I started hunting Javelina after we moved to Oracle, Arizona in 1977. Over the years I took between 25 and 30 of them with .22 Long Rifle, .22 Magnum, .32-20, .41 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .45 Colt, 454 Casull and 480 Achilles.

Here's a few photos over about 18 years:

1986 .45 Colt with SSK 270 gr. cast

1987 454 Casull with 300 gr. cast

1994 Custom Ruger Vaquero .45 Colt with Cor-Bon 200 gr. JHP

1997 .41 Magnum with 210 gr. JHP

2005 480 Achilles with 290 gr. cast

We ate them quite regularly for they would come into our yard at night and fight with the dogs, eating their food, and root up flower beds and around the peach trees. My wife made great meals with them. Here is one of her recipes.

(EDIT: I am guessing at a couple dates .. I had the last one wrong. I found the article I wrote and it was 2005, not 2004)

Recipe For Barbecued Javelina

4 to 6 pounds Javelina, pre-cooked and shredded (my wife cooks them in a pressure cooker)
½ cup oil
16 oz. Ketchup
½ cup molasses
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup honey
¼ cup prepared mustard
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 medium onion, minced very fine
1 jar orange marmalade (4 to 6 oz.)
2 teaspoons liquid smoke flavor
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon barbecue spice
1 to 2 dashes Tabasco Sauce
Mix all ingredients except the meat and set aside one hour. Place meat in a crock pot, pour 2 to 3 cups of barbecue sauce over the meat. Set crock pot on low and cook over night. Then ENJOY!

If you have never hunted them .. and get a chance to do so .. don't listen to the old wives tale about the musk gland. Don't try messing with it or you will ruin the meat. Just skin the critter and pull the hide off. The gland will come off with the hide.

It startles me every time I think of the 480 Achilles project being almost twenty years ago!

As I get older, it seems I went from a passenger on a rowboat on the river of time to a China Clipper.

Just yesterday it was June. Now here we are suddenly almost halfway through November. I missed something!