Not again.......! Feral Hog Control in East Texas

Sometimes I wonder why I do this (hunt hogs in the summertime). It was SO.....hot today in that box stand. Even with a fan on....it was still over 90°F until the sun went down. Then it dropped to a balmy 85°F with humidity about the same (85%).

This morning when I checked my game camera I noticed my hog light was on. It should never be on in the daytime. So apparently something is wrong with the photo-cell. I disconnected it from the battery so it wouldn't continue to shine. I don't know how long it had been on, probably 2 or 3 days. It looked like it 'might' still be bright enough to use this evening so I didn't take the battery with me and recharge it. Should have........!

About dark I could tell the LED light was no where near the brightness it normally is. A raccoon came in and although I could make out what it was through my 8 x 56 binoculars, when looking through my rifle scope (3 x 15 x 50mm) set on 8 power, the image was not sharp at all.

Usually I can see a raccoon walk up to the feeder with my naked eye at 100 yds. I didn't even see the Hog come in this time. I just happened to look at the feeder through the Binos and there he was. Couldn't tell if it was a Boar or a Sow...but since it was alone...I assumed a Boar.

I could tell which direction it was facing...but little else. I was cussing myself for not replacing the battery but I just got lazy and didn't want to make the extra trip. The hog had settled nicely on the corn and was not moving around....so that was good. After a couple of minutes of looking at the 'shape' through the binoculars....I decided to try the shot.

The scope has good glass....but is simply not the equal of the binoculars. I dialed it back to about 4 power to gain as much light as I could get...but it didn't help much with these old eyes. I took one last look through the binoculars to confirm the hog had not moved then placed the cross-hairs in the 'region' on the hog I thought would be a high shoulder hit. Touched off the shot.

Looked through the binoculars and the hog was NOT on the ground. So clearly not the shot placement I was hoping for. Got down and walked the 100 yds to the feeder. Found blood right away. Picked my way through about 30 yds of brush to where it opened up a bit. Found the hog (thankfully). Not a big one by any means. Perhaps 140 lbs. but of breeding age. So one less out there.

Got the battery charging as I write this.

Young Boar.jpg

Sweltering.



 
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Flintknapper said:
Had to repair a small area of pasture (about 120' x 120') today. Hogs got tore it up last night.

Got it fairly smoothed out by dragging it....but the grass is all gone and nothing but weeds will come up now....unless I replant it.

Not too large an area...but this is why I hate them.

View attachment 1012953
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Everybody that wants hogs on their property to hunt should look at this photo and count the cost.

Have a blessed day,

Leon
 
index.php


The very reason I hate feral hogs. Like mowing a battlefield after an artillery barrage!
 
Choctaw said:
Yep, kill them all. I have a picture of my then ten year old son sitting in a crater made by pigs. It looked like a scene from the Verdun battlefield.
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Well.....I think I know how 'Jeremiah Johnson' felt. You kill one....and they just send another.



Going to wait another night or so....see if he stays around and if there is any pattern to his movement.
 
Choctaw said:
I bet he sticks around so please whack that guy. They get uppity if not dodging bullets lol. We have USDA aerial hunt our place every year and the pigs will disappear for a couple of months but they always return.
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Hopefully this weekend. Got a single video of him last night just running through the area. Didn't even stop at the feeder, just trotted right past, very odd. Some of them are skittish like that. We will see. I'm good to go once he comes in regularly.
 
You know, if land owners let people hunt pigs free of charge it'd put a very nice dent in the populations. Where I live places want to charge up to $300 to kill a single pig. Granted, some of these places are high fence, but many of them are not.

I understand land owners not wanting random people coming on to their land and potentially shooting willy-nilly, but as long as these low fence or free range pig places exist, pigs aren't going anywhere.

With all that being said, if anyone needs some pigs taken care of shoot me a message. If you aren't too far away I'd love to come slaughter as many as I can.
 
Scout21 said:
You know, if land owners let people hunt pigs free of charge it'd put a very nice dent in the populations. Where I live places want to charge up to $300 to kill a single pig. Granted, some of these places are high fence, but many of them are not.

I understand land owners not wanting random people coming on to their land and potentially shooting willy-nilly, but as long as these low fence or free range pig places exist, pigs aren't going anywhere.

With all that being said, if anyone needs some pigs taken care of shoot me a message. If you aren't too far away I'd love to come slaughter as many as I can.
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I suppose I am confused as to how the average inexperienced person is going to 'slaughter' the pigs better than the Land Owner?

I recognize there ARE competent marksmen/hunters out there, but the average person who wants to 'help the rancher/farmer/land owner' with their problem....is not well equipped to do so. Harassing pigs off of the property is the more likely outcome. We can do that already with dogs. But 'swapping' hogs with your neighbor does nothing to reduce their numbers. Indeed it only makes them more wary.

Shooting pigs is second only to running with them dogs with respect to ineffectiveness. When combined with trapping and snaring it is a useful tool and in some settings *wide open spaces, multiple shooters, thermal optics* might be the only viable means. But in many settings.....simply bringing in more shooters would not pan out.

The pigs are not just standing there saying 'take me, take me'. ;)
 
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Flintknapper said:
I suppose I am confused as to how the average inexperienced person is going to 'slaughter' the pigs better than the Land Owner?

I recognize there ARE competent marksmen/hunters out there, but the average person who wants to 'help the rancher/farmer/land owner' with their problem....is not well equipped to do so. Harassing pigs off of the property is the more likely outcome. We can do that already with dogs. But 'swapping' hogs with your neighbor does nothing to reduce their numbers. Indeed it only makes them more wary.

Shooting pigs is second only to running with them dogs with respect ineffectiveness. When combined with trapping, snaring it is a useful tool and in some settings *wide open spaces, multiple shooters, thermal optics* might be the only viable means. But in many settings.....simply bringing in more shooters would not pan out.

The pigs are not just standing there saying 'take me, take me'. ;)
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I asked a local rancher about putting drugs that castrates the males or neuters them at least for a season and he said they tried that but the pigs ignored the feeders. They sniffed it out and went after fresh till instead. Pigs aren’t stupid and they may be near blind but they got real sensitive noses. One thing that has worked is using peanut butter to get the pigs to a baited spot. Around here some of the horses folks, they’re trapping, castrating and feeding on corn to fatten them up and antibiotics to clean them out. Then it’s off to the butcher shop. It’s expensive and hard work. I guess they’ll decide it works or go back to culling eventually.
 
Feral hogs do contribute, but the contribution is fairly small compared to say the American beef industry. Whereas hogs contribute 5.1 million tons annually (per SI article), American beef produces >200 million tons of carbon dioxide.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/gassy-cows-facts-about-beefs-carbon-emissions-sponsored

Breathing US humans produce more than 112 million tons per year (given population of 309 million)
https://climateilluminated.com/CO2_...w.epa.gov/climatechange/fq/emissions.html#q7)
 
Everything that breathes contributes to the Earth's carbon dioxide balance. Feral pigs are a real problem in some areas of the country, but there are a lot more cows than feral pigs and they're much bigger on average. I'm not going to go looking for the data, but there are more chickens than people on our planet so even though they are much smaller their contribution matters as well. This is wandering astray from the purpose of this thread.

I am not - at present - having much problem with feral pigs at my place. Except for one small one that seems to be the sole survivor of a litter. It's not much more than a piglet, soot black, and showed up one day hanging around my hog pen. Spooky too so I haven't been able to get a clear shot at it, but it's beginning to annoy me. I'm going to mow the pasture next week which should produce a better field of view so I may get a shot at it then.
 
Dunross said:
Everything that breathes contributes to the Earth's carbon dioxide balance.
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That is kind of my point, but the SI article made it sound like hogs were some sort of super producer of C02.

Dunross said:
I'm going to mow the pasture next week which should produce a better field of view so I may get a shot at it then.
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We mow paths between feeding areas and the hogs will tend to take the mowed paths instead of the overgrown areas.

Instead of mowing the whole pasture, if you have some idea of a trail that is followed through it, mow the trail. Make it plenty wide so that you can see into it well enough. If you don't know the trail but knot the direction of common travel, mow a trail for the hog. Hogs, like deer, will often take the path of least resistance and your graciously mowed path may channel your little hog nicely for/to/by you.
 
I have mentioned this before. I am in SW Kansas and I looked into hog hunting in Texas again.

I just can't believe they are a problem for the people whose voices matter. All I have to do is look to see how much is charged to "Hunt" them. If people really wanted them gone, they wouldn't charge a couple of hundred dollars each to kill them, they would pay to have them killed.

I realize they are a nuisance for some, but there are a lot of people getting fat on these hogs.
 
Scout21 said:
You know, if land owners let people hunt pigs free of charge it'd put a very nice dent in the populations. Where I live places want to charge up to $300 to kill a single pig. Granted, some of these places are high fence, but many of them are not.

I understand land owners not wanting random people coming on to their land and potentially shooting willy-nilly, but as long as these low fence or free range pig places exist, pigs aren't going anywhere.

With all that being said, if anyone needs some pigs taken care of shoot me a message. If you aren't too far away I'd love to come slaughter as many as I can.
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Pretty much my position. Of course, part of the problem, for hunters, is the lack of public lands in Texas. Back when I regularly went hog hunting with friends in that other big Republic that starts with a "C" we would almost always hunt BLM land. This land was in, it basically was, the foothills that surrounded the agricultural land. The best hunting was in the paths and gullies that the hogs used to migrate to the cooler foothills in the mornings.

That said, a person had to work to find the hogs. The long term use of this system created a situation that there just wasn't a lot of them. However, a situation where it is to many peoples benefit to have the hogs, along with a system that prevents casual and hobbyist culling is a situation that the people who want the hogs gone will never succeed.

. . . of course, a lot of this is just me grousing. Since I left California I have come to understand what people mean when they say there is nowhere to hunt. At the time it really made little sense to me. As it now stands, I haven't been hunting since I left in '06.

At this point, I do understand why it is a rapidly dying hobby. While it was common for people I knew, in the lower two socioeconomic quintiles, I have come to understand why it is almost unheard of in most of the rest of the country particularly among low-income earners.
 
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Scout21 said:
You know, if land owners let people hunt pigs free of charge it'd put a very nice dent in the populations. Where I live places want to charge up to $300 to kill a single pig. Granted, some of these places are high fence, but many of them are not.

I understand land owners not wanting random people coming on to their land and potentially shooting willy-nilly, but as long as these low fence or free range pig places exist, pigs aren't going anywhere.

With all that being said, if anyone needs some pigs taken care of shoot me a message. If you aren't too far away I'd love to come slaughter as many as I can.
Click to expand...

We have USDA perform an aerial hunt on our place every year. Those guys can kill more than any ground hunters possibly can and it still does no good. I let people hunt on me but I know who they are. Strangers are a no-go.
 
Hasaf said:
I have mentioned this before. I am in SW Kansas and I looked into hog hunting in Texas again.

I just can't believe they are a problem for the people whose voices matter. All I have to do is look to see how much is charged to "Hunt" them. If people really wanted them gone, they wouldn't charge a couple of hundred dollars each to kill them, they would pay to have them killed.

I realize they are a nuisance for some, but there are a lot of people getting fat on these hogs.
Click to expand...

I readily admit to not being much of an academic....but let me see if I can put this together.

  • Landowner has hogs on His/Her property.
  • Landowner wishes to not have as many hogs as He/She does....because they are destructive.
  • Landowner learns there is a group of people *Group A* that will pay for the privilege to hunt the land for hogs.
  • Landowner is made aware there is another group *Group B* that suppose they are doing the landowner a favor and that they should be paid for the service.
  • Landowner weighs the two prospects *Pay others or GET Paid* for the same outcome. Hmmmmm......that's a tough one. ;)
 
Flintknapper said:
I readily admit to not being much of an academic....but let me see if I can put this together.

  • Landowner has hogs on His/Her property.
  • Landowner wishes to not have as many hogs as He/She does....because they are destructive.
  • Landowner learns there is a group of people *Group A* that will pay for the privilege to hunt the land for hogs.
  • Landowner is made aware there is another group *Group B* that suppose they are doing the landowner a favor and that they should be paid for the service.
  • Landowner weighs the two prospects *Pay others or GET Paid* for the same outcome. Hmmmmm......that's a tough one. ;)
Click to expand...

It all comes down to, is the purpose to get rid of the hogs, or is the purpose to get paid to have the hogs. That particular landowner makes the most rational business decision. the real issue is the externalities. In this case, the neighbouring landowners who have to deal with the reality that someone has come to realize that their business model relies on a thriving hog population.

At best, you are showing that the hogs are not a problem, sure, the appearance of a problem is important, that is part of the shtick. However, the hogs appear to be part of the business model, and if, as a business, it works, then it is not a problem, it is just a business. I am not criticising it, as a business, after all, it looks like an enjoyable business for all involved.

However, if the hogs really were a problem, they could be dealt with as a problem.
 
I'm not a betting man, nor have I ever hunted hogs. But, I would bet each and every farmer, rancher and most land owners did not ask for, or turn hogs loose on their land, and if they could pay to have them removed permanently, they probably would.

That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

Have a blessed day,

Leon
 
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