murmured a short prayer of thanksgiving. I lifted the wattles…
…and handled the horse-like hooves, smiling at the uniqueness of the animal.
One Response
Interesting article. I am going to have to find out if there hogs in KY.