Marlin Firearms Forum banner

Hunting the Most Destructive Pest in America

6K views 94 replies 39 participants last post by  Mr Fixit 
#1 ·
#5 ·
The younger ones are good eating but wild hogs can carry many diseases. I doubt the Govt/USDA would approve for commercial sale, not sure.
Most of the meat goes to waste as there is just too many of them to deal with. Eradication is the name of the game. In a survival situation Texans will never stave that's for sure.
 
#6 ·
 
#7 ·
A rifle with night vision and a suppressor seems to be the way to go to rack up numbers outside of trapping them. The ammo bill would put a hurt on you though.
Lot's of Texans on this forum could provide more info, in fact most of the southern states are infested, southern Missouri has plenty but nowhere near the problem they have become further south.
The problem is they reproduce so fast they are spreading their territories like wildfire. They cause millions of dollars in damage every year.
 
#48 ·
A rifle with night vision and a suppressor seems to be the way to go to rack up numbers outside of trapping them. The ammo bill would put a hurt on you though.
Lot's of Texans on this forum could provide more info, in fact most of the southern states are infested, southern Missouri has plenty but nowhere near the problem they have become further south.
The problem is they reproduce so fast they are spreading their territories like wildfire. They cause millions of dollars in damage every year.
Believe it or not, a wild boar slashed the belly of a fine horse on a farm in a neighboring county near me some time back. The Sheriff's dept investigated it thinking a PERSON had done it but come to find out it was one of the boars that had been feeding with the horses!
 
#8 ·
Wow - nearly a full eleven minutes of Bang-Flops. And I watched it twice!! Awesome.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Lot of truth in that, especially with larger sounders. Even a litter of pigs it's tough to get them all when you start shooting. They scatter instantly, and they scatter everywhere. When the group is shot, the survivors will adjust feed times. They might work back to a reasonable time over the course of a week or two, a few times, but sooner or later, they stop working back, and arrive 2 - to 5 am every night, and if you pressure them at all there, they simply move.

If the pigs in a litter are small enough, it's sometimes possible to take out the entire litter, IF you shoot the sow first. Been close several times, but usually wind up with one or two stragglers. Managed it once, 7 kills in one set, sow with 6 pigs. Shooting shotgun, took sow and a pig out first round, decided to sit back and wait, see if the pigs came back to the sow. Sure enough about 15 minutes went by and they came sneaking back in. Got all but the runt of the litter that round, waited a little, gave up, and went after the mule and my little trailer. When I got back out there and started picking up scattered pig carcasses, the last one stuck his head out from behind momma. Grabbed the .22 off the mule and popped that one between the eyes.

In larger groups they often split up and scatter in every direction. The pressure can make them very man shy, which often makes them difficult to trap as well.

Trapping is a whole different ball of wax too. Any time you catch part of a litter or part of a sounder, you educate the remainder. Some more so than others. Educate a sow, and she will pass on her knowledge to her pigs. Had one case where we caught several pigs and the sow rooted around the gate until she slipped the stop out and managed to open the gate and let them out.

Video surveillance, and remotely sprung trap doors like the Jaeger Pro system allow you to catch the entire sounder if you are patient enough.

Personally, I like the concept behind the Pig Brig trap, that one is built out of net, that lays on the ground and is tied up on steel posts. Pigs can lift the net and walk in under it, they are never locked out, they just keep walking in. When they try to get out, they walk up to where the net turns up before trying to root, and then they're standing on the net and can't get under it to lift it. If they back up and run into it, it simply gives, they can't hurt it. Simple, easy, no cell phone plan, much simpler to set up, and about $10,000 cheaper!

Trapping is not nearly as much fun as hunting them however! Have had some memorable hunts out there in the dark. Most fun I ever had, had a sow with pigs come in right at sundown one night, feed plot conditions were such that every time I sent a round of buckshot, a little circle of dirt around the pig would fly up about 3 inches. Honestly, looked like a video game. Got pigs going opposite directions, turned them back on both sides, and they crossed paths. Swing one direction a couple shots, then swing the other. Knocked a couple pigs down, they got back up and took off again. I emptied the 870, no plug, slammed 4 more rounds of #4 buck in quick, started over, and emptied it again. When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, sow and 4 pigs were down, and it took a week to wipe the smile off my face. That was the coolest experience.
 
#14 ·
Plenty of them available in my area
Georgia even has a State program to pair hunters with farmers who are needing relief from the depradation of Hogzillas.
No season on hogs, but a hunting license is still required.
Stock up and corn and raspberry jello mix and you are ready to hunt.
They come for raspberry jello corn like flies to a certain unmentionable substance.
Or for that matter just sprinkle the jello mix all around by itself. Still a highly effective attractant even without being sluiced over feed corn.
Only problem is locating the hogs, as they range over very large areas.
This is where being tied into the State program helps a lot.
Its called Hunters Helping Farmers.
Other states may well have similar programs. I havenot looked into that as there are far too many hogs here in GA to even remotely contemplate going elsewhere to hunt them.
My biggest hog to date was over 450lbs. One 250 grain Hawk from my 356 put him down instantly.
Side on shot at 60+ yards
Plant Gas Automotive tire Art Tree

Recovered bullet retained over 90% of its original weight.
Broke both shoulders and was under the skin on the right side
Plant Gas Automotive tire Art Tree
Vertebrate Carnivore Plant Terrestrial animal Groundcover
 
#17 ·
We even had feral hogs back in the 60's that were from known "sources" ... "hog farmers" that slopped their hogs from local grocery stores stale/rotten produce. They would only have them in the pen when they dumped the daily "feed" out for them, other than that their feed pen gate was open for them to free range. Occasionally (often) there would be one or two that decided to see the world. Caused quite a bit of vehicle damage in the area, but they also started spreading out and reproducing ... a lot.

My immediate neighborhood/area hasn't had much of a problem for the last 10 years or so, but it was pretty bad for the 10 years prior to that. They seem to act a lot like fire ants
 
#24 ·
I shot some hogs in Texas several years in a row using my 1894 with Nosler and Winchester .430" soft nose bullets over 23.0 grains of IMR 4227. We brought the meat home on ice and the local butcher made it into Bratwurst. Just excellent. I was recovering one 90-100 pound pig near a water hole, and on ground was a red Swiss Army knife, a Victorinox. Great bonus. Shooting hogs is fun, especially when they run off through the brush and die in the middle of a big patch of prickly pear. The .44 Mag leaves a good blood and lung tissue trail, always a pass-through. I shot about a dozen and never did recover any bullets.
 
#30 ·
Two things here. 1) I don't think Texas has as BIG a problem as they say BECAUSE...I have a group of 13 hunters who have been to Georgia multiple times hunting pigs. We were together at the Harrisburg Pa sportsman show and we offered to :fill the camp" as many hunters as they wanted/could handle BUUUT because we were going to take all available space for however many days they would allow, we wanted a substantial discount from the &500-600 a day per person. Nope Nope Nope. We asked many outfitters and all had the same answer. Seems a little odd that you have a HUGE problem but when a group of experienced outdoorsmen offer to help you out with this problem, for a reduced fee, that you can't agree to it. How big a problem do you really have, then? When people come over to help me clean my garage I don't usually charge them much.
By the same token, I will be down in Georgia again the first week of January with a suppressed 1895 and a AR(same suppressor) in 458 Socom. Gotta be daytime hunting though as it is a deer/pi combo hunt.
 
#35 ·
Whereabouts in Georgia are you going? I've hunted hogs at a place in Georgia for the last 14yrs running. We arrive again for #15 in February.
 
  • Like
Reactions: utvolsfan77
#31 ·
I grew up in Southeast Texas during the 70's and 80's. We would see the occasional wild hog, but nothing like what I see reported now. There was also a lot of public ground to hunt or at least places that I as a teenager could go to hunt fish and trap. Now everything is privately owned and they ask big money to hunt on it. Hurts my soul to see what its become. Public hunting places are few and far between and they are definitely not prime hunting ground. I moved to Kansas in the late 80's and I have numerous public hunting grounds and they seem to be well managed. KS has a strickly no shoot policy on hogs. They have to be taken out by permit and only by the landowner or the game wardens.
 
#36 ·
The anti-hog hunting laws are just that, anti-hunting laws.

Hogs are smart enough that they don’t like going back to where death awaits. There are plenty of videos showing hogs not entering traps because they are educated. large sounders tearing up crops all around the traps and never entering. Trapping only works for a limited time.

I’ve been part of a group that used to get paid to eradicate hogs on several ranches. It was never much money but it offset costs. Now they want us to pay to remove their problem. I still get phone calls from the ranchers begging us to come back but they still want money. I don’t blame them but they can have their hogs!

Only one ranch owner is still smart enough to know we do them good. Our group are the only hunters (including some of their own family members) or cull team now allowed on the ranch. We do pay a very nominal fee to stay in the bunkhouse but all the hogs are ours to keep whether we sell them or eat them. They also give us huge discounts on exotic game and a 10 fish per person per day limit from the ponds. We mostly catch and release anyways.

One of the problems opening up to hog hunting is many hunters are pigs and do not respect the business operation, property, crops, livestock or land. They have to restrict access and charge money to repair the damage and clean up. Some ranchers do see hunting as simply a business opportunity. Many hunters will drive through crops, cut fences or simply leave the dead animals in the field. All of which causes damage. What do you think a rancher should do when when their tractor or harvester are disabled by a rotten stinking animal left in the field? It did just as much damage as that hog left alive, or more.

When not hunt, we have repaired fences, four wheelers, side-by-side‘s, pick up trucks, tractors, feeders, well pumps, picked up beer cans, trash, even brass, etc that other hunters have left or damaged. We treat their place better than our own, that’s why we are invited back.

Rant over.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top