How many acres for.......?

B

bswiv

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Assuming the land is NOT fenced how many acres do you think it would take to have a commercial wild hog hunting club?

I'm talking a club where guides are allowed to contract hunts and then pay the land owner for the privlige to hunt a spicific piece of land.

I know there are lots of operations that use a fence and enclose from a few hundred to a few thousand acres but what I am cuerious about is strictly open land.

Any ideas?

And I should add that this is predicated on our FLAT Florida landscape.
 
Several thousand. Hogs roam alot, and go nocturnal with minimal hunting pressure. Free range hogs are going to be pretty hit and miss unless you have a lot of land so you can rotate areas and keep the pressure down.
 
Browse through "Woods & Waters" news magazine. Available at many mom'n'pop stores, gunshops and seed'n'feed stores. Lots of ads for Florida and Georgia hunt deals, hogs as well as deer. They often show the acreage of their deal. SFAIK, no high-fenced lands...

For hogs, it might be possible to work a low-cost deal with adjacent land-owners, creating a large-area package.
 
bswiv, with enuff 300-1,500 private spots that I was managing the feral hogs, I might have a hog on each spot or none on any. Runnin dogs made it a more likely prospect that I would get on hogs. I always allowed folks to tag along if they wanted but these were not gun hunts.

I have caught "barr" (barrow) males and the nearest hog dogger to me that was cuttin' boars had his nearest spots 5 miles from some of my spots. I would go 2+ full weeks with not a track to be found and then they would be back thick.

Brent
 
IN so. GA would be hard to say like hogdog said if you dont feed heavy
just a little huntin pressure will move them bad wont see them for a month
then 1 night they will tear up 50 ac.I hunt almost 5000ac.hog control only shot about 40 this year.but that is a lot of hours in bean feilds/corn
 
So what you are saying is that they will travel miles, not just one or two, but 4-5-6 or more. I can see that as I've seen them disapear from a area where we hunt to only reappear a few weeks later.

This drives me to ask, do they have a "home range" that they move about as does a bear or a Fl. Panther?

Not a home range like a deer where, especially with does, and even with the bucks outside of the rut, you will see the same deer in the same 20 to 40 acre area almost all the time?
 
No, I personally do not feel it is a home "range" centering on a main spot nor a range set by boundaries... They are true nomads... They need secure (low pressure) bedding/resting area which as you already know is thick nasty swamps or super dense woods... Then they need UNENDING water and food sources...

With pressure increase or decrease in food and water, they simply move...

Where I was able to pattern their behaviors most was not far from you.
I lived in Daytona and most of my clients were along the western side of the "Halifax" river running north.
Since it was basically a corridor created by man and nature, they moved back and forth from Ormond northward. I wasn't the only hunter in the area. I know for sure of 3 other doggers in the immediate area. So I couldn't accurately determine when pressure moved them or another factor came to play.

I think if the pressure had always come from the south, they would be in Maine by now!:D

But to your original post... To have a "sustainable" "predictable" population will require a LARGE piece of WELL PROTECTED (from uninvited hunters and big preds) land. It will have alot of swamp and a variety of foods on the higher ground... You will need MANY stands and will need to move hunters to where there is CURRENT activity.

You also will find that there is a vast scope of foods you wouldn't realize...

Some rooting is for roots but other times they are getting protein from insects and small animals.

They also will ravage a body of water for the lush lily-like plants. I have found "rooting" at the bottom of 2-3 feet of water to get all of the plant. One was a longish (3 inches) narrow leaf with some burgundy to purple colors on it. It appeared to be a lily specie... This spot looked like someone was testing a Hydro-Mower invention.

Brent
 
""They are true nomads...""

A interesting way to explain it........

We've always seen that they move A LOT, but I had assumed that there was some center to that roaming.

That being the case then what you are saying, accepting that the property has a variety of food sources that provide something during every season and a constant sourse of water, is that hunting pressure is what must be monitored as much as anything.

I can see that being the case on hogs...................they do learn fast.
 
Yes... Hunting pressure is the biggest reason I try to get land owners to allow me to run the dogs...

Traps are not pressure... The big smart breeder hogs just avoid them and eat the corn outside the trap. I saw a pie bald (spotted) boar watching me at the traps and I caught the same sum buck a week later in a different trap. I found this trap from a previous trapper that was totally different concept and had been in the area for a couple years... I made repairs and this big boar was my first catch in it. But he had stood statue still watching me a few days before.

If I run dogs on a place for one night, I will not expect trapped pigs for a couple weeks...
Simply being in the area carrying a gun is also not pressure. But I am sure you know what a critter considers a "disturbance" versus a "situation"...

The dogs really put a ton of pressure on them even if one doesn't get bayed up...

Brent
 
The other thing is that even with perfect food on your land, one bush smellin' good a mile or 2 upwind will pull them off to investigate.
Brent
 
I have successfully trapped hogs in an unpaved parking area of an active animal farm that sees human traffic several times a day. but that was late winter and they were desperate for some groceries......

this heat has kept them deep in their hiding spots but they be back tearing up stuff soon.

I am better at scaring them off than trapping them, but my ultimare goal is deterence so catch them or not doesn't matter much.....catching is funner though....
 
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