Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hog hunt prices?

Traps, pens and snares!































A bud and I have taken 500+ since July of 2018.

In fact once it starts getting hot around April, I sleep in until 8AM or so, get up, make coffee, and head out to run my snares and traps, and if I've nailed a big-un, take him to Hog Heaven. Come back about noon. Have a sleep beer. Take a 3 hr nap. Get up. Mess around. Head back out about an hour before dark. Sit out with thermal, nod a bit and take a look-see Usually about 11 or 12 AM or later. A good nite will have two or three boars wonder in. I'll nail em' and when it's time I"ll head back to camp, have a Misty and retire for the night. Get up, and do it again!
ya!

GWB

GWB,

That single-shot looks like a Merkel. Is it, and if so what chambering, and where did you buy it?

Thanks,
MD

If you're doing that, I know of a couple of small farmers raising heritage breed domestic hogs that are exceptional.

As for the wild ones, I will handle them just enough to get a piece of cotton rope tied around them so I can drag them off and then cut the rope. I had a picture of one for awhile with some stuff crawling out of it that would make you not want to eat them. They truly are invasive pests and carry all sorts of nasty stuff.

I've had big boars lie for months because coyotes and buzzards wouldn't eat them, which is how I figured out I had COVID back in 2020.

Sir,



That is a K1 in 222 Rem.



Part of a two barrel set. The other barrel is 30-06 Springfield.

It's been a number of years so I do not remember the dealer, other than it was one that trades on Guns International.

I'm a Merkel Nut! In the last few years i've been able to sneak up on two K1's, (222 Rem and 9.3 x 74R), K3 Jagd Stutzen in 308 Win. two 141 Doubles and the crown of my Merkel collection.......



Merkel K4 Damaszener, 30-06 Springfield


ya!


GWB

Most of these places are charging exorbitant prices for these hunts. I mean there are so many farmers whining about their wild hog problems yet they are charging a fortune to hunt on their lands. I’m beginning to think the farmers make more money from the hog hunting than from the farming. Interesting, no?

bgcatty, please read the above. I raise registered Black Angus. I had a high school kid that liked hunting hogs so I let him have at it. Then he wanted to bring a buddy out with him but he would be the only one hunting. He would come out only when my wife was there and I was out of town working. She was in poor health and would never check on them. Then I find a young calf dead right in the area he was hunting and he said he had shot at a pig but missed. I figured he or his buddy shot the calf. He started leaving trash in the blinds and wouldn't keep things clean. He put a couple of stands up and then wanted to know if he could Turkey hunt to which I replied NO and to get the stands out. This was about a month before season. He hadn't removed the stands and was wanting to wait until season started to remove them. I changed locks on the gates, removed his stands, and took them and dropped them at his house. His Mom calls me and tries to jump me out because her son can't come hunting any more. I told her I was going to lease out the land for Turkey season (which I didn't do) and I didn't want him out there. She kept on and I finally told her the her son could hunt as long as he could pay $500.00 for a weekend Turkey hunt for one bird. He couldn't and I told Mom he was no longer welcome and to stay out.

This is some of the crap you get into when you do something nice for folks. It just isn't worth it.

Jim

That sounds about right. I would have been very angry about the dead calf. What was the calf worth??

That's about right, I know some guys who do night hunts with all the gear, thermal, etc....charge 500 a person. And they stay busy.

Owner probably didn't have liability insurance, we do on our recreational property.

They can still do the same if you let them in for free or charge $500 per day.

All to much for me. Heck, couldn't pay the gas right now.

GWB,

Very nice collection!

I have a little Merkel collection, including a shotgun or two, but my main rifle is a K1 in .308 Winchester--which I purchased from the showroom of Briley Manufacturing in Houston close to 20 years ago. I'd been thinking about buying a good European take-down single-shot for travel hunts (was doing quite a few back then), and they had a line-up around half-a-dozen K1s, complete with Swarovski scopes. Was tempted by several, including a .257 Weatherby and a 7x57R, but ultimately chose the .308 for two reasons: It had the nicest wood, and the .308 was very practical for traveling. On my first hunt with it in the Northwest Territories, took a bull caribou and wolverine!

MD

Hey dmd! All is well I hope!

Agree with you completely. I have seen more than one rot away without ANY scavengers attending the ceremony.

Just a couple of those diseases is brucellosis and pseudo rabies! 🤯
Swine have no lymphatic system. Any poisons they ingest spread out into the entire animal, making the flesh poisonous.

I've never heard of anybody dying, or even getting sick, from eating feral pork, but I'd just as soon not partake....and I've eaten my share!

10/4




Top: K3, 308 Win.
Bottom: K1, 7mm-08

Do not know if it is the same today as it was then, but IIRC they typically came with the Aluminum Americase, rifle, Recknagel Rings and Scope. All of mine have been purchased pre-enjoyed.

I had a K1 in 300 Win Mag, but not for long.......

From my experience a shooting a sub-5 lb. rifle in a magnum caliber, it thumps on both ends.......



The addition of an optic does not do much to tame that.....



Interesting you mention Briley’s.
I live about 30 miles south of Briley's in a bedroom community of Houston. I had never been there before I met a trust-fund baby there. He wanted a Perazzi shotgun for his gradation present and he only got a Cooper Jackson Game rifle. I bought it from him, then went into Brileys. This would have to be sometime around 2008. I was in the process of recovering from the addiction to heavy barreled bean-field magnums.

Over at Accurate Reloading was where I first encountered them, probably around 2004. However I could find very little info, much less where to find one. I'd seen a number of Kipplaufs but had never fondled one.

Anywho, Lo-and-behold, there was a Merkel Stutzen on the wall at Brileys'. It was lust at first sight. They are dimuitive and light in the hand, but if you ever get the skin between your thumb and index finger caught in the lock up, you'll think a snappin' turtle got a hold of ya! I would have bought it then except at that time, I could get 4 Coopers for the price of one Merkel. Took a couple years to find one at the price I was willing to pay.

My K3 in 308 came with both the Americase and a Skinner Sights Pack......







Small enought to fit in the tour pack of a Harley!

Two other things I like,



Merkel K1, 9.3 x 74R

The 3 position select pull weight trigger, (back left on trigger gaurd) and the fact that either the Blaser style saddle mounts on the K3 or the Recknagel Twist Mounts on the K1 (my favorite) return to zero every time.

ya!

GWB

PS: One more thing I like that I forgot to mention........



They are capable of fine accuracy, but somehow I think you already knew that!

Had I sold it as a yearling it would have been around $1,000.00.

Correct but the $500.00 makes it easier on me cleaning up.

Jim

@ texbatman

"... Had I sold it as a yearling it would have been around $1,000.00. ..."

Current mkt price is +/- $150cwt. An 800# market calf is worth +/- $1200.
Don't care HOW good a farmer you are, natural attrition won't allow 100% survival rate.
Lose a couple more to some idiot being careless and leasing becomes a moot point.
Not to mention the trash, broken fences, open gates, rutted crops, etc, etc....