JAVELINA FEVER

[billrquimby]

BILL- The recipe is Denmark meats. Chorizo,pepper sticks and polish dogs. Try it and I think you will change your mind for sure.

 

I'm a dense ol' fart and need better instructions.

 

Bill Quimby

[More D]

Javelina meat is better than lean pork. It's bad rap as stinky meat comes only from those who do not know how to properly care for it in the field.

 

 

 

 

[mattys281]

It's not my favorite, but I'll eat it. Hopefully I'll have one in Feb to try that Chorizzo & sausage recipe out on.

Congrats on some nice pigs guys. Javis are definetely a blast to hunt!

[tjhunt2]

Javelina meat is better than lean pork. It's bad rap as stinky meat comes only from those who do not know how to properly care for it in the field.

 

 

 

 

You are exactly right. That is the key!

 

TJ

[billrquimby]

Javelina meat is better than lean pork. It's bad rap as stinky meat comes only from those who do not know how to properly care for it in the field.

 

I can assure you I take good care of everything I kill.

 

With javelinas, that includes keeping the hair and gland from ever touching the meat.

 

The only way I have found I can eat it is when I've slathered it with barbecue sauce and cooked it for 24 hours in a pit.

 

Every other way I've tried comes out tasting like I've bitten into a roofer's underarm on a hot day in August.

 

Incidentally, I'd still like to know the receipe for making javelina sausage.

 

Bill Quimby

[Outdoor Writer]

Bill,

 

As you might know, I did an annual Steenkin' Peeg Hunt for a bunch of guys from all over the country for many years. We always hunted either the WM or SC reservations so we never had to worry about evreyone getting a permit. It got to be quite an affair with a camp and food that had many guys coming back every year just to eat.

 

I lost count of the ones I've killed here in AZ and in Texas, but it was enough to where I decided I didn't need to kill anymore about 15 years ago. So when we had the hunts, I did nothing but play camp mom for the rest of the crew.

 

One of the guys from NY had his javelina smoked somewhere near his house one year and brought a big hunk to the hunt the next year. It was the best javelina meat I've eaten.

 

I used to have mine done at the Real Texas BBQ that was on Bethany Home near I17 in Phx. When I heated it, I would slice it thin and put a liberal coating of a tangy bbq sauce on it. Then I put it on a rack in an oven pan with about 1/2" of water in it and slowly heated it at about 225 degs. It was both moist and flavorful. -TONY

[azhuntnut]

Did you cut that pig in half with your broadhead ? I love chasin them little suckers around, and hope my boy will take me along with him when I get up there in age. David

[billrquimby]

Bill, As you might know, I did an annual Steenkin' Peeg Hunt for a bunch of guys from all over the country for many years. We always hunted either the WM or SC reservations so we never had to worry about evreyone getting a permit. It got to be quite an affair with a camp and food that had many guys coming back every year just to eat. I lost count of the ones I've killed here in AZ and in Texas, but it was enough to where I decided I didn't need to kill anymore about 15 years ago. So when we had the hunts, I did nothing but play camp mom for the rest of the crew. One of the guys from NY had his javelina barbequed somewhere near his house one year and brought a big hunk to the hunt the next year. It was the best javelina meat I've eaten. I used to have mine done at the Real Texas BBQ that was on Bethany Home near I17 in Phx. When I heated it, I would slice it thin and put a liberal coating of a tangy bbq sauce on it. Then I put it on a rack in an oven pan with about 1/2" of water in it and slowly heated it at about 225 degs. It was both moist and flavorful. -TONY

 

Hi Tony:

 

Remember us discussing your hunt a couple years back on another forum? I applauded you for the thankless effort it takes to put such things on.

 

For six or seven years I hosted friends from Wyoming's One Shot Antelope Hunt Club and set up quail and archery javelina hunts for everyone. Each January I'd pit-barbecue the javelinas the archers shot the previous year, and serve the pulled meat with tortillas, beans, coleslaw and sangria to 50-60 people, counting wives, helpers and friends. Everyone raved about the meat.

 

The event was shut down when bowhunters were required to draw permits to hunt javelinas. I was ready. It was too much work, to say nothing about the risk of a lawsuit when you're the host of an event involving food, guns, and (no matter how much I tried to keep participants from taking beer and liquor into the field) alcohol.

 

My opinion never changed: javelina meat is inedible unless barbecued. Others are welcome to their beliefs, but just don't ask me to eat it cooked any other way. It's a beautiful, white meat but it tastes like musk to me unless that objectionable taste is obliterated by mesquite smoke and a gallon of barbecue sauce.

 

Still waiting for a recipe for javelina sausage. I know nothing about sausage making, so someone needs to lead me step by step.

 

Bill Quimby

[Huntn coues]

I wished I could give you a recipe but I take our javy's to Denmark meats.

 

Denmark pretty much supplies all the major food chains here in the state. Next time you are getting your brats,

polish dogs etc.. look at the sticker on it and you should see their name on it. There stickers really stand out

they are like green,yellow and red I think.

 

I know you alot of guy's butcher there own game but with javy's I alway's take it to them. It is amazing

what they can do with a piggy. I have friends that hunt hogs and javy's out of state on occasion and they alway's haul em

back to them. You do have to bring them the meat boned.

 

I have had alot of people tell me they hate javelina and would never eat it again . Then when they are all done scarfing

up their dinner (polish dogs) or their breakfast (chorizo) I tell them is how did you like your dinner and they

alway's have the same confused look on their face when they find out they just ate javelina.

 

I felt just like everyone else about them stink pigs a few years ago until I was turned onto these guy's. Truly

this is one of my family's favorite game and with 3 daughters that are picky eaters I have to beat them off

the hot pepper sticks with a stick just so mama and I can get some.

 

PS I have them mix in 20-30 % pork with it so maybe that helps

 

Troy

[tommat]

BILL-

 

The recipe is Denmark meats. Chorizo,pepper sticks and polish dogs.

 

Try it and I think you will change your mind for sure.

 

 

Where is denmark meats...Phoenix area??

[Huntn coues]

7713 West Golden lane.

Peoria , Az

 

623-979-4234

 

Aprx 77th ave. and Olive.

[tjhunt2]

Bill..... my wife and I threw out the first pig we cooked because it stunk up the house and tasted like it smelled. I then turned to barbeque under ground with lots of BBQ sauce or italian dressing and found them edible.

 

Tony & Bill.....I wish I could have been on some of them outings you two put together. Sounds like you two have taken your share and then some. Have any pictures to post?

 

I'm sure there are several ways of preparing pig and I'm certainly not saying my way is the best but it's just how I do mine and my neighbors love it. If I can, I prefer to skin them without gutting them, (only if you don't have to carry them very far). Usually I am to far away for this and have to gut it being very careful of getting the piss bag out without spilling any.

#1. Getting the hide off and guts out quickly will help cool down the pig. As Bill said earlier, keep the hair and gland from ever touching the meat. Then wash your hands before handling your pig. If you are waiting for your hunting partners then get a game bag on it and either keep it in the shade or in an ice chest with ice if possible.(Make sure the feet are cut off before putting in the ice chest)

#2. After arriving home, I remove all blood shot areas and hose my pig off with a garden hose inside and out. It goes directly into my walkin cooler.

#3. Next day I bone out all the meat into 1" to 2" pieces and cut out all the fat.(I usually average about 12lbs of meat give or take a couple lbs.)

#4. I use equal amounts of pig to pork. If 12lbs of pig then 12lbs of pork. (pork shoulder or whatever is on sale will do)

#4. Mix the pork, pig, 1 1/2 cup of ice water per 10lbs, sausage mix, and mix really good. (I use a italian or sage breakfast sausage mix I brought from Colorado years ago.)

#5. I run it thru my grinder once right into the bag. ( 1 lb. packages )

 

[

[GameHauler]

I have been using Toms method and it really is good.

Hey TJ thanks for posting the picture of the two talking Javelina

But did you have to post it twice

Mike

[Outdoor Writer]

TJ,

 

I had posted a some pix of a couple javelina hunts from the 1960s in one of the other threads here. I'll see if I can locate them. I also have some scans -- bad ones -- of a few prints from our steenkin peeg hunts. I need to find them on my HD. In the meantime, the following is a snippet from one of the first articles I wrote on javelina way back in the early 1970s. It reccounts my very first successful hunt when I was a tenderfoot of 20 years old nearly a half century ago. But I still laugh when I read about it. -TONY

 

**********

My first javelina hunt took place in 1963, a year after my arrival from New Jersey. I was 20-years-old then, and chasing squirrels and rabbits comprised my meager hunting experience.

 

Two months before opening day, Bill McCurdy asked me to join him and two companions for the hunt. At the time, pen-raised "pigs" were the only ones with which I was familiar. Concealing my ignorance, I quickly agreed to join the trio.

 

By the following week having a few phone conversations and reading some books made me very apprehensive about the hunt. I discovered our quarry-to-be looked like an over-grown rat with a short tail and flat nose that supposedly possessed a liking for attacking hunters.

 

I had purchased a 30/30 lever action prior to a canceled deer hunt a few months earlier. A new Stetson and a .44 magnum handgun, both bought a week before the javelina season's opening day, completed my Western ensemble.

 

For a while, the hunt went as planned; we ate breakfast in the dark, wished each other luck and ventured off in different directions in quest of a trophy. Shortly thereafter, Murphy's law took over, turning my day into one better suited as the plot for a Chevy Chase movie.

 

A 100 yards from camp, a cholla cactus attached itself to my leg. I painfully removed the offending barbs. Hopping from rock to rock, I began crossing Pinto Creek in the dark and nearly made it; fortunately, the water was only knee-deep.

 

By noon I had climbed half-way up a ridge but soon realized I had erred in my judgment. The slope was steeper than I first thought and about six inches of marble-sized, rough-edged volcanic gravel covered it. For every step I went up, I slid down at least two. Earlier, my down jacket had eliminated the chill of the March morning, but now it became a hindrance. Stripping to my short sleeve shirt, I tied the jacket around my waist and placed the rifle sling over both my head and shoulder so I could use both hands to claw at the loose rocks. Once I reached the top I gingerly lowered my battered body onto a nearby boulder. Raw, bloody fingers raised my canteen to anxious lips, while perspiration dripped from beneath my Stetson.

 

Suddenly, a grunt disturbed my rehabilitation. The sound had come from behind me.

 

Trying to keep the rest of me motionless, I cautiously swiveled my head.

 

With its nose sniffing the air, my prey stared at me from 30 yards away. Other dark shapes moved through the brush.

 

As I stood slowly and deliberately, my legs began shaking. Tales about charging beasts came to mind. "Don't panic," I told myself. "Be calm." I debated with myself whether removing the rifle from over my head would take too much time or spook the javelina. I decided to use the Ruger instead and winced when the click of the hammer locking into place broke the stillness

 

My unsteady legs and heavy breathing caused the single-action revolver to move up and down, left and right. When the sights crossed the target for the third time, the pistol roared. The recoil pushed it and my right hand past my head, barely missing a favorite ear. The bullet tore a chunk of wood from the mesquite tree behind the hog. Motionless, it continued to stare at me. A dozen more pigs stepped into the open and milled around, apparently undisturbed by the handgun's deafening report.

 

The .44 boomed three more times. The last shot thudded into the ground, splattering dirt and rocks in the pig's direction. The gun also tore a chunk of flesh out of hand where my thumb was attached to it. Unscathed, my primary target swapped ends, snorted a few times and headed for a thick manzanita grove. With bristles erect, the rest of the herd followed.

 

I holstered the smoking pistol, removed the .30/30 and noisily thrashed through the head-high trees with the grace of a fox in a hen house. I was positive the commotion would surely send the fleeing pigs into the next county. Intead, I saw a lone hog standing broadside in the open, a mere 50 feet away.

 

I soon discovered my marksmanship with a rifle far outclassed my accuracy with the handgun; my first Arizona trophy became history.

 

Bill was eating lunch when I walked into camp. He noticed the hog hanging from my shoulder and paused in mid-bite. "What did you do, rassle'em to death?"

 

The manzanita's sharp branches had tattered my shirt. Deep, red scratches, with a spot of blood here and there, made both my arms and face look like an ill-conceived road map. The hastily bandaged cut from the handgun's recoil didn't help my appearance, either.

 

Since that inept but successful first hunt, I have pursued the shy javelina several more times. Each hunt has taught me more about the elusive pig's habits and haunts. Other experiences have clarified some of the myths associated with the javelina, especially the one about their penchant for hostile assaults.

[tjhunt2]

Great story Tony. Thanks for sharing that with us. I could just picture that happening.

 

TJ