HOG WILD!
There’s no shortage of the destructive nuisance species in Texas
BY MIKE COX
D
ean Smith, a retired cowboy stuntman who appeared in 10 John Wayne movies and hundreds of other times on both the small and big screen, is a nice guy who personifies the Code of the West. He’s polite to women and children, a gracious host and a fine family man. But he will kill a wild hog as quick and consciencelessly as he would a rattlesnake. When Smith makes the rounds on his ranch north of Brecken-
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ridge to feed his longhorns, he carries a well-worn .30-30 in the cab of his orange and white pickup truck. (He was a track star at the University of Texas and won a gold medal in the 1952 winter Olympics, hence his ride’s color scheme.) Though he spent a long career shooting blanks in TV and movie Westerns, when it comes to feral pigs on his property, he shoots real bullets. And he seldom misses. “When I was a boy, the only hogs I ever saw were corn-fed pigs in a pen,” he says, “but now they’re all over my ranch. They tear things up and dang sure aren’t welcome on my place.”