Killin' the Big Pig

Boy Bags Wild Hog Bigger Than 'Hogzilla'

Late May 07

Down Ala-bammy Way - Hogzilla is being made into a horror movie. But the sequel may be even bigger: Meet Monster Pig. An 11-year-old Alabama boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. Think hams as big as car tires.

If the claims are accurate, Jamison Stone's trophy boar would be bigger than Hogzilla, the famed wild hog that grew to seemingly mythical proportions after being killed in south Georgia in 2004.


Wait, it grew after being killed? That's either inexcusably bad writing or editorial neglect. On second reading, it seems the author wants to say that the hog got bigger in story and lore after it was killed. Yeah, I got that, but how many dumbass 'mericans could figure that out. Well, how many of them would even catch on this to begin with?

Hogzilla originally was thought to weigh 1,000 pounds and measure 12 feet in length. National Geographic experts who unearthed its remains believe the animal actually weighed about 800 pounds and was 8 feet long.

Regardless of the comparison, Jamison is reveling in the attention over his pig, which has a Web site put up by his father—http://www.monsterpig.com —that is generating Internet buzz.

"It feels really good," Jamison, of Pickensville, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

Ah, the incredibly delicious irony of this statement. This is the single best part of this entire story. I can just see this erudite Southerner, his greasy cap cocked back on his head and a Super Big Gulp in his non-gun hand, drawling this statement out. Again, with feeling: "I prob'lee won't never kill nuthin' else that big in my ho' life."

What about not killing it? Was that ever an option? I mean, if it really was that gigantic, wouldn't have been smarter to leave the woods, get some elephant tranquilizer darts, come on back, bag it, then pen it up and charge folks $5/pop to gawk at it? You know, pigs aren't really that attractive a creature to begin with, no I can't really go on about the majesty of nature, but at the same time, something that big, that unique, why in the holy hell would you want to shoot it down? Why not save it and let folks get a look at it? Remember Charles Bronson in "The White Buffalo" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076915/)? He wants so badly to kill the evil thing, stalks it, finds it, battles the living hell out of it, and in the end lets it run off because he has the brains to realize that this is the right thing to do. Not so in this case, apparently. So much for brains, and respect.
Jamison, who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Hogzilla II. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50- caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Okay, this is where this story starts to get a bit hinky. An 11-year-old kid who is sporting a .50 cal handgun? Okay, maybe that's a Desert Eagle, and it's gas-operated so the recoil is minimal. Nope, the story clearly says revolver. An 11-year-old and a .50 cal revolver, no less? To my mind, it's most likely a Smith and Wesson Model 500. That's an awful lot of hand-cannon to put into the hand of a child, and then let him fire. I read almost all of the reviews when this weapon debuted a few years back, and to a man, every single reviewer--career professional shooters all--fired it one time only and then said, "Uh, yeah, I think once is enough for this gun," all of them citing the stunning recoil this gun-zilla packs.

So we've got an 11-year-old firing this thing nine times? Sorry, but this needs more than a little more explanation.

Oh, and by the way, how is it that hunting something with a .50 cal weapon is sporting? Even a high-powered rifle is not sporting, if you ask me, regardless of the game you're after. We're smarter than the animals, so why not use that and actually hunt the thing? Ted Nugent has got it right, with a bow and arrow, and he cleans it himself, packs it out himself, and eats or uses every single bit of his kill. A spear, or a big knife, a la Rambo, now that would be sporting, too.

Through it all there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation of doing.

"I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited," said Jamison, who just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school.

Ho. Lee. Shit. How did I guess that it was coming that this kid somehow was involved with them there Christians? I'm amazed he isn't home schooled, there in the single-wide out behind the Tastee Freez. I'm amazed he didn't dedicate the .50 cal slaughter to his Lawd and personal savior, Jebus.

His father said that, just to be extra safe, he and the guides had high-powered rifles aimed and ready to fire in case the beast with 5- inch tusks decided to charge.

I ask again, how is this sporting? This animal never had a chance, and they made sure of that. This was worse than a bullfight.
With the pig finally dead in a creek bed on the 2,500-acre Lost Creek Plantation, a commercial hunting preserve in Delta, trees had to be cut down and a backhoe brought in to bring Jamison's prize out of the woods.

Okay, the story gets even a little hinkier now. So this monster was bagged on a commercial hunting preserve? Are they breeding these things? How is it that this critter came to be on this plantation? And that it was felled by a child, wielding a massive, ridiculously inappropriate weapon, with other guides around him to make sure he got the shot? Sounds like a stunt. Sounds like a made-for-public-consumption gimmick. Sounds like the hunting plantation got some golden PR here.
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.

Ah, so the story is already starting to leak, eh?
The hog's head is now being mounted on an extra-large foam form by Jerry 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.
"It's huge," he said. "It's just the biggest thing I've ever seen."

Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said.

Jamison, meanwhile, has been offered a small part in "The Legend of Hogzilla," a small-time horror flick based on the tale of the Georgia boar. The movie is holding casting calls with plans to begin filming in Georgia.

Jamison is enjoying the newfound celebrity generated by the hog hunt, but he said he prefers hunting pheasants to monster pigs. "They are a little less dangerous."

And I bet pheasants don't squeal and scream as they blow mortal crimson from their snouts as you plug away at them in a muddy creekbed.