Hot Tips for Hunting Javelina

Unfortunately, javelina are sometimes considered more of a nuisance than a coveted big game animal worthy of pursuit. Don’t let these misconceptions stand in the way of a good time. If you’re contemplating a javelina hunt, here are a few things you should know before hitting the desert.

Biology Basics for Better Hunting

Understanding javelina biology and how they use the landscape can help you put a tag on one of their tiny legs. Javelina evolved in the thick thorn scrub of southern Mexico and Central America, so they never needed the keen eyesight of pronghorn. Outside of bow range, you can get away with a lot of movement for your stalk. As long as you’re downwind and quiet, you can sneak within 100 yards for a shot.

Javelina travel in herds of seven to 15 individuals that defend a specific territory of one to two square miles. This means you can find javelina almost everywhere in good habitat. However, that thick brush makes them difficult to spot. Because you can’t reliably differentiate between males and females in the field, hunting permits are for either sex. By the time piglets reach their first birthday, they are indistinguishable from other adults.

Javelina spend the daylight hours feeding or resting in traditional bedgrounds, often located in low areas of thick brush or caves throughout their territory. These bedgrounds offer soft soil to lie on and protection from predators, the sun, and the weather. Since these tropical animals lack fat and underfur, they sleep late and use the sun to thermoregulate. They also don’t care for cold, windy hillsides, so this knowledge can help you avoid lower probability areas.

The author's father after a successful Javelina hunt. Photo by Jim Heffelfinger.

Here’s Your Sign

Much of a javelina’s diet comes from roots, agaves, cactus, and other green leafy plants. This knowledge can speed up the scouting process. During dry times, they rely much more on prickly pear cactus, pincushion cactus, barrel cactus, lechuguilla, and cholla cactus. The fruits and fleshy parts provide both food and water for javelina.

You also need to know how javelina feed so you can spot fresh sign. Here are a few ways to tell if you’re looking at javelina activity.

Other animals share similar diets, but Javelina bite directly into the pads of prickly pear cactus, chomp right down, and pull the cactus flesh out. This leaves the cactus pad shredded rather than cleanly bitten, as rodents and rabbits do. Javelina will knock over small pincushion cacti, eat the fleshy insides, and only leave the tough outer skin and spines. They also pull apart agave and lechuguilla leaves to eat the fleshy heart of the plant like we eat artichokes. Like other swine, javelina will root up the tubers of plants and cacti, just not with the same destructive sign. Even though they are considered omnivores, they’ll also eat insects, reptiles, and other animals occasionally.

Besides shredded prickly pear, scooped-out pincushion cacti, scattered lechuguilla leaves, look for bedgrounds, scat, tracks, and rooting activity. Bed sites are sometimes in caves, presenting a rather challenging adventure, but more often they are under a large lone tree or bush high on a hillside so they can catch a breeze in the shade, or snuggle in a pig pile out of the canyon bottoms on cold mornings. From their hillside bed, daytime thermals deliver them the scent of any potential enemies approaching from below. Something you should keep in mind.

Look for a set of tracks so fresh that the javelina is still standing in them. You should also look for new glassing locations, water sources, and trails that will lead into thick habitat. If you don’t spot fresh sign, keep moving.

Glassing Javelina in Open Country

In thick brush country, you have to rely on open prickly pear flats, senderos, or feeders. But in more open country, you’ll have to take a different approach to spot-and-stalk methods.

Good binoculars are a staple for javelina hunting. The price of your binoculars is less important than the fact that you are using a pair. Premium binoculars offer clear glass and more durability and reduce eye strain. In open country, you’ll spend most of your time glassing.

The most effective way to hunt javelina is behind good glass. Photo by Jim Heffelfinger.

Hit the High Points

Find a good point that overlooks a large canyon or basin and systematically search the whole viewshed. A tripod can make this a more comfortable experience with a few advantages. It can allow you to catch the subtle movement of a javelina without tiring your arms. You can also systematically scan the area within view. Start at the top of the hill or ridge and pan across at the same level until you see all of the hill top. Then adjust your binoculars down one field of view and scan back across the hill. Rather than actually scanning, you can look at each field of view intently before moving over to search the next area. Continue to search in over-lapping layers until you have covered the entire hillside.

If you are scanning a large basin or canyon, by the time you’re done searching the area it’s time to look again. It’s common to suddenly find animals in the middle of a hillside that you just searched. Contrary to the opinion of some physicists who have never hunted these critters, javelina do have the power to materialize out of nowhere.

Plan to glass the sunny slopes in the morning and evening. These animals prefer warmer slopes in the winter months, and it is also easier to spot them in these areas. If you’re dealing with rainy or windy conditions, look in low, protected areas like bedgrounds and canyon bottoms. If it’s greening up in the canyon bottoms, avoid dry rocky hillsides. They probably won’t be there.

Glass, Glass, and Glass

Javelina can be difficult to spot. I have spent several days glassing them in the mountains, only to have a herd walk through a crosswalk when I return to town. You might think you’re looking for a large herd of black animals on the hillside, but it’s not that simple. In reality, you are looking for a gray lump among gray boulders. Once you find one, the rest of the herd magically materializes around that animal. The best javelina hunting advice I ever received was from Gerry Day who researched javelina for three decades in Arizona. Gerry said to remember the three “P’s: Patience, Perseverance, and a Positive mental attitude. This mantra has carried me while looking for these little porkers.

Other Tips

Look for good javelina habitat more than a mile from any road to locate larger herds that might not be as pressured. Carry a predator call with you to mimic a piglet in distress. The herd serves as a defensive unit, protecting the juveniles from predators. I have not been very successful cold calling javelina, but after you blow a stalk or miss a shot, a predator call often draws the herd right back to save the piglet and can offer you another shot.

Joining “the Club”

Arizona Wildlife Federation, Safari Club International, and Texas Wildlife Association have been keeping record books for javelina for some time now. Javelina hunting is growing in popularity across the Southwest and populations are doing well. Each year, almost 58,000 javelina hunters harvest more than 33,000 javelina in the U.S. alone. It was time for Pope & Young and Boone & Crockett clubs to add them to their record keeping. As you may have seen on Episode 685 of MeatEater Radio Live, I was part of a small team led by Nicole Tatman of New Mexico Department of Game and Fish who wrote the proposal to add this big game animal to the record books. Javelina are Boone & Crockett Club’s first new category in a quarter century and long overdue. The purpose wasn’t only to correct an oversight, but to give this animal the respect it deserves. As a new record book category, this unique desert dweller will enjoy more positive attention and conservation focus than ever before.

Like bears and lions, javelina are scored by their length and width. Deciding the minimum entry score for Boone and Crockett (14-5/16”) and Pope & Young (13-14/16”) clubs was not guesswork – there were more than 500 skulls already measured and entered into the state-sponsored record books that were used to determine an appropriate minimum. Both record books are now accepting entries and Boone & Crockett just announced last month they are waiving the entry fee for all species thanks to a private donation to cover the expense. Retroactive harvests are welcomed, so get that skull off your bookshelf and see how it matches up.

Javenlina hunts are a great way to try different firearms or archery equipment. Photo by Levi Heffelfinger.

Fun and Delicious

Javelina meat has a bad rep, but it’s actually tasty. After you harvest one, it is important that you handle it like food and not something you leave in the bed of your truck. My family skins and quarters our javelina in the field right away and places the meat in meat bags to cool it off rapidly. The famous scent gland on the lower back above the tail is just a skin gland. As such, it comes off cleanly when you skin the animal. Pay no attention to it and skin the javelina as you would any other animal. The hairs are covered with an oily scent from that gland, so just be sure you don’t get it on the meat.

Javelina hunting is a great opportunity to get your partner, youngster, father, or grandparent out in the field. It’s a low stakes hunt where you can sit quietly and talk about things that don’t come up in the chaos of daily life. Even if that’s all you can take away from your first javelina hunt, you won’t regret it.

Ten Tips for Tagging Javelina

There is a lot of luck in hunting, but there are things you can do to greatly improve your chances. Here are my top ten tips for tagging a javelina.

1) Be Prepared: Spend a significant amount of time scouting and researching before the season. You can locate javelina territories and start to understand their movement patterns.

2) Take a Seat: The old adage that a good hunter wears out the seat of their pants before the soles of their boots describes perfectly how much time you should be sitting behind your optics.

3) Look on the Bright Side: Always have the sun to your back. It not only prevents you from squinting into the sun, it assures you will be looking at canyons and hillsides illuminated brightly.

4) Get High and Lay Low: When glassing for javelina, you should climb as high as possible to get the best view and set up in the shade of a tree, bush, or other structure. It may be tempting to stop short, but for every 50 feet in elevation, more and more habitat down below opens up for your inspection.

5) Concentrate: Javelina don’t stand out like a neon sign on the other side of the canyon. They will be gray lumps among gray boulders. If you don’t concentrate, you will miss a lot of javelina.

6) No Room for Random: When using binoculars, do not scan around willy-nilly hoping to spot a javelina. Searching efficiently and effectively means you search your visible area in a systematic way. A tripod is a must if you are serious about bringing home the bacon.

7) Come Early/Stay Late: If you want to be successful you have to put the time in. Javelina keep “Bankers Hours” because they do not like the cold, but the more hours you are out there, the more success you’ll have. Pack a lunch and stay afield all day.

8) WWJD?: Think Like a Javelina. Given the temperature, wind, location of food and water, where would you be if you were a javelina?

9) Carry a Call: Imitating a distressed piglet can save a blown stalk and draw the herd back for more.

10) Three P’s: Patience, perseverance, and a positive mental attitude.