Wild hogs not just a Texas/Louisiana problem.

Around here farmers are paying trappers and dog hunters to eradicate hogs. The people getting paid have proven track records. Jim Bob and Bubba are not getting hired.
 
I was trusted, I did it for free tho, it was a lot of work. A lot of late nights. I was trusted long before I started hunting.
I got to hunt about 100 days a year.... How do you put a price on that?

I started because my friend was disabled, he needed help around his ranch. He always asked me to bring a rifle with me. In exchange he let me recreate on his land. A few times after the work was done we'd relax a bit he said we should put out a few targets to unwind. He was so impressed with my shooting he asked me to start taking care of the raccoons and such that had become problematic.

I knew nothing about hunt, but I said I'd give it a try.
Soon I learned, and it evolved into coyote and pigs.

I got really good at hunting them and keeping them away from the farm. Word spread and others began asking me to hunt their properties as well.

I spent several years hunting at least three days a week.. I was tired at my day job on many occasions, but I would never trade those times for anything.

Now I live in WA and those days are over.

So if you wanna help a farmer out, be ready to go clear a trap after 12hrs at your regular job, or be out in a pasture at 1:30am when you need to be at work the next day... Pig hunting, or should I say, pig controlling, is not a Saturday morning activity.
 
RickyRick is right on with his comments about hunting other's lands. I take care of a lot of property for another person, and it's almost a full time job for me. I can spend as much time as I want and still not feel like I am doing all I should. I am sometimes faced with the situation of my advancing age and physical abilities. I would like another retired person to help me with security and all the outdoor activities involved sometimes, but it's hard to find someone to fill the bill.
I won't open up the areas for just anyone to hunt and fish ( half a dozen lakes are involved too), but I do allow limited access to some people that I know. Occasionally I have to pick up beer cans or find a tree that had a target put on it where someone shot the tree to pieces.
I would accept help and allow access to someone that would be willing to put forth the effort to better the areas....if I thought they would care for it in a manner that I do and be responsible enough to treat the property and game with the respect that it deserves. Haven't met that person yet...
 
The problem is that pigs procreate like rabbits. And they are smart, hearty competitors. You may temporarily get it under control but it won't be long before your neighbors offspring are on your land.
 
Hogs have been raised as free roamers around here as long as I can remember. The farmers used to build open air sheds at the base of the wooded mountains and let them fend for themselves. You have all heard about the blind hog finding the acorn, you ought to see them go after them with two good eyes. They are hard on snakes too. I don't know anyone anymore that raises hogs, but I have to wonder if people still do that with all the bears we have now.
 
The problem is that pigs procreate like rabbits.
Click to expand...

It isn't breeding so much as survivorship. Hogs have piglets 1.5 times per year on average and about 8-10 piglets per year. Cottontails breed 4-7 times per year with an average of about 35 kits being born per year. However, there is a very high mortality rate in kits that continues into adulthood whereas the mortality rate in piglets is low and mortality rate drops as they grow in size and reach adulthood.

I would accept help and allow access to someone that would be willing to put forth the effort to better the areas....if I thought they would care for it in a manner that I do and be responsible enough to treat the property and game with the respect that it deserves. Haven't met that person yet...
Click to expand...

You mean you don't routinely just accept whatever gun shows up at your door offering to help with your problem?? You seem to indicate that you do not believe that such folks showing up would necessarily have your interests at heart and that their efforts to help you might actually be detrimental to what you envision as appropriate property management.
 
The logging camps in WV used to turn out hogs to graze. One summer i worked as the cooks helper at a big logging camp. It was my job to kill, skin and field dress hogs. With one possible exception, none of those hogs turned loose in the WV mountains were able to establish a permanent presence: It's too cold. The one possible exception is an area around Cass, WV. But those hogs look like Eurasian boars.

Eurasian boars survive very well in cold climates. Michigan banned possession of Eurasian boars.

i sometimes shoot or trap a long haired hog like this one:


http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll268/alsaqr/DSC01851.jpg
 
Double Naught....I take my responsibilities very seriously, and I just don't want to turn someone loose on the properties without knowing they would do the same. I have a few friends that I allow to use the range I have set up there, and I allow limited hunting during deer season as well to the select few.
Maybe I am just too protective, but I have seen too many cases of things getting out of hand when people are just turned loose on their own. The friends that I allow to use properties have proven to me that they can be depended on.
 
Utter nonsense. Landowners charge people that want to hunt pigs; at best they let you hunt for free.
Click to expand...

Then by all means, factually refute my statement. Especially since it's clear that you know every rancher & farmer, in every county, in every state in the U.S. Heck I'll make it easy on you, just focus on the ranchers here in my home state of N.M.

Then when you're done I'll introduce you to two of my nephews, they've been working their way through college culling each and every summer, they just started their Jr year. Then I'll hook you up with some of the fellas that do it full time for local ranchers including on some of the non-contiguous portions of our own families ranch.

Then we can talk 'utter nonsense'.
 
What parts of NM are so infested with hogs that people are being paid to shoot them full time?

I know several folks in NM that come to Texas to hunt hogs because they can't find places with them in NM.
 
The panhandle of Texas does have some pigs, but the divider for heavy infestation is kinda at the cap rock. Not saying that's 100percrnt true, but that separates them out.

People do make money hunting hogs, but they put in the work to tackle the problem, or at least deter them for a time. The weekend recreational hunter will get charged to hunt, as he will have no real impact on the pig population. The recreational hunter may indeed have a negative impact on the farm.
Ranches are there to create funds for the owners to live on. Ranches make money leasing to hunters. If people are willing to pay for shooting a hog, well why wouldn't they charge them to hunt.
Just because they choose to make money from recreational hunting does not mean they don't have a problem.

If a farmer has a broken tractor does that mean he gives away his goats for free?
 
Occasionally I have to pick up beer cans or find a tree that had a target put on it where someone shot the tree to pieces.
Click to expand...

Are these the works of people who came to you asked for your permission, or the works of trespassers who treated it as "open land".

Maybe things are different in other places, but the hunter who calls you on the phone in advance, and then knocks on your door to shake your hand before he enters your property is not leaving gates open, and leaving their trash behind on your property, and shooting over your house, at least here. I would never suggest opening land to the public, as you will get the public land trespasser, slob mentality, but written permission access is a pretty safe bet, even with strangers, when you check their ID, and note their license #. No hunter would begrudge a landowner for expecting a reasonable access fee either, but to charge a fee for each "problem" you kill, is not an attempt to alleviate a problem.
 
If I were a land owner in the northwest and couldn't charge people to hunt, there's not going to be any hunting happening....

I have not encountered any pigs in Washington, which is odd, because I'd think it's the ideal environment for them.

Texas was almost daily encounters. If not out in the country, then dodging them with your car.
 
How a landowner chooses to deal with a problem is his/her own business. Whether or no an outsider thinks it is a problem or is being handled correctly is immaterial. The problem certainly may be real regardless of whether the landowner allows people to hunt for free, charges a little, or charges a lot.

Folks seem to frequently forget that just because hogs are a problem in one perspective does not mean that they are without value in another.
 
What parts of NM are so infested with hogs that people are being paid to shoot them full time?
Click to expand...
I never asserted either, thus I cannot answer such a question.
Local hunters as well as the millions spent by various 'organizations' have done a great job so far keeping them relativily in check, for now.

I know several folks in NM that come to Texas to hunt hogs because they can't find places with them in NM.
Click to expand...
Note all the reasons mentioned in prior posts, most land owners here do not want hack hunters and all the problems they often bring.

In our case we only allow folks on our outlying non-contiguous sections, primarily due to the time involved. On the main ranch some areas are only reached after a days ride plus camp set-up, then tare down and another days ride out (we don't run double track on most of the main ranch, horse/mule only).
 
Everyone choose a pig to kill if you were allowed to hunt for free:

Pig #1, 350 lb athletic boar with a good set of tusks and long bristled hair and fire in his eyes.

Pig #2 piglet

Pig #3, short haired sow with pink skin and polky-dots.

Pig #4, black and white, boar underweight and malnourished for his size
 
I would like to add a few things to this "any farmer or land owner who has hog problem let anybody with a gun help them out argument" it's pure BS land owners rarely ever just let people hunt there land because they purely don't trust people. Here in north Arkansas poaching deer at night is a commonly occuring (I think I spelt that right?) Thing and that ruins it for everybody because most hog hunters go at night. Especially since lots of land owners who have hog problems also raise black angus cows, I can't tell you how many times I've heard about landowners let some redneck hog hunt there land and then go out to check the cows and find one shot stupid drunks. Another thing, why does everyone always assume Texas is the only state with a feral hog problem? My families deer clubs have horrible hog problems so bad that the amount of deer killed each year gets lower and lower because it's simply impossible for deer to compete with them. Just my two sense.
 
land owners rarely ever just let people hunt there land because they purely don't trust people
Click to expand...

Nailed it

The core of our families ranch is actually grant land that dates back some 400 years, most of the surrounding contiguous portion dates to the 'reconquest', thus has been untouched by outsiders for 300+ years. Many know this and have been salivating for generations, the chance to hunt our land, thus it has been a constant problem keeping people off. Its one of the reasons we have not double tracked most of it simply to keep people out, they cannot be trusted.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top