Day & Night Boars with BARs
SEASON 03 | EPISODE 26
Quick Summary
- What happened: The Cianciarulos team up with their family friends the Kempfers from Florida and Shaundi from Browning for a round of hog management — running pigs both during the day and after dark with thermals.
- Best takeaway: No matter when or where, things are always better with friends and family along for the hunt.
Hunt Information
Wild Hogs
2025
Hog season year-round
Multi-day hunt
Day & night sessions
Outfitter Information
Osceola Outfitters
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Episode Breakdown
This one's all about hogs — daylight to dark. The Cianciarulos team up with the Kempfers and Shaundi from Browning for a Florida hog-management push that runs the clock from sunup well past midnight, with the Browning BAR doing the heavy lifting on both ends of the day.
Daytime — Chasing Hogs with the BAR
The crew opens with boots-on-the-ground (and in-the-truck) daytime hunting, glassing field edges and pinning down where the hogs are rooting and moving. Setups are quick and aggressive once hogs are spotted — get the wind right, close the distance, and let the Browning BAR go to work. The piston-driven semi-auto is built for exactly this kind of run-and-gun pressure, putting hogs down clean as the group works to thin the numbers and keep the property healthy.
After Dark — The Same Re-Sighted BAR & Thermals
When the sun drops, the hunt doesn't stop — it changes gear. The crew re-sights the BAR for a thermal optic and heads back out into the darkness, where hogs feel safest and move the most. Thermal imaging lights up the night, turning invisible groups of pigs into clear targets across open ground. The same rifle that carried the daytime hunt now anchors the night shift, and the after-dark sessions stack up some of the most productive hog action of the trip.
From midday heat to the dead of night, it's a full-cycle hog hunt — one rifle, two completely different games, and a whole lot of pressure taken off the Florida ground.
Location & Conditions
Florida — private ag and timber ground under hog-management pressure.
Florida flatwoods and field edges — open ag fields butted up against thick palmetto and timber where the hogs bed and root.
Warm, humid Florida conditions — hot daytime hunts giving way to cooler, calmer nights that pushed hog movement into the open.
Hogs worked field edges and rooting sign by day, then moved hard and freely after dark — the bulk of the action came under cover of night with thermals.
Animal Descriptives
Wild hogs are one of the most adaptable — and destructive — animals in North America. A mature boar can push 200-plus pounds, armored with a tough shield of cartilage across the shoulders and tipped with cutters that make shot placement matter. They're intelligent, fast-breeding, and constantly on the move, rooting up ag fields and timber alike, which is exactly why landowners lean on management hunts to keep numbers in check. By day, hogs work field edges and shaded bedding in the cool hours, then hole up in thick palmetto and timber when the Florida heat climbs — daytime hunting is a glassing-and-stalking game built on fresh rooting sign. After dark is a different animal entirely: hogs feel safest at night and move freely out into the open to feed, often in big groups. That's when thermals earn their keep, lighting up sounders that would be invisible to the naked eye and turning the after-dark hours into the most productive stretch of the hunt.
Shot Placement & Tips
Hog hunting lives and dies by shot placement. On this hunt the crew ran the Browning BAR for both the daytime and after-dark sessions, re-sighting it for a thermal optic once the sun went down. The target is the same day or night: a hog's vitals sit low and forward, tucked tight behind the front shoulder — not back in the "middle" like a deer. On a broadside hog, drive the bullet through the shoulder crease about a third of the way up the body to break him down and reach the heart and lungs. Mature boars carry a tough cartilage shield over the shoulders, so use enough gun and a stout bullet that drives through it. In daylight, glass field edges and rooting sign, get the wind right, and close the distance for a steady, broadside shot. At night, let the thermal do the work — wait for the hog to clear the group, confirm it's broadside or quartering slightly away, and squeeze before it gets nervous. Always know what's beyond your target, especially after dark.
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FAQ
Why hunt hogs day and night?
Wild hogs are some of the most destructive animals on the landscape, and they don't keep one schedule. They feed and root field edges in daylight, then move hardest after dark when they feel safest. Hunting both windows lets the crew put real pressure on the population and take meaningful numbers off the property.
What weapon was used on this hunt?
The whole hunt ran on the Browning BAR — a flat-shooting semi-auto that handled the run-and-gun daytime work, then got re-sighted for a thermal optic to anchor the after-dark sessions.
How does thermal hunting work at night?
Thermal optics read heat instead of light, so a group of hogs that's invisible in the dark shows up as bright, clearly defined targets across open ground. Re-sighting the BAR for the thermal meant the same trusted rifle carried both the daytime and nighttime halves of the hunt.
From the Field
Hogs don't quit, so we don't either — day or night, you stay after them until the property's better off than you found it.— Ralph Cianciarulo
Bring It Home: Florida Smoked Pulled Wild Hog
Cure it, smoke it low and slow, pull it by hand — Florida swamp hog done right.
Ingredients
- Hog
- 1 wild hog shoulder, 5–7 lbs (bone-in preferred)
- Yellow mustard, for binding
- 1/2 cup of your favorite pork or BBQ rub
- 1 cup apple juice (for spritzing & wrapping)
- 1/4 cup rendered bacon fat or lard
- BBQ sauce, for serving (Carolina mustard or sweet)
- Salt Cure
- 1/4 cup kosher salt
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp coarse black pepper
Recipe
- Trim the shoulder of silver skin and any hard fat. Mix the salt, brown sugar, and black pepper, then rub it over every surface. Set on a rack and refrigerate uncovered for 24 hours (up to 3 days for a deeper cure).
- Rinse the cure off under cold water, pat completely dry, and let the shoulder sit out about 1 hour to take the chill off before it goes on the smoker.
- Coat the shoulder with a thin layer of mustard as a binder, then season generously on all sides with your BBQ rub.
- Preheat the smoker to 225°F with apple or hickory wood and keep a full water pan inside. Set the shoulder fat-side up and smoke for about 6 hours, spritzing with apple juice every 30–45 minutes.
- When the internal temp hits 160°F, wrap the shoulder tightly in foil with a splash of apple juice to push it through the stall.
- Keep cooking until the internal temperature reaches 200–203°F and a probe slides in like butter — roughly 2–4 hours more, depending on size.
- Rest wrapped for 30–45 minutes. Pull by hand or with two forks, working in the rendered bacon fat and pan juices to keep it moist. Sauce to taste and pile high on buns.
Chef Tips
- Wild hog is lean with tough connective tissue — low and slow past 200°F is what melts it fork-tender.
- Don't skip the salt cure; it seasons deep and tames any gaminess from a swamp hog.
- Keep a water pan going and spritz often — there's almost no internal fat to baste it from within.
- Work rendered bacon fat or lard into the pulled meat to replace the fat the hog doesn't have.
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