Lone Star Pork: Texas Hog | S6E14 | MeatEater

of all the species found in the wilds and not so wilds of america none are as maligned as the feral pig they're treated with the contempt usually reserved for cockroaches and kudzu but there's no denying there are plentiful and tasty resource and so i'm down in south texas to get some hands-on training as a hog trapper i'm steven runella to me hunting isn't only about the pursuit of an animal it's about who we are and what we're made of i live to hunt and hunt to live i am a meat-eater if you accept the old maxim that there's no such thing as bad publicity then feral pigs are doing well for themselves on the pr end of things they're constantly in the news wreaking havoc on agricultural lands gardens and delicate landscapes across the south the mid-atlantic region california and hawaii they've generated an enormous amount of interest from american hunters who might not relish the idea of a wild pig invasion though they're hardly going to turn their back on an abundant quarry with wide open seasons and no bag limits the lack of regulations on wild pigs has spawned a sort of gold rush mentality in hog hunting country where anything goes you can hunt them with dogs you can stalk them drive them bait them even gun them from helicopters while i've participated in my own fair share of the hog bonanza over the past dozen years it wasn't until recently that i learned about the guys who are actually capable of putting the dent in feral pig numbers and let me tell you they don't use bows and guns they are hog trappers like this guy right here ben benion a wildlife biologist who manages a large unfenced texas whitetail property about eight miles from the mexico border to date he's trapped 4795 feral pigs and for the next couple days i'm gonna follow him around [Music] what we got here is two 55-gallon drums this is bait you've been mixing up yeah this right one is just straight corn and water so it's just rotten corn the benefit is well it's like pigs like it but it's also who don't like it right deer and turkeys love regular corn yeah they won't touch this they don't like they want to touch this pigs pigs love it yeah i mean they just like part of their success is the fact they just will eat anything yeah that's why they're everywhere because they can they can survive on pretty much anything give me the rundown on this recipe again chef it's a it's a hundred pounds of corn 50 pounds of milo 25 pounds of sugar six packets of baker's yeast tropical punch kool-aid i usually use three canisters raspberry gelatin and uh a six pack of beer strong beard so it's not gluten free no and the beer just speeds up the ferment for me this bag of beer yeah kool-aid yeah so you're putting all that together for a pig yeah this has got a more of a sweet smell to it and this one's easier for me to use every day than this one you know it's partly for the trapper right i say that and then i use both of them at the same time no i'm going to and the property you manage how many pigs do you think are on the property you manage no idea but you know how many deer yeah why can you tell deer not tell pigs you can't survey them the same they have their home ranges vary a whole lot and they move like crazy more than whitetails way more i run 35 to 40 trail cameras yeah and i'll have a pig with a distinctive marking big bore and i'll catch him on three cameras over a two night span that are five miles apart and he's just traveling yeah and then you never see him again i guess i mean he could go on the neighbors and get so he came in and rolled through and covered a bunch of ground and he's just gone yeah he's looking for food and looking for sows or females more or less than 100 way more more or less than 1 000 less i trapped 16 days this year so far where i set a trap and then the next day 16 checks right right and i caught 86. ben's gripes with the non-native hogs are many and include predation on turkey pulse destruction of quail nests and many thousands of dollars of lost deer feed all right got some on my hands so we'll smell it all day bait in tow we head out to set ben's traps he's currently running a miles long line with ten traps some of them dating back from when he was in high school what was motivating you to make a pig trap in high school my stepdad he had two traps yeah it was just a lot of fun to go out there every morning and check him with him in my ag teacher my welding shop teacher in high school he trapped hogs he was the one that got me into selling them yeah i kind of would get the designs the blueprints from him and and play with them what's the most pigs you ever saw in one of these this size 14 uh at one time two weeks ago in this very trap i had nine pigs total five of them over a hundred pounds the other four were forty pounds and this it works i'll be able to understand that better once i see your trigger yeah yeah they have it tied open obviously so that's just gravity right now yeah no springs nope bang i just cut this off a limb or whatever wherever i'm at but i put these loops in there pigs get in there they destroy whatever is in the trap if you use cable they'll destroy your trigger right if you use cable they kink it you can't ever use it again you use rope they chew it up and then you gotta tie it knots this little loop right here works perfect so that way when they hit it it just falls apart so basically what i'll do is i put a little loop wire right here and i tie at the back of the trap right in the center so i got a loop on that that end so not a closed loop with a hook yeah just a hook so that way when they hit it it just falls apart run it through that top wire and now that's what's triggering it is him just straightening the wire out yeah he just bumps into it and it pulls the stick out so i put the stick no way just another hook like that well how many of them are bumping stick just on their way in that doesn't happen no not unless it's a real big one i also want to emulate being a pig so he's in here and he just is like this that's incredible man yeah that's as simple as it gets right there it is yeah pennies yeah i put a little pile a little t right here put a lot in the middle and then just put just a little bit back there in theory the majority of the pack's in the middle and you got one guy in the you know that ventures off to the back and sets it off what's the most traps you ever run at once i i used to run 28 i had these traps and the big corral traps that was when i was in college you run it out of a 18 wheeler i caught 1800 the first year i was there 1800 sold them all yeah well they have to be at least 40 pounds to sell and usually that's about 50 percent of what you catch is really over over 40 but little ones are good to eat aren't they they're really good they're not worth slaughter right right they're not worth commercial slaughter commercial slaughter they're not worth anything but what i do on the little ones is i save them and and field dress them and cool them down and give them to you know families in need of meat with the set it feels like you've put out milk and cookies for santa and now you just gotta wait for the big man to come and make the magic happen when there's time to kill in texas hog country you do a night hunt these mosquitoes are kind of something else huh they're way worse than yesterday the plan is simple we'll move from deer feeder to deer feeder until we either find pigs or run out of feeders dude they're biting me through my jeans yeah i didn't do my legs one thing to keep in mind is that pigs don't have eye shine so any glowing eyeballs belong to something we're not after if the coons aren't running off we're doing something right is it skittish yeah yeah the hogs ran off the coons would run off too [Music] there he's coming right he's going right see got him good shot it's good eating size mail huh yeah little board growing up in the north there's no pigs right and so you get there's this whole set of principles and things like things you just don't do right yeah and one thing you don't do is hunt big animals with lights [Laughter] did you come down like a place that has pigs and it's like they want to get rid of them just anything goes and just feels so weird to be out doing hunting with lights yeah yeah no i i understand completely like if you could maybe wave a magic wand and have him be gone would you wave it or not i wouldn't you would this is too much fun i always get that sense there's like a lot of people that want them gone and the people most able to do it kind of like develop a lifestyle around them right right it's like a love hate not bad a couple of hours of hunting rewarded with a dozen big meals worth of wild pork we field dress them and hang them in cold storage there's a lot of work to be done in the morning so you load up your trailer before you even go confirm where you caught a picture yeah i used to go and check traps without the trailer what i always found is i'd catch something if i didn't take the trailer and i'd have to come all the way back here and get it so if you get a set like this where obviously nothing's been here does that mean it's not going to happen or could it still happen no it could still happen what probably occurred here is it when we got all that rain it kind of spread them out so they're not coming here every night so there's water everywhere right right so what we'll do is we'll leave this one set for a couple more days and if it's still got all the bait left in it i'll take it and move it somewhere else what i'm doing here is we got the big lake on the back side of the hill here and there's a draw right here to get you know back and forth they're crossing right through here and then the feeding station so this is that's wide so you pick them up on your deer camera yeah then that's the reason this trap is here i have a specific reason for each location it doesn't have to be just coming to that feed source uh it's usually in a travel route yeah i yeah you can see where they came up to the front of this one and they ate all the bait right there in the front and then right inside the door but they wouldn't quite go in wouldn't commit yeah all this that's all spit right there so what'd you do baited again hopefully that built up their confidence a little bit you know them eating around the door with nothing happening yeah then tonight you know maybe they'll come back and make it in there classic trap shot uh-huh there's no that's trouble yeah we re-bait the traps that night and we're up in the morning to do our second check look at that those are dollar signs bro you can see there's a little sleek shine on their back yeah that just means they're real fat so that's like the size of your typical like suckling pig huh yeah if you wanted to split one and cook a half this is the size that you would do that with split it down the backbone and grill the whole half of the pick like sear it over coals and then smoke it for a few hours and it's just no kidding yeah those are super tender it's good yeah for the inspected facility you sell to 45 pound minimum 40 pound minimum and what are those weight about 25 25 yeah it's too much work for them to butcher one that size the yield isn't very high yeah yeah i'm with you with her they'll give me 35 cents a pound for her and she's 125 pounds so let's load them up yep ben's set up for loading out pigs is just as efficient as everything else he does he sets a chute at the trap entrance backs the trailer up to it and opens the gate no problem for one person to handle by themselves the chute goes back in the truck and that's it as my kids say easy peasy lemon squeezy on to the next one i get like i could definitely see the sort of uh the yin yang of man where on one hand you got this like non-native right yeah the most people from an ecological viewpoint would say is a bad thing to have but then you also look at like what an enormous resource of food right unlimited i mean there's it's like you can't keep up with them right but see those little ones aren't worth it i mean you get one big one and it's equal to all the little ones that we've caught so will some trappers turn those out let's hoping to catch them again later make money off when they get big yeah but if the landowner that they're trapping on knew about it knew about it they wouldn't let them trap there anymore so they so the landowner's like if you're gonna try a pig get rid of them yeah take everything you can't be turning out pigs right i like pulling up on a trap and seeing multiple heads we got two adults in there yeah unbelievable they're seven in there so you know when you're looking at a like you'll see an ad online right it'll be like texas hog hunts those guys buy pigs to then put in there and let guys come hunt them yeah do they pay more than the for the small ones they pay more per pound these two bigger ones here it's about the same price about the same price yeah he's almost digging out of that one oh yeah that boy's got some body fat too huh yeah he's he's real fat [Music] normally ben sells his hog catch to a usda inspected facility by law the pigs need to walk into that facility healthy no hunter killed animals are accepted but i've talked ben out of this whole batch which i'm going to distribute to friends and family to get even more education out of this texas jaunt we're hauling a couple of the critters to clayton saunders at divine meats of divine texas i want to find out how the pros handle pork and i'm eager for his assessment of our hogs when a guy pulls up what are you looking for to judge how this guy's handled his job as a hunter up to the moment you take over first telltale sign is always the eyeballs really and so that'll tell you the freshness of any animal right there so is it eyeball ever so bad that you need to reject it yeah especially on pigs because pigs will sour before venison will so that's a good eyeball though that's good eyeball these are already field dressed and gutted i'll open up the cavity and see if they were eviscerated right all the vibes so do you get guys pulling up with pigs that haven't even gutted we do accept them that way as long as they're fresh we're not going to accept a pig that's had guts in it for 24 48 hours i got you so like this guy right here gutted weight what percentage of boneless meat is gonna come off that thing not very much probably looking around 30 30 my recommendation on these would be primarily barbecue cuts meaning bone-in bone-in yeah all right let's see you can walk us through a couple all right sounds good [Music] real important on pigs there's gonna be a gland right there okay right in that fat yep you want to get that gland right there get that out of there they're going to have glands there they're going to have glands here they're going to have glands there just like and then there's also glands inside the hams same thing on a deer yeah you find those waxy balls you got two four six eight cook that in the crock pot or on the barbecue pit and bite into it you're gonna know it not loving it [Music] it's more of a medium-sized hog 75 pound carcass so you can do just about anything you want on this one shoulders and your lawrence are going to be your best flavor your most volume is going to come out of your hands but if you want better flavor on the crock pot you want to go for the shoulders all right in my opinion yeah in south texas with all the cactus and brush and thorns a lot of times you won't keep anything past the elbow joint because of black brush thorns and cactus thorns you're not going to want to chew on that for a while so that's a really nice shoulder there yeah see that's beautiful with the fat on there man yeah what style of cooking tombow i like an offset fire myself you can do it over direct coals charcoal we can just cook the whole thing just like that get a little salt little pepper we'll go let the fire and the smoke do a thing and then we'll baste it as we go so does this count as texas barbecue or not south texas barbecue south texas barbecue down here this is this is what you'd find typical on a barbecue pit in a backyard somewhere gotcha clayton keeps an offset smoker out back and he's already got it heated up what's the best cooking temp if you want to run low and slow run it two 250 if you want to get it started run it three 350 and then back it down and we'll let it go we'll go inside and cut up some more pig that's gonna be good show me what would be bacon on a domestic pig and explain to me why i'm not able to do it with a wild pig your bacon would be starting at your brisket point right here you get your baby back ribs here if you want to keep them flare it away from the ribs yeah that's going to be your bacon oh that is bacon look at that yeah you weren't lying i wasn't mine is it not worth it in my opinion it's not it's going to shrink up about 20 okay the muscle is just not developed on these wild pigs on the briskets the way it is on a domestic pig yeah you can do it the meat to fat ratio is way off i would prefer to leave that on the rib and throw these ribs on the pit now you end up with spare ribs or as short that's what spare rib means short rib spare rib i don't know how i went my whole life without picking that up so now that you've shown me what i don't want to do show me what you would do typically i'll break it right below the tenderloin you want to pull that flank up so you don't cut that flank off there's a slab of ribs a lot of people like cutting them down the middle you know make two slabs out of one those be good on the pits would be real good on a pit i don't like splitting mine down the middle and making individual chops i like to leave mine connected like this big hole and make butterfly chops we like to call them the presentation on the plate is a lot better plus most people are going to eat two of those and not just one yeah you can pull the hams off just with a knife or you can run them through the saw either way so that we can do steaks we can do roast we can do boneless it's got that satisfying meat slap sound an excellent harvest of a most desirable meat from an animal that some people just shoot and leave to rot clayton goes a couple rounds on the shoulder with a homemade vinegar-based sop recipe that his dad passed down to him all told takes about four hours to cook so you let that rest too i noticed i let it rest 20 30 minutes what's the thinking on that to relax the meat a little bit but more importantly not to burn my hands when i'm cutting it i can't believe that it got that tender yeah it's falling apart if you pick it up with a hook it's liable to just fall off now what do you think you got to on an internal temperature probably a good 180 plus so way beyond safe 180s 190s to me that's a pretty nice cut of meat right there you can just take the bam stopped from before and dressed a little bit over it is good man this is like a pretty traditional south texas preparation here yeah it's pretty traditional on this area man that's one of the top things i've eaten in a long time man no this is good this is good it's really good it's like a cross between venison and pork exactly that's exactly what i was thinking it's like if a deer made love to a pig our motto here is you can't please everybody so we just make it how we like it well i wouldn't change a thing man you

Channel: MeatEater

Views: 2,445,379

Keywords: steven rinella, meateater, meat eater, Steve rinella, hogs, hunting, trapping, texas, wild pigs, wild hogs, hog hunting

Id: G59YaD0-Cag

Length: 21min 17sec (1277 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021