I am sure Phillip Loughlin over at The Hog Blog would be all over this story if he would not be a busy chasing wild hog at the Tejon Ranch this week. Can’t wait for him to come back tomorrow and tell us all about it.
From the CNN to the rather anti hunting Fox News and on to Canada’s CTV News and then over to Australia’s News.com, every news station and blogger around the world reports about the “Boy bags a monster hog. So it’s only fitting that I join the fold.
While the story of “Hogzilla” is made into a horror movie as we speak that monster pig is about to be put to shame by an 11 year old boy. Jamison Stone from Alabama hunted with his father in in Delta on the 2,500-acre Lost Creek Plantation. He shot the hog with a Smith & Wesson .500 Revolver, quite the cannon for a little kid don’t you think. Once the hog was down trees had to be cut down and a backhoe brought in to bring Jamison's prize out of the woods.It was hauled on a truck to the Clay County Farmers Exchange in Lineville, where Jeff Kinder said they used his scale, which was recently calibrated, to weigh the hog.
Kinder, who didn't witness the weigh-in, said he was baffled to hear the reported weight of 1,051 pounds because his scale — an old, manual style with sliding weights — only measures to the nearest 10.
"I didn't quite understand that," he said.
Mike Stone said the scale balanced one notch past the 1,050-pound mark, and he thought it meant a weight of 1,051 pounds.
"It probably weighed 1,060 pounds. We were just afraid to change it once the story was out," he said.
The hog's head is now being mounted on an extra-large foam form by Cunningham of Jerry's Taxidermy in Oxford. Cunningham said the animal measured 54 inches around the head, 74 inches around the shoulders and 11 inches from the eyes to the end of its snout.
Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said.
Tags: Wild Hog, Hogzilla, Monster Hog, Hog Hunting, News, Smith & Wesson, Revolver, Jamison Stone, Alabama, Lost Creek Plantation
6 comments:
Great blog, and always a good read.
A point about that Lost Creek Plantation where this pig was killed: It started business just one year ago and it is fenced. It's a pay-to-shoot place that sells "wild" pigs by the pound on the hoof.
What that tells you is that this hog was trucked in, because there's no way this animal was not spotted before then.
Bottom line: this is a farm-raised hog released for public relations purposes by a brand new pay-to-shoot place looking for a lot of publicity. Getting an 11-year old kid to shoot it with a .50 cal handgun means that the pig would look even bigger in the photos and the story would get even more mythical. Add in the "no one was at the scales" aspect, and the fact that the pig was run through the grinder fast, as you have a nice public relations stunt.
P Burns
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com
P Burns – Thanks for the kind words about my blog and writing efforts, it makes happy to know that I strike a cord with my readers. Having said that I enjoy reading your blog too and wouldn’t mind to link the two blogs together.
Anybody shooting a trophy of any kind is quickly surrounded by rumors and conspiracy. But in this case I do have to fully agree with your statement. I am convinced that this is a very clever set up public relation stunt and I would not be surprised if right now the bookings to hunt on that plantation come flying in from all over the place. What a way to start a business, it will keep the plantation owner happy and his bank manager. :)
Despite all this it does not take away anything for the 11-year-old boy and his achievement to kill a big hog with a handgun. I am still happy for the boy.
-Othmar Vohringer-
I had no clue those porkers could get to that kind of size. That's amazing!
This one is exceptional but yes, pigs can get very large. Especially males that have had a sheltered life with lots of good food. This one has been raised on a farm, so I hear, and then a year ago, or so, he was turned loose for the hunters.
-Othmar Vohringer-
Mike Hanback is reporting on his blog that the pig in question was actually a family pet, and was sold to the hunting outfit four days before the hunt where it was killed.
So I'd have to say it was a publicity stunt and that it has now probably backfired.
your right I've heard on the radio that it was in deed a family pet and had gotten to big for the family to care for so it was soldto the lost creek plantation where it was turned loose for hunting. Even though it was farm raised when a hog is turned loose from the holding pins into the field/woods it is then concidered a ferral hog. In this aspect it truely is a wild hog and no longer a pet.
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