When they were prevalent in this area (not for a year or better now), we shot them every chance we got. Dead of the Florida Summer...no problem. They had been eating a smattering of my supplementary corn though and it helps to clean the dirt out of their system, yellow up their fatty tissue (just-off-the-flood-plain pigs exhibit grey mesentery and practically zero fat), and keeps them in the vicinity for more fun.
It is only a 30-minute ride back to the house, five minutes to string them up and wash them down, a 1/2 hour to render them into the freezer, and 15 minutes to clean up and go inside for some supper. Sausage grinding is left for the Processor and he is open only in Deer Season. So, winter hogs are ground up for sausage and summer hogs quartered and spitted to BBQ.
Fall hogs are some of the best though, particularly after they have filled their bellies with early season wild grapes that have been fermenting in the late August sun. Punch drunk, marinated inside and throughout every pore, they are best about 100-pounds or less, slow roasted on the grill or in the oven, and eaten with mashed potatoes, apple sauce, and peas.
