Nine Bar Ranch Blog
North Texas Wild Boar Hunting Tips
Here in Texas, we aren’t too thrilled about our wild boar situation, but we have to admit that it has led to some excellent hunting! North Texas wild boar are a unique game hunting experience: techniques for tracking, approach, aiming, and takedown are all somewhat different from what you’re used to if deer, turkeys, and doves have represented the bulk of your hunting portfolio so far.
Today, we’re sharing our North Texas wild boar hunting tips! Read on to learn just how to bag one of these invasive animals for yourself in 2023.
Tracking Wild Boar
Like their domestic counterparts, wild boars love to eat! If you’re hunting with us here at 9 Bar Ranch, we’ll be able to scour our feeding stations for our targets. If you’re on your own in the wild north of here, keep an eye out for circling vultures. If the carrion is large enough, wild boar will gather around to join the vultures for a meal.
Essentially, when it comes to boars, the stinkier the food, the happier they are! Use this to your advantage anytime you’re tracking them.
How to Safely Approach Wild Boar
Wild boars are the fearless kings of their surroundings. Their intimidating size, impressively thick hides, and enormous tusks completely protect them from would-be predators. As a result, they aren’t too picky about their surroundings, and don’t stay on high alert like vulnerable deer and gazelle species.
Furthermore, boar are mostly blind. They rely on their noses (and to a lesser extent, their ears) to clue them in to their surroundings. If you stay downwind of them, take a stealthy approach, and mask your own scent for good measure, it’s unlikely that your presence will be detected by boars.
Where to Aim
When you’ve located a herd of boar, and have narrowed the gap between you and them, it’s time to take aim. Now, boar have incredibly tough skin. Their heads and shoulders serve as their armor. If you shoot them in the shoulder, their strong flesh and thick fat can close up behind the bullet, leaving not so much as a trail of blood as they flee.
Consider that they have delicious shoulder meat as well! Therefore, we recommend that you aim directly behind a boar’s ear. This spot will have the greatest impact on them while preserving their tastiest cuts of meat.
It Takes More Than One Shot
Once in a while, one perfect alignment of timing, aim, and the position of a boar’s head MAY result in a one-shot kill. Because this is unlikely to happen on your hunt, we recommend that all hunters prepare to deliver two or more shots as quickly as possible.
SHOOT UNTIL THE ANIMAL STOPS MOVING.
The Takeaway
These powerful animals are not easy to bring to their knees—but you can make it happen.
To book your wild boar hunt at 9 Bar Ranch, please contact us today!
Pros and Cons of Hunting Alone
At 9 Bar Ranch, we love to hunt both solo and in small groups for wild boar, deer, and small game that makes its home here just NW of Fort Worth, Texas. There are times when hunting solo is just the meditative experience you need, while at other times, having company along makes the hunt a fun, social event. Today, we’re sharing our own list of pros and cons of hunting alone. This list draws on our experiences, but will likely apply to you as well.
Pro: You can enjoy quiet independence.
We are highly experienced in hunting both here on the ranch and in the surrounding countryside. We know which signs to look for, how the day’s weather will affect the game, and how the direction of the wind will impact our scent carrying.
With all this shared experience, you might think we’d agree on the best approach for tracking down our game. Instead, it’s more common for us to disagree!
When we hunt solo, we don’t waste time and energy discussing our competing plans. Instead, all we have to do is think through one plan, then execute it immediately. When we’re happy with our cover, we can hunker down as long as we like. When we want to move, we just get up and move; no chatter or bickering will alert nearby game to our movement.
In short, hunting solo means you can move twice as quickly with half the noise.
Mixed Bag: No Shared Job System
Usually, a group hunting party will create a system that rotates who shoots and who calls. If you’re hunting on your own, you’ll have to manage both calling and shooting.
Now, if you’re hunting for whitetail, pronghorn, or mule deer, this isn’t an issue. These animals don’t respond to calls, and tend to present hunters with only a fleeting chance to fire.
If you’re planning to hunt callable game like turkeys, ducks, doves, and coyotes, taking a teammate with you will improve your success ratio.
Con: Recovery and Pack Out
We can’t be the only hunters who have taken down game only to be unable to find the downed animal if it bolts. This frustrating experience is less likely to happen to you if you have an extra pair of peepers helping keep a lookout.
Packing out the meat is an arduous chore for all but small game. If you have a buddy with you, this part of the hunt goes much more quickly.
Mix it Up
The alternative here is to combine your favorite parts of solo and group hunting. If you’re planning to be out for the entire day, you could spend your morning with your hunting partner, then spend the evening doing your own thing on your own. You can then meet back up to either camp or head back home.
The Takeaway
There’s no one approach that’s better across the board. Instead, consider what you want out of your hunting experience, then factor in the kind of game you’re going after. For some hunters, the result is all that matters, while for others, the experience is king
Anyway you go, we wish you happy hunting!