Mississippi Sportsman of the Month: Oxford High’s John Owen Yoste

A freshman at Oxford High School jumpstarted his summer with a wild hog kill.

John Owen Yoste was visiting his cousin, Jeff Dennis, who lived on a property just outside Lafayette County a couple weekends ago. It was a warm, sunny weekend afternoon as they swam in the lake. Then his cousin turned to him and asked, “You want to see some hogs?”

Yoste had never seen one before so he said yes. They dried off and hopped on an ATV where they happened across a drove of feral hogs.

“I saw like thirteen of them,” he said. Then he held his hands, showing their sizes from wee piglets to grunting 150 pounds hogs. Then he spotted the biggest of the drove and readied his gun right away. Yoste is a hunter with deer season as his favorite, and that day he wanted to try something new.

“It looked straight at me and ran away,” Yoste said. He landed a shot and the hog went down. Then it ran again, so he shot it again knocking it down for good.

The challenge wasn’t in shooting the hog, but getting the hog back to the family farm. His family came out and saw the hog, exclaiming it was bigger than him. His father, Geoffrey Yoste of Yoste Strategic Partners, LLC based in Oxford snapped the picture above.

The hog weighed 170 pounds, and this past weekend the hog was stripped to its skeleton. Owen will have the skull to remember the spontaneous afternoon: it was his first time seeing, and killing, feral hogs.

Arkansas Razorbacks may have given Ole Miss Rebels a solid beating last year, but they’ll be coming this year in Rebel territory where even 170 hogs don’t stand a chance against Oxford high schoolers. Better watch out!

Callie Daniels is a staff writer/reporter at HottyToddy.com. If y’all have a one-of-a-kind hunting or fishing story send her an email at callie.daniels@hottytoddy.com.