Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Good News (?) For All Who Complain About The Cost of Hog Hunting in Texas

The.problem is, when you shoot one hog of a group, the rest all haul ass going away. You cant shoot anymore or you might hit one in the butt, which is ok if you're alone. However, anyone ever sees you do it and mentions it around, there could be hell to pay.

I have never hunted hogs. Other then 3 domestic ones, I have never shot a hog. (Warthogs excluded)

But I see it as just one more land-management issue that farmers and ranchers need to address. Those that want to treat them as a cash crop can do so with 100% justification. It's their land!

But those that had an actual problem with over populations of hogs are foolish to try to extract money from those that would help resolve the problem. Greed is a common problem with people everywhere and part of human nature. Wisdom is that power in someones character to know when to rein in their greed so the overall future can be improved. Like sewing seed. You buy seed and toss it around in hopes to have a larger crop later.
Demanding money from someone who would help you is the mark of a fool. But fools can own land, and if they do they have an absolute right to be a fool on their own land.

Only someone below the level of a fool will pay him. And there are some "sub-fools" who will in this world.

I remember years ago driving across a large open area of Nevada desert when I came upon a man in a truck with 2 flat tires. One on the ground and the spare. He was VERY thankful when I aborted my day's plan and helped him remove the flat from the wheel and also load up his spare and drove him to Fallon Nevada to get both flats fixed, and then drove him back to the truck out in the desert.

Now see if you can guess what I would have done if he had told me when I stopped that he would love it if I'd help him, but he wanted me to pay him $300 dollars first before he'd let me help him. (The easy answer to that question is............nothing. I'd have smiled and told him to have a nice day, and to wait for someone more foolish them himself to show up.)

If a land owner is actually having a problem they will be grateful for help..... OR they are simply not honest, and they are saying they have a problem but it's just a lie. They have no real problem at all.
For those that are allowing the hogs to infest their land to sell the hunts, more power to them.

But there are many that actually want the hogs removed and such a person WILL NOT ask money for the help ----- anymore then they would ask you to pay them to fix their tire. I know one land owner in Oklahoma, one in Louisiana and one in Texas that have told me I can come and shoot hogs ANY time and with no limits and no charge at all. The one in Louisiana even says I can stay in his guest house for free and he'll bay all the food too, but I MUST kill a lot of hogs if I come. See........that man wants the hogs killed off.

JG, not having hogs to worry about, I'll admit that it's comparing apples with oranges, when I'm talking about deer or coyotes here, it's different from the hogs that Texas has. But, a person has to make a choice......am I serious about controlling a pest or not. I know for a fact that I can't kill all the coyotes on a certain farm, but I can hunt them so hard that they are no longer a serious threat, and have done so. The local Mennonites have just about rid their farms of them by trapping and poison year round, illegal of course, but it's worked.

My point about hogs is that they can be controlled too, if someone is serious enough. Might take some time, and some unorthodox methods, but in the end, they'd be just like the buffalo of the late 1800's, and the passenger pigeon. They can be eliminated.

I have no way to prove this, but my take is this. As an example. When I was a kid closest wild hogs I knew of were in the Riley mtns, Cedar Mtn chain along the Sandy creek gap in Llano county. They been there better than 150/160 years. They were the result of the same type frontier catch & release program Tyrone mentioned above.
I was practically raised on a Blanco county ranch mebbe 25 miles east ( at the most) from the above location. We had no hogs. Never saw any hogs, always heard old folks stories about all the wild hogs in Llano and northern Gillespie county. Then they were phantom like and elusive like "black panthers"! Other than in those afore mentioned locations.

So what happened in the 1980’s? In the hill country, places started selling. Old established ranching folks dying. Folks movin’ in and buying all manner of ranches. From 10 to 10,000 acres . And what did everyone start doing? Putting up deer feeders!!! When I was a kid, no one put up feeders. Just wasnt heard of. We didn’t know what a deer feeder was. If you had a lease it was usually $100 a gun!

Then we got hit by a series of droughts. More feeders went up. Everybody and their little dog who had 25 acres put up a deer feeder. In some respects if it hadn’t been for those feeders the white tail population would of suffered greatly. They did to some extent, but the downside was deer weren’t the only critter eatin’ out of them feeders. Especially in the locations with an old established pig population. Also word got out about the same time of what fun it was to hunt hogs. People started trappin’ em and relocating em for hunting purposes.

So cut to the chase. Deer feeders and pig relocation are my theroitical causes for the boom.

That's what we did down on the Gray when I managed it--one reason that I don't care if I never shoot another hog.

When I first got there, I let a few of the locals and some of the Border Patrol officers hunt hogs. However, it turned out that what they really wanted to do was ride their Jeeps and four-wheelers all over the ranch, looking for big deer, and maybe pop a hog on the way out--if they saw one.

In contrast, one of our neighbors over in Arizona owned a small ranch that didn't have any hogs. In the years when he and his two boys didn't draw deer tags, he would call and ask if they could come over and kill some hogs for meat. They would come by the house going in and ask me where we had seen hogs. They would go to those places and would usually drop back by the house a few hours later with three or four dressed hogs in the back of the pickup. They always made a point of showing me what they had shot and thanking me for the opportunity to hunt.

That's one way that you might get permission to hunt hogs on a ranch that has a problem.

KW, that sounds well thought out & very plausible.

I know some people with deer feeders, but really there's so much corn around that I don't think they make much difference. A deer in Kentucky or Missouri doesn't know what it means to be hungry - the Winters are too mild and there's too many crops for deer to ever starve to death.

Maybe too it's because the East is more crowded - if there was a wild hog somewhere, somebody would see it & blast it.

Tyrone,
I knew some old ranches that still had some old derelict cedar stockade style hog traps on them 30 years ago. Folks quit ranging their hogs up there probably around WWII. Give or take a few years. And you are right as most know, many deer will shy away from feeders given they have ample natural forage.

)One old frend of mine up there close to Kingsland talked about an old wild azz boar that was always getting into his farrowing houses.)


But not our old friend the hog. 😉. He’s gonna eat what he finds. And the more food they have available the more offspring!

He also mentioned that there was a bad hog cholera epidemic that came thru that country in the early 60’s. Did quite a number on domestin and feral populations. But there were enough isolated feral pockets up in those highlands to survive. He stated the pigs had been on their ranch in the hills at least since the 1850’s! And he’s got some rought country back in there.

I shoot prairie dogs on a South Dakota ranch. They don't charge me a dime. They give me the run of the place. I've literally killed thousands. Other than taking my call asking for permission or stopping and shooting the breeze I don't see any other overhead for the rancher. Texas ranchers should consider identifying good people and giving them a chance.

And it's okay to give them hard and fast rules. When his wife is home I use a suppressor. I'm not allowed to shoot north, carry off fossils or sheds, or shoot deer or antelope. I may not tear up the roads. I must always get permission before arriving. I pick up sheds and place them at the gate. AND I'm held responsible for anyone's damage when I'm there.

The idiots who get caught doing this should be beat to death, no exceptions.

Yup! I knew some DH’s that did just that 30 years ago! I still have my little trap. When we caught pigs, we brought em home and fed em out in our hog pen. Then they went right in the freezer or sausage casing! The only two things I have found a hog can’t get out of!!! 😉

I don't think he did either, nor did I say he did, but it's a comment I have heard often. This statement was even made by Alberta fish and wildlife spokesmen who should have known better. The thing is, these animals are a lot more adaptable than many think they are. In fact, northern hogs, like northern deer, grow bigger.
Bosnians had a hell of a problem (especially after the UN disarmed them) with hogs eating crops. A friend, who was with the Canadian Forces, said they shot a lot of them in defence of crops. He said Bosnia was a classic case of the unintended consequences of gun control.
I don't think there are many predators, apart from us, which prey on hogs. Maybe wolves and certainly bears, but I doubt they can make much of a dent and ranchers and farmers can't tolerate them either. GD

Well said and true, greydog.

If everyone was like you it would not be a problem to let people on your land, but most leave trash, tear up the place, generally Fuuck things up for responsible people!

I don't believe this is the action of "most" hunters, just the actions of the "last" hunters !

I think they're probably smarter and more adaptable than Bison or Pigeon.

Control is difficult at best, elimination in my opinion, is impossible.

DF

DF, having raised domestic hogs for a good many years, I know how prolific hogs are, and that a hog is smarter than most folks realize. Again, it's impossible to compare apples to oranges, and hogs to pigeons or buffalo...........but given the correct antidote, anything can be eliminated, and I believe that would include wild hogs. It would take some doing admittedly, but I believe the technology and means to do so is there. Whether or not it ever happens, is another matter.

I have friend who invited anyone who wanted to, to kill hogs on his ranch for free, i was surprised at how few people took him up on the offer.

Just don't get caught killing them without a license if you take any meat or head. tusks, etc.





https://wildlife-damage-management.extension.org/texas-hunting-license-requirements-for-feral-hogs/



https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/licenses/hunting-licenses-and-permits

First off, I don't recall any landowners complaining. At least here at the 'Fire...



Please, anyone post where that has happened.

Second, we are NOT gonna hunt our way out of the feral hog problem.

That's a fact.


There's lots of people that don't have a clue about killing hogs.

Say you have a sounder of 40 hogs. You set up to hunt them. The sounder comes in, and of course you pick the biggest BOAR in the group to shoot...

A nano-second after you shoot that boar, you have 39 freshly educated hogs disappear into the brush.

So you have really put a dent in the hog population by shooting that boar. Right?

Now that educated sounder may not be seen for months. And then maybe only at 2:30am...



Anyone compiled that list of posts where landowners are coming here complaining about hogs, but charging money to shoot them yet? LOL...


I bet even most of those posting crap in these threads as usual have not even seen a feral hog. Much less killed one.