A Wild Hog Story

T

thallub

New member
Our deer lease is overrun with wild hogs to the detriment of deer. My newly planted game plot was trashed by rooting up the seed.

For a couple months two or more sounders visited a feeder nearly every night. There is also a fenced in feeder that hogs can't get to. Couple weeks ago i shut off the hanging feeder and started the fenced feeder. Also positioned two traps.

Yesterday afternoon i visited the lease. Baited and set two traps then went about other work until 18:00 when i entered the blind overlooking the area. Stayed in the blind until about 20:25. Nothing came in.

Cased my rifle and prepared to drive away, when some commotion took place near the trap. Uncased the rifle and drove within 15 yards of the trap. About 20 hogs were fussing over corn outside the trap. Lined up for a twofer and fired: A small pig and another hog that weighed about 80 pounds fell at the shot. Both soon jumped up and took off. Three hogs weighing about 80 pounds each were in the trap: They were shot.

Went back this morning: There were three dead hogs and two live hogs in the trap.

9DEjLsvs.jpg


The other trap held a 275-300 pound boar with an attitude. He was shot and dragged off.

ZHDa7oJs.jpg



Shot the two 70 pound hogs in the first trap. Skinned and field dressed one for a friend.

bmqnsWGs.jpg


Found the small pig shot last evening.

lyBAQaPs.jpg


Set the traps again. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
 
States with wild boar problems should consider a bounty on the damn things. The only real predator of hogs are 2 legged hog killers. Would it be beneficial to process hogs and use the carcasses for pet food? Since most of the infested states don't have a bunch of public lands, would a "walk in hunt" program be appropriate?
 
"States with wild boar problems should consider a bounty on the damn things."

Missouri Dept of Conservation has banned hog hunting on state land because---Now Get This--- hog hunters were interfering with MDC removal programs.
This is coming from a group who (information I've heard from inside sources) couldn't kill enough deer to collect CWD samples while using bait, nightvision, and suppressors.
 
Nice haul, thallub!

States with wild boar problems should consider a bounty on the damn things. The only real predator of hogs are 2 legged hog killers. Would it be beneficial to process hogs and use the carcasses for pet food? Since most of the infested states don't have a bunch of public lands, would a "walk in hunt" program be appropriate?
Click to expand...

Bounties would be nice, no doubt. Nobody wants to pay for them, however. Heck, most folks don't want to pay the extra tax for more cops or better schools, either.

If we still had real predators, then humans would not be the only real predator, but we killed off the wolves and most of the bears and big cats. Coyotes and bobcats occasionally manage to take piglets, but adult hogs seem impervious to them. Mountains, bears, wolves, and alligators have no problem even with adult hogs, but as noted most of these are lacking and alligator only patrol very limited areas. So not only are we the problem in origin and spread of hogs in the US, we are the problem as to why there are no predators to really aid in their control.

States with higher levels of public lands don't seem to be doing any better with hog control than states dominated by privately owned land. States such as New Mexico, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, and Washington don't seem to be doing any better of a job at stopping the spread of feral hogs than states where a huge majority of the land is privately owned. Some of these public land states have the benefit of only being recent infestations and insufficient resources to explain limited distribution, not because those states have any sort of great hog control hunting efforts providing resolution to the problem.

Missouri did ban hunting hogs on public lands and the hog population continues to grow. Kansas did as well and they are putting up a hefty fight, but they seemed to have only slowed the inevitable.

Walk-In hunting programs are interesting. The state essentially leases the land for a modest amount of money, takes care of liability some liability issues, and the public gets access. It isn't terribly popular because landowners can make so much more money with individual leases and have better control over who is hunting on their lands.
 
We caught two fifty pound hogs last night.

t4VbXqbs.jpg


rGXq18Us.jpg


Will trap again in a couple weeks.

Missouri did ban hunting hogs on public lands and the hog population continues to grow. Kansas did as well and they are putting up a hefty fight, but they seemed to have only slowed the inevitable.
Click to expand...

IMO: Banning hog hunting on public lands is not productive. OK has essentially banned hog hunting in the WMAs by outlawing the use of centerfire rifles outside of deer season. Then they hire helicopters and shoot hogs from the air.
 
I have a farm in central Michigan we are starting to see hogs here, just west of me last deer season they toke 30 hogs in 4 townships, so I read most post about hog to see what I can learn !!
 
Shot one of the biggest boars I’ve seen on our club Monday’s evening as the last of Florence’s rain bands moved through. Didn’t have a lot of time to make the shot, it was pouring rain too. Knocked him off the feeder, heard him grunt then take off dragging the front leg. Still can’t believe that hog took a 180grn Sako Super Hammerhead from a .300wm and went anywhere. Dang rain washed the blood trail out. We found where it went down and completely flattened two rows of dirt on the pine mounds. Never found the hog but buzzards have been circling that area. If it isn’t dead and I get another shot on that one, it’s going in his ear.
 
You put bounties on them, and the landowners will charge even more for you to help them get rid of THEIR problem.........
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top