Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Don’t Shoot Feral Hogs in Missouri

Kansas has the same rules. They’ve whittled a small but growing population down to a smaller and contained population with hogs in only a couple of areas.


The way I see the hog problem, landowners that make a living in the land hate them. But a few that have recreational land want to charge hunts for them. They release them. Hogs spread to unwanted areas.

Conservation departments restrict on govt controlled land, and are being successful at it. But every other Billy Bob in the county knows better, and that their AR with a 30 round magazine is the ultimate hog medicine. Shoot a couple before the herd scatters is what they think is keeping them in check.

No amount of evidence will convince them otherwise.

Yep.
Nothing else will eliminate them.

Like Barry says, heavy hunting pressure makes them wary, move, or go nocturnal. They’ll then return, sooner or later. Trapping helps, but the trappers I know continue to take big numbers. Take out one sounder, another moves in. Helicopter gunning helps, but it’s cost preventative. Most farmers & ranchers can’t afford it. Mostly just the biggest & wealthiest can. Then the hogs move onto the smaller ranches. Not feeding corn won’t help, contrary to popular beliefs. Hogs eat every type of crop grown except for cotton. But they will dig up the cotton seeds you plant before they germinate. Plenty of wild crops to sustain them. Acorns, pecans, weed roots, cacti, flowers, mesquite beans, grass, etc. You name it and they’ll eat it. Not to mention bird eggs, baby birds, snakes, mice & rats, insects, carrion etc. They are not picky. As long as they have water, and water ways to travel, they will survive & multiply.

I sure as hell don’t like Govt. interfering with my Ranching or Hunting, but I’m afraid if they don’t ok & implement some type of biological weapon, we are just spinning our wheels and will never control the population. Period.

So long as someone makes money on them, they will still be there.

They do the same thing here.

exactly this

I think you're right.

You just need the dude from the blaser video. Dude smokes every pig in sight.

Yep, the Texas boys are all correct when it comes to hog knowledge and eradication. I'll be damned, weird.......................!!

Rockin', Rost', Chlinstructor and the rest know to let the Pro's do work......... Especially when you consider that 95% of all the feral hogs living in Missouri, live South of I-44, on Missouri Dept. of Conservation ground!

It's rough, rugged, plenty of water and mast crop, 1.5 million acres of very low human population and basically "HOG HEAVEN"!

For [bleep] sake. Listen to guys that have lived with "Privatized Hunting", on flat ground for years.... They still haven't solved the hog problem. I'm speaking of the Texas boys but to, dumb asses here!...

Local hunting of hogs in these steep, rugged public areas of Missouri only exacerbate ecological problems for indigenous wildlife that we so love to hunt and view!

Interruptions from "Dale",([bleep] you Dale), or "Richard", (you too Richard, you dumb ass!), via shooting one hog from a sounder has significant set back for trapping operations

News flash, they aren't dumb....................They move!!

I take exception to the aerial gunning here because I don't think it's cost prohibitive but trapping is!!

If you love your deer, black bears, turkeys, quail, rabbits, squirrels, Warblers, Indigo Buntings, Monarch Butterflies, "Mountain Boomers", let the fuggin' hogs pass on MO public ground!!

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This is old news, atleast two years old but as far as "Bowsinger" is concerned, that transplant doesn't know the Ozark's from the Galapagos. Way too much "Lib" in him for this part of the world!


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Spot-on.

Not looking for validation but thanks!


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Not all of us have only "private hunting" experience...

My job that I mentioned was in NM, where there was mostly Natl. Forest and BLM. It is also one of the recent areas to be advanced in hog habitat, where there were no hogs before. I actually drafted and came up with a hog eradication program that was adopted by means and method by the National Forest Service, Lincoln Natl. Forest, and thus created a permanent position that was filled in the Wildlife Services dept for a hog control specialist.

Are hogs different in private and public lands?..LOL. I've never even seen a hog in Missouri. But I didn't know they were any different.

yes, several. and it's usually a cncerted effort coordinated through the govt that does it.

Here's a recent one
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...ompletion-on-alaska-2015sep24-story.html

recreational hunting, or shooting predators or other animals at moments of opportunity doesn't hurt the population. it is well established science. the only thing that could be used to refute that is the virtual erradication of Bison from North america, but even then it was due to over harvest of a large animal that had little place to hide, and was strongly encouraged by the govt in an effort to starve indigenous populations to then control them. but even then, we still have bison being wrong and ignorant might make you feel high and mighty, but you'll still be an ignorant fool if you are told repeatedly something yet choose to believe the opposite, might even make you a democrat!

Ain't ever gonna root out all the hogs from the Ozarks. Hell, the MDC maps that show the location of hogs in Missouri has been outdated for at least two years. Hogs have expanded their range into new areas and the MDC isn't even aware of where the new encroachment of hogs is. MDC estimates 50,000 hogs in the Ozarks, that has to be a light estimate based off their maps, and last year with trapping and helicopter hunting the MDC killed around 9,000. With hog reproduction rates they aren't holding their heads above the wave. Turning tax paying hunters into criminals isn't helping the cause. Especially considering the USFS says it's ok to hunt hogs on the Mark Twain NF. It's a cluster [bleep] and only gonna get worse. In the meantime most of us Ozark hillbillies quietly shoot hogs when and wherever we encounter them MDC be damned.

hanco, Savage 99s are addictive. The good news is that there is a support group here comprised of very knowledgeable enablers. LOL

Gross over-simplification.


There are two kinds of ranches in Texas - those that have hogs and those that are going to get them.

T.S.

Reading about 99’s on here made me want one. I was wrong about how many have crept in the gun safes. It was 5 not 4. Those 99’s are sneaky!!

Your information is outdated by about two years.
My latest Missouri Conservationist magazine, April, has the most recent numbers.
They eliminated 9,365 feral hogs in 2018 and 6,561 in 2017.
In over 20 years of unregulated hunting the feral hog population spread into over 30 Missouri counties.
In the past 30 years they have expanded from 17 to over 38 states.
Unregulated hunting has not been working.

Every year MDC publishes the latest update on feral hogs. Last year they said that large corral type traps dropped overhead has been found the most effective on catching the whole bunch at once.

Not sure, but I’m willing to give it a go with the Muzzies

There are some things about Missouri's Wildlife Code I do not like (I grew up there, and go back to hunt often). To whit, "Things that are not specifically ALLOWED by the WIldlife Code are prohibited" which is antithetical to freedom and liberty

In other words, if MDC doesn't specifically say you can do it, you can't legally do it. That isn't American, in my book.

This hog situation isn't much different, really. They can't get the job done, and they aren't going to let you get it done, either. Woe be unto you if you do, however.

I grew up in Northern Missouri, and didn't travel to the Ozarks much. The last time I was through there, driving I-44, I did see a sow and her litter just off the highway, about 50 miles east of Springfield. I was coming back from a funeral, and wasn't armed appropriately to shoot them (and wouldn't, off the highway and all that), but if I'd had a good rifle, I could have taken out several, since they were out in the open and quite a distance from any concealment.

Got to disagree. Missouri with their small code book of what you can do compared with the thick bibles of all the things that you can't do in other states.