There is no doubt in my mind that warthog hunting is one of the most exciting, rewarding, and challenging game hunting adventures to embark upon. Essentially, every hunter familiar with African safari hunting has squeezed the trigger on warthogs, as they are widespread throughout Africa. However, that should not lead to thoughts that warthog hunting is easy or somewhat of a walk in the park. Like most creatures in Africa, they can be dangerous and are capable of inflicting serious injuries.
These hogs are armed with two tusks that protrude from under their upper lip, the bottom jaw provides two smaller teeth that mirror the shape of the tusks. Make a superb trophy to represent your experience hunting in Africa. All four of these evolved canine teeth will cause some serious damage. Warthogs are also very tough, with thick skin beaten by the African sun. A blood trail can dry up easily when game hunting as they also like to roll in soft dirt and mud pits. Males have two large warts on each side of their head, while females only have one on each side. Males also have larger and thicker tusks, and the adult males are much larger. I have hunted and guided roughly a hundred warthogs throughout my career, all while hunting in South Africa.
In the following paragraphs, I mention my all-time favorite and most exciting warthog-specific, safari hunting experiences. In some cases, things did not go according to plan, and quick thinking was required.
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The Tale of the Zombie Pig
Our family game ranch is situated in the Waterberg Mountains of Limpopo, a hotspot for hunting in South Africa. This is where I have guided and hunted many different species, on many different safari hunting excursions, and it also was home to the infamous zombie pig!
On a few occasions, people had seen a very large-bodied warthog boar with a mean set of tusks for our area. In this area, warthogs work their tusks in hard soil and often between rocks, so finding a boar with long tusks is unlikely. But this boar was a good size for the area, and we were in serious need of some cheese grillers! The family loaded up the truck for a relaxing game drive, or so they thought. The perfect rifle for hunting warthog in South Africa, I packed my father’s 30-06 Springfield in because…you know…just in case…!
The bush often presents you with opportunities when you are least expecting them, so it’s better to always be prepared. As we set out on our game drive, it was the usual, lots of laughing and good times, enjoying the African bush and admiring its residents – Trophy hunting in Africa is not always the main focus.
We were enjoying the drive when suddenly this monster of a warthog jumped out from behind a thicket and raced off into the bush. My head was not in the game, because my father quickly told me to chase after the warthog, I jumped out of the truck, rifle in hand, and raced after the warthog. When I say raced, at fourteen years old I ran as fast as my chubby little legs could carry me. As you can see from the below photograph I have never turned down a cheese griller! After a couple of hundred meters of running, I came into a clearing where I could see the warthog, he was standing still for now. I quickly took aim and shot, he raced off at a pace. I set off after him and had to take a shot while he was running, with a bit of luck and a lot of heavy breathing I managed to hit my target, but only slowed him down as my shot placement was wrong, I had spun him. With the back legs disconnected, the warthog was pulling himself on his front legs! I shot again and hit him square on the shoulder, the perfect shot placement. He dropped in his tracks. After a couple of minutes he was still kicking and trying to run, I couldn’t believe he was still going. My final shot was into the neck, whereafter he soon died.
Shooting on Five Bullets and a Prayer
My first year out of school was spent completing my Professional Hunting course in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, also an excellent location for warthog hunting in South Africa.
The course was seven months long, designed to train and hone the skills of young hunters. A general Professional Hunting course is only twelve days long. I had always wanted to become a professional hunter and was fortunate enough to be afforded the opportunity to complete this advanced course to widen my safari hunting knowledge.
Each student was provided with a quota of animals to hunt as one aspect of the practical skills training. In total each student hunted about 10 different animals throughout the course. I had spoken with my instructor, who also owned the school and the hunting area, and traded my blue wildebeest for another three warthogs, and two springbucks for a trophy warthog boar. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Keenan that’s crazy! Those are awesome animals to be hunting in South Africa, why trade them?” But, the truth is I just love warthog hunting in South Africa!
The day began when I emerged from my tent, with big warthogs on my mind. I set out into the game hunting area with my friend, Trompie, an Afrikaans nickname for “naughty” who also had one warthog to hunt, between both of us we were only given five bullets as a way of teaching us to save ammunition.
Trompie dropped a nice warthog sow with perfect shot placement, as soon as we were done taking photographs we noticed more warthogs that were feeding about two hundred yards from us. We quickly gutted his pig and set it in the shade, grabbed the rifle, and started stalking. Now it was my turn. I dropped the first warthog in its tracks, the remaining warthogs did not run but were panicked, I aimed and dropped the second one.
The last warthog raced off and I was in hot pursuit and managed to pull off another shot just as the pig slowed to a walk at about 50 yards from me. There we had it, four pigs in less than half an hour and I had my work cut out for me at the skinning shed. However, the day was not over, with one bullet left we set out to find a red hartebeest for Trompie. We climbed up a steep hill as we knew the red hartebeest were often here.
After some slow walking trying to spot them, we soon figured out they were not there and began descending to the opposite side. Soon after we spooked up a big old warthog boar, the ideal game hunting target to fill the trophy warthog spot of my quota. As we spooked the boar he took off like a bat out of hell and we couldn’t find him after that. Suddenly, Trompie spotted the big old tusker and ranged the hog with his Leupold rangefinder, it was 350-something yards.
We stood on the side of the mountain and contemplated our options, to our left was a slope going down, to the right was the top of the hill, and in front of us was a steep decline with the warthog on the opposite hill. It was a risky situation but you don’t see warthog like this often, with only one bullet and a large distance to cover it was a hair-raising moment. I set up for the shot, dialed in the scope to shoot six minutes high as I was zeroed at 100 yards, loaded my last bullet, slowly exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
The shot was too far back and the pig was off at a pace. We walked over and picked up the blood trail. After following for a while we found the warthog dead. I’d never been so happy and relieved at the same time, I said to Trompie, “Now this, is hunting in Africa!” and he responded, “You’re damn right, now hand me that rifle so you can get your pig and carry it out of here!”
Double Bacon with a Twist...
Back on the family game ranch in Limpopo, the warthogs had been wrecking our fences. Warthogs are often regarded as pests and create holes under fence lines as they travel. These holes are an easy escape or entrance through the fence. For a couple of weeks, we had been filling holes in the fence, and the warthogs just didn’t seem to get the message. So my brother, Logan, and I decided we would have to take action. We had recently acquired a semi-automatic .223 Remington Bushmaster fitted with a red dot scope.
We set out walking and found a nice spot where we could see the fence line which covered a nice flat and open piece. Not long after two solid-sized but young warthog boars came through the fence, not ideal for hunting but we had a situation to handle. These were the same pigs that had been creating holes in our fence line. The two hogs passed through the fence and stopped, at a distance I could not guess and did not have a range finder on me. I took the first shot and then everything erupted into absolute chaos. My shot had missed, and the pigs bolted off at a full sprint towards us!
They had no idea where we were, they only heard the gunshot and saw the dust fly. The pigs were running towards us, I just kept shooting and as they saw us, they began to run faster, charging us! The first hog dropped at about twenty yards in front of me, I had spun him.
The second came right towards me and at a mere couple of yards I aimed right between the eyes, “click”. As I realized my magazine was empty the warthog ran right past me, I had not checked the magazine if it was fully loaded. Now there was trouble, two wounded pigs and an empty gun. Luckily the show was not over, I still had my knife. The pig that was spun was trying to run away, and when we approached he would charge. It’s never funny to wound an animal and have it suffer, this was a serious situation and we needed to kill this warthog quickly. To this day he will not let me live it down, but I used my brother as bait. I told him to stand in front of the hog and let it charge as I came up behind it with my knife. It was over quickly and we set off to find the other hog, luckily he had not gone far and the blood trail led us right to him where he had expired under a tree. Later on, we ranged the spot of the first shot to be about two hundred yards, definitely not ideal for a red dot sight. My brother was a bit shell-shocked. When my Dad arrived he saw Logan and asked if he was okay, handing him a bottle of water. My brother’s response; “Dad, I thought I was going to die, but this was the best day of my life.”
Guiding The Perfect Warthog Hunt
Hunting in Africa is never easy, numerous challenges will present themselves throughout a safari hunting adventure. A good Professional Hunter will explain to you some of the challenges and obstacles which may arise, and how the hunt may test you as a hunter.
I have guided many clients on many animals while hunting in South Africa, but my favorite warthog hunt to guide was with my brother, Slade. At dawn, we set out to go sit in a blind, after a couple of hours all that had presented itself at the blind was a couple of blue wildebeest, and we were determined to get a nice big-tusked warthog for Slade.
At about 11 am we called it quits with the blind and started walking back to camp. As we were walking, we heard the notorious snort of a wildebeest. I stopped and lifted my binoculars, right in front of the wildebeest, a huge warthog sow was feeding. I couldn’t believe our luck! I set the sticks up for Slade and pointed at the big show, he placed my 7mm Remington Magnum in the sticks, took aim, exhaled, and BANG! The sow dropped right there, he hit her on the money. As an older brother, I cannot explain how proud I was at that moment.
This is why this specific warthog hunt is my favorite, not because it was the most exhilarating or because we “almost died” as Logan said. But because my brother had done everything right, his breathing, his shooting stance, his trigger squeeze, his shot placement, and his patience, there was nothing we could have done better to achieve such a result. The warthog itself was incredible, I had never seen a sow with such mass and length in her tusks. A truly beautiful animal.
Warthog hunting in South Africa is a remarkable and enthralling hunting safari that needs to be experienced firsthand! If you enjoyed reading this blog, read more about specialty game hunting in Africa or my bushpig game hunting safaris, another exciting species to target!
Author Keenan van Wyk
Conservationist & Professional Hunter