Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Honest pig question...

You are calling landowners that don't allow free public access to their hard earned land that they have to pay for themselves GREEDY!

What about the city hunters that want unlimited hunting access to private land for nothing?

I guess their just performing a public service.

Letting people you don't know on your property unsupervised - with guns - is pure insanity, and your insurance company would take the same position. Sort of like Obama saying, "You didn't build that land". I have a small property surrounded by a much larger property. When I first bought, I asked for permission to hunt the neighboring property, and was told they didn't allow hunters. End of story, for me - their call. Later, after some "neighbors" had vandalized my property, and stolen from me, I maybe understood a little better. People sometimes ask me about hunting my place, but they never ask if they can come out to help clear trails, put up feeders, fill them with corn THEY paid for, build and maintain stands - or share any of the other work and/or expense involved in maintaining the place. And with locals, if you let them on the property once, some will think they can feel free to come back anytime they want, with all their buddies. As for the "What's mine is mine" attitude - what the hell is wrong with that? I bought my place with money from my retirement funds, and I bought it for ME to enjoy - and I don't see a damn thing wrong or selfish about that. When I had offshore boats, I occasionally got asked to take people fishing who never volunteered to help clean the boat, buy fuel or bait, and did not respect my vessel or my tackle. If I mentioned I had a transmission busted and needed to change it out before I could fish, not a damn one ever volunteered to even help with the task, just wanted to know when I'd have it ready to go? Most of this time I was running charters, too. A classic example was two brothers-in-law I knew - one had a charterboat, the other a bar. The one with the bar bitched because the other one wouldn't take him fishing for free. I asked him if he let the boat owner drink for free in his bar? "Of course not, that's how I make my living". Well, the other guy took people fishing for a living, and it cost a lot more to make an offshore run than a few beers would have cost him. I took that same bar owner on a "fun" trip on my boat once, when I just wanted to take my son fishing and was letting a couple of guys ride along if they'd share fuel costs. The bar owner "forgot" his wallet, and could not pay up at the fuel pump! I never got his share in free beer, either. Of course, he was never invited again.

Some people need help with hog control, but they either already have friends and relations who do that, or they would rather do it themselves than risk the liability of letting strangers on their property. As for not paying to hunt deer, if you feel that way, then hunt in your own backyard all you want!

The state of Texas does not make it real easy to hog hunt public land. Most areas do not allow night hunting, or hunting with dogs - or even year 'round hunting. Poaching has a lot to do with that. Private landowners have absolutely no obligation to let others on their property for ANY reason, and they can complain about hogs or coons or blackbirds all they want. A biologist in Louisiana was asked about controlling hogs by hunting, and he replied "We ain't gonna barbecue our way out of this mess!" I don't see why this is even an issue - private property is just what it says - PRIVATE . Those who do have access to hunt on private properties did not get it by bitching or demanding, and not everyone will get such a chance. Life is tough, but it is what it is. Land ownership is expensive, if you want to hunt someone's land, be glad for the chance to pay to do so - or stay home and whine. Sorry.

Exactly! You pretty much nailed it !

Threads like this make me thankful that I don't have to live in TX. If I ever do it had better be as a millionaire so I can hunt. But then again, if I were a millionaire, WTH would I be in TX?

Greed? GREED? Are you serious? Greed over what? Greed over not wanting to have some hogs removed from your land because you want them all for yourself? Not hardly. The landowner would love to have them gone.

Greed has nothing to do with it from the landowner's standpoint. The only greed I see in this situation is strangers wanting to hunt for free on someone's property.

Let's not forget about liability, damaged property, torn up roads, dangerous hunters, and a host of other problems a landowner faces when letting strangers on his property to shoot things. Been there, done that, won't do it again.

I' never paid to hunt in TX. I've consistently killed a 125" or better deer on public land in TX almost every year for the last 15 years.

Don't believe everything you see on TV/internet.

I like having my own land, my own permanent cabin, my own food plots and even cattle.
I like the fact I don't worry about wearing orange and stray bullets or hunters busting my stalk.
I like building permanent blinds and watching "my" deer mature.

But I would like to hunt Montana again. Deer and pigs galore, but very elk and bear in Leon Co., Texas.

stumpy

Pira 114 said:

"Speaking of piggie myths, I love these shows of late on the Discovery Channel about hogs. They're always talking about how they "believe" there is Russian hog DNA in our pigs. "That's why they're so big and mean." Seriously???? No chit. There's lots of documentation of the Russians releasing hogs by the hundreds into Ca hills as a reliable source of food when they operated the coastal forts here. Gee, I wonder where Russians would get pigs from to bring here? Hmmmmm..... Stupid shows."


Here is the real story, as best as I could find out:

Well, in fact, in the early 1900's, a hunting preserve in North Carolina imported "3 Russian boars and 9 Russian sows, the biggest, meanest available" from the Ural Mountains in Russia, through a dealer in Germany.

Descendants from this herd were introduced into the Carmel Valley, Big Sur, and Hearst Castle areas of California.

A few other hunting clubs around the country also imported wild Russian pigs.

So, yes, there is Russian Boar DNA in many areas of the country.

Here is a portion of an article from the archives of the Monterey County Weekly written by Andrew Scutro:

"Reginald Barrett is a leading authority on wild swine, a professor in the U.C. Department of Forestry and Resource Management. According to one of his papers, Feral Swine: The California Experience, the domestic pig came to this state in 1769 with Spanish settlers. Like pigs everywhere, a few weaseled out of the pens and made for the hills.

Thus feral pigs.

Then, 150 years later, an Englishman named George Gordon Moore showed up in Carmel Valley with Russian Boar he''d imported to North Carolina a few years before.

Moore has quite a reputation. He''s said to have partied hard with Salvador Dali and others at the Hotel Del Monte. "He was a very big-time guy," Professor Barrett says. "He was an entrepreneur who just loved to hunt."

Moore was an industrialist and a sportsman. Having hunted boar in Europe, he wanted to do the same in the New World, where he worked as a representative for a European steel concern. He bought a dozen European boar from the Ural Mountains. This was a leaner, meaner creature than the pink, fat domestic variety. He brought them first to the Great Smokies of North Carolina around 1920, where he hoped to start a game preserve for rich hunters. Legend has it that the boar burrowed their way out of the pens and terrorized the local hillbillies. He found his way to the San Francisquito Ranch in Carmel Valley, now known as Rancho San Carlos. (California).

This is premiere wild boar habitat, with lots of oaks and open spaces. He set up shop there, and soon enough, his European wild boar were off in the brush rutting with outlaw Spanish pigs. Among herds you can see the mix between chubby roundish feral swine and the longer-snouted boar.

They spread fast from Carmel Valley. In a 1963 letter to his neighbor, Stuyvesant Fish of the Palo Corona Ranch, Moore wrote that when he bought Rancho San Carlos in the early 1920s, he had his North Carolina gamekeeper trap nine sow and three boar for transport to California, a process that claimed four hounds and wounded one of the gamekeeper''s helpers. The swine flourished in Carmel Valley.

Moore wrote: "The biggest boar we ever killed on the ranch, when hung, measured nine feet from tip to tip. The skin on its neck was three inches thick; 11 bullets were found which over the years had been imbedded in the fat."

Very quickly, wild boar spread all over the state.

In his letter, he told Fish: "The last time I saw William Randolph Hearst Sr., he said, ''your pigs have reached San Simeon''." Hearst died in 1951, which means whole populations of pigs had established themselves 100 miles south of Carmel Valley in a relative blink of the eye.

Today, the wild pig can be found in 56 of the state''s 58 counties, and has minimal protection under Fish & Game regulations. In California, the season is open year round. There is no bag limit."

I think in most cases, it's cuz they bring revenue. This is pretty typical of just about any ranch in TX. This was in Falfurrias at ranch me and my buddies used to hunt. We killed and trapped a bunch over a couple years there. They used to absolutely plow the senderos at night.

We had a bunch that rooted up one lane of old Highway 338 one night. It was where the road crossed a little draw and emptied into the flood plain of Animas Creek. They got after something in the soil that night, and when they came to the blacktop, they just kept on going!

Hogs can be unbelievably destructive. People you don't know can be far worse.

There is some Euro blood in Texas hogs, also.


I have killed a bunch of hogs with a .22 LR, but would not know where to shoot this big boy with one! Head shots CAN do the job, don't try a shoulder shot. I eventually took this one with a 180gr bullet from a .300 Savage just behind the ear - severed the spinal cord so completely I cut the head off with a pocket knife. On the other hand, I shot the neck half off a small sow with the same rifle - you could see the spinal cord in later game cam pictures, but she ran across the fence. Watched her live to have several litters of pigs.

A hog like the one above IS a trophy. They don't come easy. And yes, you can eat them, if you handle the meat properly, like anything.

i've killed several that were hybrids they have a extra tooth that domestic / ferals don't have.

http://www.texasboars.com/articles/

Absolutely true. Hogs can tear up roads, crops, fields, and a bunch of other things but do not shoot at houses or tractors, set fires, leave trash, destroy equipment, threaten you and your family, steal stuff, sue you, or any of the other stuff people do when on your land. People who have never been around hogs and who have never owned a bunch of land do not realize the problems.

I think most that pay think they are hunting Russian/Europe strain of hogs instead of the feral hogs. The rumors/myth abound about the ferocious nature of the Russian/European hogs and have even been called poor mans grizzly. Hogs are smart animals and present a different and new challenge to hunt. I personally don't mind paying some money to hunt them but would not break the bank to do so. If I lived in a state where hogs were established then I would not pay to hunt them.

Yes, you can kill a feral hog with a .22 if you shoot him in the ear or just behind it. Don't even think about it anywhere else. If you should wound one, especially a boar, they often will charge you. I have been charged twice, once after wounding a hog with an arrow and another after wounding one with a .223. Having a .357 handy when archery hunting hogs was a good idea in my case. I had a buddy who I was archery hunting hogs with that got charged after wounding one. He ended up in hand to hoof close quarters combat with it. I could not shoot the hog with my pistol for fear of hitting my buddy. He drew his side knife and stabbed the hog to death. He was OK other than a few scratches and needing a change of underwear. His bow got busted up some. Good thing it was not a real big hog.

It does seem a paradox that they are such a nuscience critter for landowners, but few will open their land to public hunting. However, the comments by many here already made are the truth. Landowners would be taking a big chance letting just anyone come on their property to hunt. The general public will tear up God only knows what, such as fences, farm equipment, feeders, may shoot livestock, shoot into buildings, shoot at farm equipment, etc. Many yahoos will shoot at any rustle in the bushes they hear or see, never knowing for sure what they are shooting at. Others never consider where their bullets go if they should miss. And as mentioned, once you let them on your land they think they have a right to access it forever. I would like to think that most here are much more responsible and respectful of other's property, but many of the public would do much of the above. Sad, but that is reality. Many landowners will let you hunt hogs on their property IF they know you and trust you to act responsibly.

So the general consensus is that landowners would rather keep the hogs than let unknown people hunt them because people are more destructive. I don't buy that. I have experience hunting in Montana and they have Block Land Management that works quite well. Sign in and sign out and you can hunt pretty much any land you like. No tractor or house shooting either.

Basically, a wild/feral pig is a undesirable animal that wreaks havoc on the environment and everyone agrees that their spread in the US needs to be checked. Somehow along the way they have been placed in a trophy status and you must pay exorbitant amounts of money to hunt them.(once again, not talking about licenses, boolits and your hunting duds. Talking about trophy and poundage fees) It seems the people who have pig problems don't want them but don't want to alleviate their problem for free. They feel they need to be compensated to ease their pig problems.

Not meaning to troll but that is a [bleep] up train of thought for an invasive species that threaten the entire country. I don't live with them "yet" and don't deal with them but I sure as hell would do what had to be done to rid myself of them or at least get their numbers in check.

Ranchers sell the hogs. That's what ranchers do. They are happy and that is really all that matters. Pretty simple.

If you don't live where there are hogs, where hogs are a problem, and don't intend to travel to hunt them, you don't really know firsthand what you are talking about - and it really doesn't seem to be any of your concern. I know guys who sell hog hunts, using suppressed rifles and state-of-the art night vision and thermal imaging equipment. They charge a fairy nominal fee, guarantee hogs, no kill limit, and they skin, gut and quarter them for the customer. They put out several hundred pounds of corn in many spots the evening before a hunt, have a lot of properties to hunt with feeders and game cameras. The hunt is spot-and-stalk, no stands. The average hunter will not spend the kind of money on equipment they have invested. No, they will not take you for free. Those who are so upset that landowners don't let people have open access to their property should buy land of their own and open IT up. Otherwise, to be blunt, you are just running your mouth and showing your butt. And really, nobody cares what you think.

And they're absolutely spot on. People are generally clueless, including lots of hunters. They have no regard for other people's property.