I hunt Boar every year in the late summer. More like harvest them actually and educate them. Smarter than a dog if they live to be 2-3 years old. People forget that adult Boar are loners, the adult sows are pack or herd animals. Not uncommon to see twenty in a bunch. A lead Sow 300 pounds up to maybe 550 lbs., 2-5 young adult females (150-250 lbs or so), half a dozen mixed 12-18 month adolescents and a bunch of piglets. I once spent 6-7 hours in a tree, there was forty of them (likely two groups that had joined up temporarily), I sure wasn't going to come down and argue the right of way with them. The record around here is 368 kilograms, a Boar with 8 inch tusks. We usually shoot them way before they get that big. This Boar must have been, uncommonly shy, smart and good at hiding to have lived that long.
When I say educate them, what I mean is shoot the dumb ones and reinforce the lesson the lead Sow has already learned, the less contact with man the better and stay out of the crops. We rarely shoot the lead Sows (on purpose), they keep the herd under control and out of serious trouble most times.
They can destroy a couple of acres of Wheat or Corn in a single night. They can dig up enough dirt in a night that it can take all day with a skip loader to fill in the holes and even out the field again.
The lead Sow builds a nest in winter (yes you heard right) like a big birds nest out of Pine branches. Goes off by herself and has her litter. You get anywhere near the nest and most often she goes into attack mode. You get between her and her piglets and she either goes into attack mode or just tramples you on the way by and takes a couple of bites at your legs.
Like mentioned, they eat Deer (mostly fawns, sick or injured adults), all that's left is a pile of bone splinters and some hair. They are pretty good at taking care of road kill.
We hunt them at night (they are nocturnal), usually during a full moon. The smart ones stay just out of range, though they are curious sometimes and will actually follow you through the woods and maybe make a couple of fake charges just to test you a little. The pucker factor goes way up, when you meet one at 2 AM in the forest, even a moderately sized one looks about the size of buffalo in the dark , under the trees in the middle of the night.
They are amazingly agile and can jump higher than you would think.
We measure them hanging from the rear hooves to the nose, 3 meters is not unheard of. Not uncommon for them to weigh 60-90 lbs. the first year and double there weight every year after that if they are eating well. Since the farmers around here have been planting more Corn, Maize and Rapps the Boar have been getting a lot bigger quicker.
Look in a Boars mouth and check out there teeth, they make a dogs teeth look fairly puny by comparison.
A few years back a car hit one of the adolescents in a herd, driver was standing around waiting for the Cops, when the herd decided to come back for junior. The story got kind of confusing here, but the end was a dozen motorists standing on there hoods, along with the cops. And the Cops taking pot shots at a 3-400 lb. Sow with there 9mm pistols (kind of like Bees stings). The story says they never did kill her, but she did get kind of irritated.
) and for his 30th birthday my family sent him on a boar hunt in southern Tennesee. He was the only guy there hunting with a long bow (or a bow of any kind), and everybody told him he was crazy. The rest of the group had already got their kills that day and the guide was about to order everyone to pack it in when they heard a big male foraging down below the rock face they were standing on. My brother went down around to the bottom and started walking toward this narrow crevice filled with laurel. The guide drove the hog out toward him and just as it broke through the laurel it started to put its head down (not a good sign). My brother drew his bow and got it right in the left shoulder and it let out a squeal, hit the ground, and slid to a stop in front of my brother's feet. All the guys who told him he was nuts were hootin' and hollerin' from the rocks above.
