Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Feral Pigs In Crops Problem

Here is a good illustration of the problems feral pigs pose to farmers' crops.

And not one gun..

My thought as well.

Good example of where a high capacity semi- .308 would be handy.

Looks like that is in Europe. Over there they don't consider them to be pests but rather a valued game animal.

This is why the minigun was invented.

Houston, we have a problem!!!

Farmer would likely say “ The Damn things are ruining my crops and destroying my land” then offer to let you shoot a few for 500 or so.

A buddy of mine keeps his AR in his combine cab when cutting row crops for this very reason. He’s killed hundreds of the things off the platform. It’s even better when you go ride with him and shoot while he’s moving. I think him and my uncle killed 27 out of one milo patch.

I can understand why farmers/ranchers/landowners
are reluctant to allow people on their property.
I would imagine they get tired of picking up trash
cigarette butts, drink cans, food packages, running
over empty hulls, having to fix deep muddy ruts,
etc. etc.
At least if they see pigs doing any mayhem on
their property, they can shoot at the pigs

It isn't hard to weed those types out.

Some will allow people they know and trust to shoot hogs but the liability of allowing strangers is too much. Also if they come once they want to come back and even worse bring a friend. That is also a problem with friends, neighbors, and relatives. They want to come back and hunt deer and ducks or target shoot with friends. It seems to me if you want a enemy one of the best ways to accomplish that is to let someone hunt for free.

The liability is a problem unless you have a signed document absolving the landowner from lawsuits. Trapping is the best way to get rid of the bastards.

I had a guest once threaten to shoot a neighboring landowner after my guest used my property to access the neighboring property which was posted. I would have been liable for allowing a defective onto my place. Also indiscriminate rifle shots go right over fences. You can't get out of liability with a signed release in Louisiana.

I know of no farmers who charge to hunt hogs on their farms. None.

Most of them only let on people they know and trust though.

If you or anyone else can provide one example of what you are saying, I'd be glad to see it. I see that same lie many times. Mostly from out of state people.

I know of some hunting outfitters that charge to hunt hogs. Or ranchers that include the hog hunting with the deer lease. But if farmers or ranchers are getting hog damage and want them killed, they don't charge. They may be selective with who they let on their places, but they don't charge for it.

It is sad but too many have no common sense and less manners.

This is the total opposite from my practices... I have places that i have gained permission to hunt/fish... The landowners have been beyond gracious to allow me to hunt and fish to my hearts content. I would NEVER bring others to their land not would i bring someone to a dove shoot or duck hunt I was invited to. Just COMMON SENSE.

That is nice hear that . However, I am sure it is an excuse for many land owners to say they fear liability . I have not heard one time in my life a hunter that sued a land owner or ruined something. Not one time. I have read on the message boards however of certain things. I still know some farmers here that let strangers hunt for free, even though it is getting rare since leasing has become popular. I cant see for the life of me, why there is such a hog problem that never gets resolved in any way when there is such a high demand for hunting hogs. Are southern hunters less respectfull? Do some southern hunters think they have a natural born right to be disrespectfull? Not that I care. I never hunted them, and likely never will .

We are not going to "hunt" our way out of a hog problem.

The hogs reproduce at rates that hunting can't touch. You can kill off the hogs on a single tract, or at least convince them there are safer places. But they'll be back...sooner or later. The places left untouched by management or hunting are a safe breeding ground for hogs.

To answer your question about southern hunters being disrespectful... I don't know that southern hunters have a corner on that market. If my years of ranching in BLM & Natl Forest lands are any barometer, it seems like every box of apples has a few bad ones. Gates torn down, or left open, water sources and windmills damaged and shot full of holes, driving across pastures harming the grass, fences cut, cattle shot, or even chased by motercycles... The list goes on.

I do know a few landowners who would rather have the hog damage than deal with the hunters... paid or unpaid.

So why is it bad if a landowner is trying to recoup some of the cost of the damage by charging for hog hunting? I know many ranchers that will not allow anyone to hunt hogs unless they know them, $1 million would not get a stranger on their place.

If you want to hunt hogs for free go buy some land in Texas and have at it.

The damage they cause has an economic affect, no reason they shouldn't be trying to regain some of that loss caused by hogs.

I would tell you a story of a neighbor I allowed to hunt whose disrespect for rules caused me to evict him. You wouldn't believe his actions in retaliation and the 3 court actions I had to bring against him for restraining orders. It ended with the sheriff coming out and killing him. So now unless it is a really close friend or trusted family member like my brother in law, son in law, or kids and grand kids there are no hunters coming on the place.

As to "southern hunters" I have travelled extensively in the west and from Alaska down to New Mexico and out to Oregon and California I see road signs shot to hell. Not necessarily hunters I guess.

Pretty much how it is.

But this statement is just false...



The farmers or ranchers either let people hunt for free to help rid them of the hog problems, or they charge to hunt, in which case they WANT hogs on their land so they can continue to sell hunts.

I have never once heard a landowner complaining about hogs and damage, then charging to hunt them.

That video in the OP reminds me of one I saw a number of years ago from the Border Patrol. Night vision taken at the southern border, started with a couple illegals coming out of weeds, then more then a flood. By the time it was over dozens and dozens of illegals were running all over the place with maybe four BP officers trying to wrangle them up.

Quick as I could count right at 60 hogs. This didn’t miss those few coming out down the left side of the standing corn. Damn!

^^^THIS^^^

Most of the larger ranches I hunted on required liability insurance. Hasbeen

We require everyone to sign a release of liability before they can hunt. A farmer friend in Arkansas says the only thing worse than the deer are the deer hunters.

I’m hoping to hunt pigs around Bastrop Texas this spring. I asked my brother to hook me up with Pastor Mike from his church who hunts deer but not pigs when i met him 5-7 years ago. Hopefully he’s out there thinning the 4 legged flock!

In Germany crop damage is paid by the hunters. The hunters also pay to hunt that same land. Most sell the game meat to recoup their money. Game harvest plans are developed and must be maintained fairly closely. I hunted a number of drive hunts to kill the quota amounts of game before the year end closeout. It's a gov't plan so it won't ever take off here in the US no matter how well it works there.

The farmers should be trapping them

Yes. They do want responsible hunters who can kill animals without any collateral damage. They don't want to just trade one type of damage for another. Getting your foot in the door might be tough in some areas. That usually has to do with having had bad experiences in the past. Once you have proven yourself though and word of mouth starts getting around doors will open.

I have posted this picture before, but this is what it looks like when a sounder of pigs puts their noses down in rows of freshly planted peanuts. They did about $3000 worth of replanting cost damage to this field in 3 nights. Over the next 12 months I killed 47 pigs in and around that one pivot.

And the helicopter....

No trap is anywhere near 100% effective. A certain design might catch a lot at first but they catch on muy pronto.

Boom, boom, boom, boom......... Have gun and ammo, happy to help!

A chopper would have been fun once it was down to that small strip

Ted Nugent would have killed everyone of them with his bow!

Considering how little common sense and courtesy is displayed on this outdoors forum filled with gun-loving hunters, I would imagine it would be counter-productive and cause more problems than it solves to allow hunters on your land to shoot pigs.

Prove me wrong.

I get a laugh at the landowner comments. I don’t know any landowner that has to wait for a stranger to ask to hunt. Lol. You think landowners are just a bunch of guys with a pitch fork and a chicken? You never have a shortage of hunters wanting to hunt.


Around here it’s best to not let anyone hunt that way you don’t have to let everyone. Not only that but most families that own land have family members that hunt. That is the biggest reason that we don’t and most everyone I know don’t let others hunt. It’s real hard to pick and chose who you let and if every family member let a few friends hunt it would get crowded fast.

I think another distinction needs to be made here as well. Lots of people have experience with sport hunting. People with real experience with animal damage control are not near as common. Lots of people confuse going out and shooting a few pigs with actual damage control/mitigation shooting. They are not the same.

Sport hunting is going out and killing a few pigs for fun/meat. But it isn't about removing large/consistent numbers of animals. In fact it is just the opposite. Most people who sport hunt do not want the pigs wiped out because they always want some left to be able to come back and hunt again. Sure they like to say they are helping the landowner out. But shooting 5 pigs out of a hundred doesn't do anything generally unless it is specific pigs causing a specific problem.

I have seen studies that show to be effective at even beginning to control pig numbers you need to be taking 60% of the population annually just to keep the numbers from increasing. A sport hunter that comes in a few times a year can't move that needle.

Pigs are intelligent animals. They learn quick. They learn to avoid traps. They learn what times of night you are shooting them in a field. I have even seen some learn to not move in the brush when the helicopter goes over. They check feeders downwind and come in to the feeder at 3 am because very few hunters are ever there at that time of night.

In my area the ones who are farming want all pigs dead. Not a few, not a decent pile here and there, but absolutely as many as possible. Certain times of year me and my thermal shooting partners (some of which are the actual landowners) will shoot 3-4 times a week if the moon is right. We are patient and know how to stalk to get maximum effect. What we don't need is some guy who doesn't understand damage control work coming out there and shooting one or two pigs and boogering things up for us. Now of course things happen and we don't always kill as many as we would like but we always strive for maximum bodies on the ground. Fields that get hunted by lots of people the pigs get smart. They get sensitive and hard to stalk and then you are spending a lot of time to get a few animals. Several times we have been putting a good stalk on a sounder and had some dude driving through with a spotlight or digital NV that could not see us ruin a stalk. Most times they don't even see the pigs either. The pigs run, they blow a hunt for us, and they don't even have a clue it happened.

Which is not to say lease hunters don't help us. Most of the country around here is leased for deer hunting and every pig the deer hunters kill we appreciate it. But honestly they are paying big money to kill good deer. Pigs are waaaay secondary. They won't risk messing up good deer hunting to kill a few pigs unless the pigs are taking over the feeder and causing them problems or it is off season. But I can kill as many in one or two good nights as they do all year. And honestly we aren't competing. They are hunting the brushy country that is good for deer down on the river and canyons. That stuff is hard to hunt with thermal and takes too much time. We are hunting the open fields up top at night where the pigs come to feed. I stay out of their hunting areas and don't mess that up for them, and they let me do my thing with damage control.

An effective pig control program works all aspects. Trapping, night shooting, aerial gunning. It takes everything available to move the needle. My area has been flown several times in the last month and they have killed around 200 pigs. Same areas me and my partners have killed 23 in the last 2 weeks night shooting. We have had a several good nights, and a couple with just a few lone boars out moving. Moon is bright now so we will give it a break for 10 days or so, then really hit it hard coming up on planting season. We can't kill them all, we know that. But we can kill enough and make it hot enough for them to minimize damage and hopefully make them go somewhere else for a while so that peanuts can get up out of the ground.

Maybe all that can help a few folks realize why landowners just don't let everyone on to hunt pigs. It just might be that they have a good control program working and they don't need anything interfering with it.

I couldn't prove you wrong if I tried, and I won't. All you have to do is read around on this board and you'll find out how many morons are out there nowadays. People can be a real PITA, and many would treat leased, permissioned, whatever property the same way. I don't blame landowners on bit for denying access to these idiots. JTPinTX makes many great points.

I"m lucky though.....call it what you want. I call it fun, and whacking as many as possible is the goal. You will never, ever thin them out by shooting them, but it's fun trying.

Shooting from the ground we do what we can, but really all we are doing is pressuring them enough to go somewhere else for a while until crops come up. Once peanuts are up out of the ground the pigs don't hurt them near as bad. Mostly it is that 2 week period from planting until they have sprouted good. During that time we are out nearly every night. Much of the goal is to shoot them and get them off the field. Sometimes they are back an hour or two later. But still, every pig we kill is one more mouth that isn't eating seed. Killing the big mouths first, the ones who are the leaders, that helps too.

Trapping done by someone who knows what they are doing and has the time to do it right can help a fair amount.

Really to have any type of appreciable effect you have to aerial gun and be serious about it. Once or twice won't do it. You have to fly and keep flying until you don't see pigs. That is expensive. You have to weigh the cost/benefit ratio. If it is just you and not your neighbors that doesn't work either. Our farmers band together everyone pitching in money to pay the pilot. They take turns riding with him and shooting. Fly large areas killing as many as possible. That can help.

Eradication is a myth. Not possible. I have seen areas shot down to the point of near eradication for short periods of time. But nature hates a vacuum. Create one and it will get filled. Pigs will move in from outside faster that you would think they can. That is why flying large areas is important. Out by my brother in laws farms they did that one year. Flew and flew and flew until the last time the flew they only saw 3 pigs (the first day they killed over 300). Almost no crop damage that year. But they thought they had "fixed" it for a while and didn't fly the next year. In the span of 2 years it was back the way it was (actually worse) just like they had never flown it. All it takes is a few landowners who don't raise crops but like to hunt pigs, that won't let you fly their places, to create a reservoir to repopulate.

And yes JG, it is fun. I would do it even if I was having no effect, just because I like it. And even if all I am doing is slowing them down a bit, the alternative is to quit and let them take over completely. And I won't do that.