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

You know how Preachers are: Eat chicken and cash checks!

Just kidding! One of my best friends is a Pastor and was Pastor and our local church some 30 plus years ago. I love him not only as a Brother in Christ, but as a dear friend. He and his family are precious people.

Have a blessed day,

Leon
 
dh1633pm said:
Road kill is a good way to see animals. I saw my first kangaroo down under as road kill. I'll be back in Texas before too long. Was supposed to be in San Antonio this week. Trip was cancelled.
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You may not see any pigs during the day. However, check out the fields as you travel through Texas for hog damage. This is my son (eight years ago and it is horrible pic) sitting in a pig crater. You can also see the damage behind him. What you don't see is all of the other damage. The field looked like a WWI battlefield.

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They really frustrate me. Two weeks ago we were at our place in West Texas and hunted them hard. Last weekend my sister was out there and could hear them rooting around in the yard in the early morning hours. She doesn't hunt (weirdo) so she just turned on the floods and opened the window and yelled at them. They ambled off but will surely be back. I they kind of irk me. lol
 
Flint and friends,

I'm revisiting this thread after a few years (previously Bbryson0504)... Wow, is all I can say... Great thread and great efforts put forth! Here area few pics of mine from this past year hunting these ruthless critters. All hog pics come from my lease in Winsborro, TX. We hunt a 500 acre fenced section of a milk dairy where corn and winter grass mixture is rotated. No cows in this section, thank the Lord!! The other wooded pics are from my inlaws place down the road in Longview, TX where I can take my son.. 12 acre place but less than half is wooded. No pigs here yet!!

Please keep this thread alive Flint!! Love reading your posts and am itching for an update fm your neck of the woods!

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The bigger sows usually hit the outskirts when the piglet sounders come thru
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Letting the youngens eat while she naps... getting a little too comfortable for my taste!
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Nightvision on the .300 blackout. Suppressor and subsonic ammo coming soon!
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I've lost count on how many coons I've trapped. I've been using the Duke's Coon traps with great success. I want till they show up on the camera before baiting due to heat this time of year, makes the bait go bad within a couple of days. I had a trapper in this area tell me what to bait it with. Caught 5 the first week. The coons have a sweet tooth. I use jumbo mash mellows, fish flavored cat food (Friskies), and a touch of Vanilla extract. The trappers used jumbo marsh mellows, slotted and stuffed with Vanilla Wafers cookie, then use the cookie to assourbe the vanilla extract. The Friskies cat food works just as well as the cookie does.
 
Johnny Jackson said:
Please keep this thread alive Flint!!
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I certainly will. For as long as the forum is willing to host it.

I've had so many 'projects' taking up my time this summer that I have had to put the hogs on the back burner (no pun intended).

Also, with each passing year...I am less inclined to sit in the heat of the summer to take out a few of them.

But rest assured...by October I will be back after them. Thanks to all who continue to contribute to this thread.

Flint.
 
I'm in San Antonio and have access to around 1200 acres 3 or so hours north. The landowners have feeders, but are too old to maintain them. I'm gonna offer maintenance/stocking services in order to pop up whenever, and pop away at anything I see. Might even buy a few traps.
 
So, today the flooring crew finished our living room carpet. We had fake wood installed in several rooms of the house last 3 days, carpet went down fast. So, I took the wife to Hallettsville for supper. On the way home, about a quarter mile from the house, there's this big boar rootin' up old man Coswell's pasture big time. I'd never seen one actually rooting, just seen the results. It was about 4PM. I backed up to show the wife. Pig never looked up. Dirt was flying everywhere. Since this is a private road, privately maintained, no laws against shooting from the road. I rolled the window down, took careful aim with the only gun I had on me at the time, my Ultralite .38 snubby. Range was 50 yards, so I aimed high on the point of his front shoulder. He was quartering toward me. I fired one 158 grain JHP +P. The pig staggered, then took off to the woods. I think I hit him, but not sure he's dead. .38 special ain't much to shoot a pig with. Just trying to do a neighbor a favor. Man, that thing was a diggin' machine! It was impressive to watch.
 
Before moving out east I lived in a small town west of Indianapolis for several years. On my drive to and from work I passed a small farm with free roaming livestock (supposedly the farm was "fenced" to contain the animals). Chicken, ducks, goats, and pot belly pigs. The animals would always return to the barn for the evening feed. I noticed that as the pig herd was somewhere around a dozen mostly adults. They frequently would roam down by the creek and make a mess of the woods on the property and create craters as you show in your pictures. We heard that the neighbors started complaining that the pigs were rooting up their fields also. By the end of the second summer only a small portion of the pigs were returning to the barn at night. The following spring police were being called by both sides as the pigs were ruining neighbors gardens and were being shot for the offenses. Eventually the DNR was called to overlook the damage and determine if these were now feral pigs. I never did hear the outcome of of their investigation as we moved. By this time (5 years), the herd had grown to an estimated 60 plus in size covering a fairly decent area.
I guess I'm just saying that I watched this happen and it got out of hand quick.
 
Indigo22 said:
Before moving out east I lived in a small town west of Indianapolis for several years. On my drive to and from work I passed a small farm with free roaming livestock (supposedly the farm was "fenced" to contain the animals). Chicken, ducks, goats, and pot belly pigs. The animals would always return to the barn for the evening feed. I noticed that as the pig herd was somewhere around a dozen mostly adults. They frequently would roam down by the creek and make a mess of the woods on the property and create craters as you show in your pictures. We heard that the neighbors started complaining that the pigs were rooting up their fields also. By the end of the second summer only a small portion of the pigs were returning to the barn at night. The following spring police were being called by both sides as the pigs were ruining neighbors gardens and were being shot for the offenses. Eventually the DNR was called to overlook the damage and determine if these were now feral pigs. I never did hear the outcome of of their investigation as we moved. By this time (5 years), the herd had grown to an estimated 60 plus in size covering a fairly decent area.
I guess I'm just saying that I watched this happen and it got out of hand quick.
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Well, I've had problems with feral cows (and one bull). They've not allowed me to have a garden for over a year. Rather than shoot any of 'em (except with number 7.5 shot from a 20 gauge to run 'em off) I finally strung some wire around my garden on insulators and set up a shocker. I know it works, the dog tested it twice already. I thought she was smarter than that. :D
 
MCgunner said:
People tell me pigs will actually climb over cattle panel. Never seen it myself, but I have little reason to doubt
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Yep, hogs sometimes climb a cattle panel trap to escape. They won't climb a hog panel to get to a feeder. :neener:

We have two other feeders with 26" inch fencing. Two 300 pound plus boars went over one of those fences. After killing those boars none have gone over the fence there. Game cameras showed this boar at one of those feeder locations nearly every day. He never went over the 26" fence. i killed him last week.

https://i.imgur.com/xI1eHWd.jpg



Folks at Texas A&M studied this stuff.


 
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I've seen them climb out of my trap as well as hit them hard enough to bust the factory welds on cattle panels. I've had to reweld the panels and beef them up to prevent them from tearing up the trap. They would back up as far as they could and full speed ahead leading with their head. Back up and repeat, took about 10 times in the same place till they gave way.
 
They can breed at about 6 months old.
3 months 3 weeks, and 3 days you will have from 8-14 pigs .50%of them will be female. The mother of that litter will breed again in 21days . Here we go again.
 
I've been hunting hogs since 2000 and trapping hogs since about 2010. In years when acorns and pecans are plentiful wild hogs here sometimes have two litters. Litters are normally 4-7 pigs. About one-third of 1-3 year old sows we catch are not pregnant nor have they born a litter. Can't explain that situation.

Late last week i talked with a rancher who owns 1.5 miles of property along the Red River. A trapper installed 26 traps there. In 30 days the trapper caught over 1,500 wild hogs. A couple months later there were as many hogs as before.
 
A gentleman on another forum pointed me to this thread. I haven't read it all (yet). Many of the stories are fascinating. Since tomorrow I'm heading out deer hunting to the same place where the incident I describe below occurred, I thought I'd share a story.

From a post I made elsewhere...

November 27, 2017
I had an absolutely wonderful time today out in the woods hunting. Three doe passed by me in the morning. There were about 60 yards out, so it would have been an easy shot. But one bleated, so I thought perhaps there might be a buck trailing. I let them pass. Sigh. No buck following. I saw another doe skip past quickly through the bushes, but I never had a clear shot. The weather was absolutely perfect. I spent a lot of time bird watching and so didn’t beat myself up too much with doubts on whether I should have shot one of the doe. It was just too pretty of a day. I tried to nap a couple times, but the tree rats would scamper through the leaves and I’d have to look and assure it wasn’t a deer. Then about a half our before dusk I got a nice little 7 point buck. He was behind me in the direction of one of the little tree rats. I almost ignored the sound of his approach. I’m glad I didn’t. But it was the drag back to the car that was the most interesting/exciting.

I was taking a moment's rest in pulling the deer back. It was just short of a 2 mile pull. I’d gone about half the way. I heard them, then saw them. The best I can tell there were only three or four hogs. Little ones scurried right to left about 20 yards out and about 30 seconds apart. They knew I was there. My headlamp was on and I wasn't quiet at all with all my stomping, huffing and puffing. I couldn't shoulder the rifle properly with my backpack on, but fortunately I had time to shrug it to the ground when this old gal appeared and came towards me at a full run. It took me a moment to realize she wasn't going right to left like the others. If she stayed course, she would have passed a few feet to my left. Maybe she had smelled dead deer. The wind was in that direction. Maybe she was after me, or both. Anyway, I make it a habit to keep ammo in my rifle until I'm back at the car, so my rifle was loaded and my green varmint light was on. Fortunately I'd remembered to turn my scope down to 3x at dark. It was a good shot. Black sow running at night through the trees at close range. I dropped her about 15 feet out. It wasn't until I took the rifle from my shoulder that I realized how close she was. It happened too fast for me too soil myself, but you had better believe I was hyper-vigilant the rest of the drag back to the car. Whew!

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Yessir, it's time to eat crow. For the first time two large hogs, including the one in the photo, went over the fence where it's cut down to 28" so fawns could cross. That two tone hog died last night, caught in a spring pole snare. Time to go after the other big hog.

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alsaqr said:
Yessir, it's time to eat crow. For the first time two large hogs, including the one in the photo, went over the fence where it's cut down to 28" so fawns could cross.
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They can easily jump an object that high, they just don't (most of the time). I know YOU know that...but many folks do not.

Whatever they can't/won't jump they will climb (if they feel like it). But they don't always make it.
 

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