Many people hunt hogs nowadays, employing a wide range of weapons and tactics, all of which offer fun and excitement. Still, for hair-raising episodes, wrestling a live hog to the ground might prove to be the most exhilarating—and dangerous. The adventures of a few hunters from forty-five years ago demonstrate just how perilous grabbing a wild hog by the ear really is.
Here in Florida, hogs can be legally taken any time of day and year on private land with the landowners’ permission. Because of their reproductive capabilities and habit of rooting for food, hogs destroy tremendous acreages of improved pasture and, therefore, are not favored by cattle ranchers. Back before landowners needed to fear liability lawsuits, getting permission to remove hogs from ranches was not terribly difficult.
My deer hunting friends, Howard and Rick Benziger, along with their younger brother, Bruce, got their start hog hunting in their early teens on a nearby ranch whose owner insisted that no guns, bows, dogs, or vehicles could be brought on his property. He told the youngsters any hog they could run down on foot was theirs to keep. He may have been shocked later that day when the boys brought out four hogs, one of which weighed eighty pounds. Difficulty and inexperience were overcome with an overwhelming desire to succeed. Despite their scratches and coating of mud, they were happy and proud, and this taste of hog catching cascaded into a full-blown passion.
They built pens at their parent’s Titusville home, and began catching and selling hogs locally for barbecues or to be shipped northward to stock hunting operations. For this, the most valuable were the long-toothed boars. (One has to wonder if the hunters who pursued these bristle-backed monsters fathomed the travail of getting the hog to the site alive and in good shape.) As the Benziger’s experience and contacts grew, they gained access to several ranches. Their methods for capturing hogs included running them down on foot, releasing dogs and then wrestling and tying the dog-held hogs, or chasing the hogs through pastures and palmettos in their truck, subsequently diving off and tackling them. With such techniques, they caught up to 23 in three hours. The weight of the hogs they targeted ranged from 60 to 400 pounds.
Howard explained to me that size and aggressiveness do not always go hand-in-hand. The meanest he remembered was a 200-pound boar that severely ripped open one of his dogs, nearly severed his brother-in-law’s finger, and repeatedly shattered the oak pen in the pickup’s bed with explosive head-first charges. The truck had barely moved a hundred yards when a slamming head butt ripped apart the side boards and allowed the boar to escape. They re-caught the boar and after, Howard rode on top of the pen with a hammer, nails, and boards handy to mend the sides as the tireless hog battered them.
Their most memorable day of hog hunting started out not unlike a typical trip. They caught six hogs sized from seventy to 150 pounds in the morning. Howard drove while Rick and Bruce rode on the pen, each holding a dog and ready for more excitement. When Bruce spotted a hog, Howard sped the bouncing truck across the pasture to intercept the animal before it could escape into a dense swamp head. As they closed the gap, the beast zigged and zagged. Howard cut hard one way and another to keep from hitting the hog and still keep between it and the bog, all this at speeds that kept the Ford in the air nearly as much as on the ground.
One turn sent Bruce flying from the truck with no time to even let go of the dog he held. The pair flipped in the air. Bruce landed feet first in the mud, his momentum flipping him forward again. Both bones in his lower right leg snapped loudly and completely. The hog, a 110-pound sow, blocked from the swamp by truck, charged Bruce. He released the unharmed dog. (The brothers don’t align completely on whether this was an intentional release or not.) Regardless, the dog met the rushing hog, thwarting the charge and latching on her neck. Howard and Rick quickly caught and penned her and then gingerly loaded Bruce into the cab.
They arrived home and Howard used another vehicle to take Bruce to an emergency treatment center while Rick set about unloading the hogs. The treatment center’s doctor explained the break was serious, requiring surgery to set the bones, and referred Bruce to Jess Parrish Memorial Hospital.
In the meantime, Rick backed the Ford up to a holding pen and opened the tailgate. Five hogs scrambled out, but two refused to budge from their position near the cab despite Rick’s loud hollering and slapping of the sideboards. Finally, Rick climbed in on his hands and knees under the truck pen’s low roof. He grabbed one hog by its hind leg. The other hog started popping its jaw—a fairly reliable indication of a pending charge. Rick released the first hog and grabbed the other by the ear. With a forceful twist of its head, the hog hooked Rick’s hand with a tusk and slashed viciously, ripping the flesh from above the wrist down to the index finger. Rick left both hogs in the truck and washed up in the house, knowing quite well the risk of infection.
His folks drove him to Jess Parrish Hospital, where the two brothers showed up simultaneously. Rick’s hand also required surgical intervention. Dr. Cerato then operated on both brothers, one immediately after the other, then Bruce and Rick were assigned to the same room for recovery.
The following morning, a couple of locals stopped by the Benziger place to buy two hogs for a Fourth of July barbecue and asked Howard to pick out a couple of “good eaters.” The hogs in the pen ranged from 70 to 340 pounds. The biggest was a giant boar with 3½-inch tusks and an irritable disposition.
70- to 80-pounders usually barbecue best, so Howard climbed the pen, leaned over, and pulled one out in that range. He climbed again, but all the hogs stayed well clear. Beating on the boards caused an eighty-pounder to scoot past. Howard lunged, grabbing only one ear. The hog spun, and Howard stretched out to reach the second ear. The top railing broke with a crash, and dumped Howard into the pen.
The little hog raced off, but the 340-pound boar immediately launched into a furious assault, slamming into Howard’s back, shoving him along the manure-strewn dirt and laying him open from the shoulder blade across the back, over the shoulder, and down the triceps. Grunting huskily, the boar backed for another charge. Even with one arm out of commission, the impending charge gave Howard the impetus to somehow push off the ground and dive over the railings.
The boar continued to crash about the pen while the hog purchasers trundled Howard into their car and drove him to Jess Parrish. He checked in as Rick was being released. Dr. Cerato numbed the wound and examined it, concluding that, with all the torn muscles, surgery under general anesthesia was required. After the lengthy operation, Howard took Rick’s place in the room with Bruce.
When Mr. Benziger arrived to visit his offspring, Dr. Cerato, smiling and shaking his hand, asked, “Tell me, do you have any more sons, or will it be safe for me to plan a game of golf this afternoon?”
Mr. Benziger assured him no more sons would be forthcoming. Howard and Bruce settled into the routine of antibiotics and hospital meals as their swellings gradually ebbed and wounds healed. The day after Howard’s surgery, Rick brought in a mounted hog head and hung it in their room. One of the nurses posted a sign under it that read: Hogs 3 – Benzigers 0.
