Hog Wild

As a boy, whenever I was chasing squirrels in Dugdemona swamp, I always kept a sharp eye out for the free ranging hogs that were known locally as PWRs (Piney Woods Rooters).

Winn Parish was free range, and most families kept hogs in the woods. Each family had a mark, much like a cattle brand, that was cut into the hogs’ ears to show ownership. According to cousin Woody Jones, our family’s mark was a crop and a split in the left ear and an under hack in the right. These old marks are still legally registered in the court house in Winnfield.

Periodically, dogs were used to catch the hogs for marking. Sometimes, things didn’t go as planned and the hogs would charge the hunters. My father and uncles told stories of being chased up trees by hogs when they were youngsters.

One of my vivid boyhood memories is sitting in Winnfield’s Collins’ barbershop when I was about ten years old. A couple of old men were talking about hog hunting, and one rolled up his pants leg to show where an enraged sow had taken a bite out of him. It looked like half his calf was gone. 

Needless to say, woods hogs made me nervous when I was out alone with my .410 shotgun. Fearing the worse, I always picked out a sapling to scamper up if need be whenever I saw them in the distance.

Over time, I learned that the PWRs really weren’t that dangerous, and the worst thing that ever happened was having to shoot the ground in front of a menacing, jaw-popping sow that thought my squirrel dogs were a threat to her piglets.

Many Winn Parish families still run hogs in the woods, and the Uncle Earl Hog Dog Trials are held every March in Winnfield to help keep alive the tradition.

The hog dog is a highly trained hound, often a Catahoula cur, that bays the hog and holds him while the hunter marks the ears. They are also used to lure a herd of hogs into a pen.

In 1906, the Logansport (Indiana) Pharos-Tribune explained to its readers how this was done around Catahoula Lake.

[The dogs] are of no particular breed, but they serve a valuable purpose to the Catahoula wild hog killer.

When the native hunter goes out after pork he constructs a roomy log corral in a locality where signs of his game are unmistakable.

The dog is sent into the woods to rout out the drove of wild hogs. He knows well what he is to do and never forgets his training. A Catahoula wild hog hates a dog above everything else.

When the hog dog scents his game he instantly begins to bark furiously. That brings the hogs at once toward him. When they see him and charge upon him he turns tail and runs, heading straight for the open gate of the corral, no matter how far it may be from the starting place.

In running away he tucks his tail between his legs and assumes all the air of a badly frightened dog doing his best to get out of sight of his pursuers. He never permits himself to do so though, keeping the distance between him and the hogs not more than twenty-five paces.

Should the hogs halt in the chase, satisfied that they have scared their hated enemy away, the dog returns and renews his barking, this time as if he were taunting the drove for its failure to overhaul him. This starts the hogs after the dog again fiercer than ever and he uses the same tactics as before.

In this way he lures the hogs on until they follow him through the open gate into the corral. The dog keeps right on and jumps the fence at the farther end of the pen and disappears, but soon reappears at the front of the corral, where his master, who has been in hiding nearby runs up and closes the gate as the last hog rushes through.

The swine are at the mercy of the hunter, who kills off at his leisure such hogs as suit him, and the unfit ones are turned loose to the woods again. A Catahoula hog killing is usually followed by feasting and festivity in the neighborhood. Wild hog hunting is seasonable from the beginning of cold weather until the return of warm.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe who has received numerous awards for his books and outdoor articles.