Too long to post here, but worth a read if you have the time:

http://www.chron.com/sports/outdoors/article/Texas-losing-war-on-feral-hogs-4685490.php

They are even in west Texas now. From the desert in the West to the lowland swamps in the east.

From the article:



True statement.

Pretty disturbing. But that ratio fits anywhere there are feral hogs.

The TV shouldn't have canceled American Hoggers.

While I'd catch that show occasionally for laughs, and am even friends with one of permanent cast members, it was only entertainment...

But go try and hunt some and the hand comes out demanding money.

Don't the outfitters actually charge folks to come out there and kill these pests? It seems like there ought to be some give and take by the property owners. If they really want to get rid of these things, why not give people more access to the pigs? Cut the prices to hunt on private property out there way back, and you'll get more hunters looking to help with the problem. Seems like a win/win. They could see reductions in the pig numbers, and still generate modest trespass fees to let others hunt.

Hunting isn't going solve anything.

In fact, it can make hogs go nocturnal.

The only proven way to significantly reduce population is by catching the entire sounder with a large trapping system, or to snare in areas that have net wire fences where hogs continually traverse.

Please don't tell me Mountain Monsters ain't real.

I've got a friend in the hill country who owns several thousand acres. Every time I go see him we have a blast chasing and killing hogs on his place but the population continues to grow. He's constantly bombarded by request from people to "help" him control them. He's not opposed to folks hunting his land but he's afraid someone will get hurt and sue him.

They're not losing it bad enough or they wouldn't charge so much for hunters to come kill them.

Indeed. FWIW, there is a significant financial incentive for motivated land owners to do so. I know one rancher near Llano who is making almost as much money off feral hogs as he is off his cattle.

He traps them using one of those falling corral gizmos, shoots the old and young, then loads the weaner size pigs into his 5th wheel and hauls them to the slaughterhouse. They get slaughtered per FDA regs, and he sells the meat in farmer's markets in the Austin area for top dollar as Organic Free Range Pork.

The take away is that Texas cannot hunt its way out of this problem. Blaming landowners for trying to compensate for some of the financial damage that hogs inflict on their property is pointless and unfair.

I don't have any sympathy for them if they won't allow hunting for free or for a very minimal price. The argument that they might get sued doesn't hold much water because they can easily purchase liability insurance if they don't already have it (just like virtually every hunting club). Additionally, in most states, the duties of a landowner who is allows access to property for free is to advise of known risks. I don't buy the argument that they can't allow hunting for free for fear of injuries.

Luckily Idaho so far has only 1 very small population of them. They were illegally planted here about 8 or 10 years ago and so far haven't spread. The IDFG wants them gone but as you all know, that's not easy.

In the olden days hogs ranged free and were rounded up and driven to market, just like cows.

I doesn't matter if you buy it or not or if they take all the precautions you listed or not. Who in the hell wants to get drug to court every time some clown sprains their leg and runs off to hire some ambulance chasing lawyer. Even if you win every case you lose.

North Arkansas eliminated them back in he early 50's when free range was canceled. They have come back in some area's from people turning them loose, for one reason or another. South Arkansas did not ever eliminate them as far as I know, most likely from the huge amount of paper company land. You can get rid of them by trapping and hunting if the incentive is enough. My opinion only. miles

Why should they allow hunting for free ? If they have lost money from the damage done by feral hogs then they may as well make money from feral hog hunts on their property.


Mike

Was someone asking for sympathy?

You may want to brush up on your liability laws as well. A simple release of liability does not stop anyone from getting sued.

As has been stated by many folks, hunting isn't putting a dent in feral hogs.

Well, this isn't a problem for any other species of hunting, not in any widespread degree. What's so different about hog hunting???

Why should I buy liability insurance so you can come hunt? Even with insurance I could still get drug into court. Just FYI, I allow any local people to come hunt hogs and varmits for free. All they have to do is ask. We don't have a lot of hogs but there are still too many coyotes.

Jim

This last drought did a number on the hog population around here as well as all the wildlife. Since it was broken [sort of] last year the hogs are rebounding.

Sport hunting doesn't make a dent in the hog population. They are just too smart. I could probably leave the house right now and kill a hog before lunch in a pasture belonging to the kids. But it would be 2 or 3 weeks before I could expect to do it again.

They would move to a different layup spot in another pasture.

The difference is money.

You can charge more for deer hunting leases and compensate for the cost of blanket liability insurance.

Hog hunting usually doesn't bring in that type of money.

Also, on private property where the hunting rights are leased, the people leasing the hunting usually have exclusive rights to hunt that property. That means the rancher can't just have a line of hunters running in and out for his own financial gain.

Hogs are smart.

Feral hogs are like congress. Ours are kept under control but the stupid MFs in other places can't control theirs. Then their problems become our problems.

here in Florida, there is a big problem with hogs also. One of the reasons, is that on WMA land, State Forests (of which there are many), and National Forests, you can't hunt hogs if it is not hunting season. Most of the year, they breed unmolested. They migrate from there to private land. There they can be hunted any time of the year, but they have a safety valve in being able to just go back to public land.
The State won't conduct private hunts, or let professionals come in and kill them.
Here in Gainesville, a large State Park, San Felasco, is over run with hogs. The anti hunters and greenies blame hunters for driving them onto the State park.

You get a gold star today!

Two gold stars.

Texas must ave too many fruckin lawyers , if getting sued by hunters on your property is such a great problem


virtually no one charges for hunting in these parts , and I have yet to hear of a landowner actually getting sued by a hunter.....

Do you open up all of your land to let anyone that wants to go hunt on it?

Another big problem is all the deer feeders out there. All that extra nutrition allows them to squeeze out another litter or two every year.

In this country, anybody can sue anybody for any reason, then your left defending yourself. This is a prime example of why we need tort reform and why a landowner doesn't want strangers on his property..

I would have sworn I paid to hunt pheasants in your state. And saw signs indicating that quite a few landowners wanted paying hunters.

Nebraska law limits landowner liability so long as the owner is not charging money to use the land for recreational purposes.

Nebraska Recreational Use Statute

If you don't follow lawsuits in regards to this and don't own property you just don't understand.

We lease a parcel from a LARGE landowner in the hill country.

one of his other lease holders built a blind. And let it rot... crawled up in it with his son, ladder broke, kid broke his leg. Even though EVERYONE hunting there signed a release and the landowner has a large policy in effect( an attorney to boot) he was sued.

I"d be embarrassed to even think to sue for my stupidity or ANYTHING that happens to me on anothers land basically.

Slidell mentions they can buy liability... how do you PAY for liability policy unless you charge?

We carry a million cap on our own property and thats not enough, but we dont' have pigs nothing to lease out for etc... which means if you ask to fish or hunt on ours, or if I invite you, i'm extremely picky about who I chance, and even then I"ve already paid for my property, my annual property taxes, and an insurance policy to let you on for free..... I see why folks charge. Totally.

I'm "lucky" that I have access to some property that needs pigs shot... and the lady even asked what I would charge...LOL, friends help friends... I have NEVER seen a pig during the day. Only at night. She has seen pigs in the last 20 years twice during the day...

Right now I had shot about half the sounder... but its back up to about 25, but NO clue as to when they come anymore... can be days before they show up...

And as duly noted, if sued, even if you win, you loose.

Not to mention the majority that would show up to hunt for FREE would have Yankee plates their vehicles. Who the hell wants that.

Three gold stars !! Maybe the best quote on the Fire. Hasbeen

you were likely in central SD and it is true pheasant hunting is a big money game there.....still dont hear of anyone getting sued

I am speaking of my own locality , the NE is a good mixed bag area for waterfowl , deer , yotes , and some years pheasant

and pay hunting is the exception to the rule

Paying to shoot pest is like paying to plow snow in someone's parking lot.

Absolutely. Unfortunately we now live in a Society where everything is always "Someone else's Fault". There is very little "Self Responsibility" anymore. Just try to afford Insurance after it happens just one time. I have to deal with this reality daily on my property.

===========

And hefty prices, too.

As to the topic, when did the 24H crew become soured to capitalism? If a Texas landowner or any other landowner can market hunts and he then easily secures those willing to pay for those hunts; the more power to him.

The hunters determine the FMV for the hunts, not the landowners.

Sweet, can I come hunt your land next fall?

. Exactly! I have friends and family in Texas. I ask about hogs and they says yeah there are hogs. Then I start asking who has shot one and how many. Everything goes silent. I would love to hunt some but it's expensive. I would say the hog deal is over blown and somewhat of a myth

I'm not naming anyone. But I know a lot of ranchers who let other folks hunt the hogs on their places for FREE!!!!! And they are generally INVITED to do so. And many times the hunters are told they may bring a trusted friend.

But what always rubbed me the wrong way was when folks you barely knew would come up and "offer their services" to help you with your "problem"..... Happened to me at least once a week at the shop. Instead of asking "do you know anyone who might be interested in some hog hunters, we'd be glad to pay?" It was generally the former.

And yes there were the rare individual who would ask the latter. And they owould generally find a place. And ranchers generally received them quite well. And they were treated fairly by the landowner.

I don't think it as much of a case of liability (which can be an issue) as it is a case of a landowner gettng burned by individuals with little or no hunting ethics. And it generally takes at least one hunt to vet folks. Sometimes that can be costly for the rancher.

Many just don't want to take that risk.

And there are a lot of folks out there that think ALL ranchers have "ranch hands and wets" working for them. Which is Total BS. Usually just a one man operation.

I let quite a few folks hunt , in comparison to the amount of acres I own...hell it hardly makes a difference as trespassers run roughshod over the place if you aint watching every second

Tannerite will do it or maybe turn a bunch of jaguars loose?

I think Birdwatcher found some historical references from the 1800's, where even then, people were complaining about too many hogs.

Lately, it appears Capitalism, free speech, and civil liberties in general are taking a hit, here.

Sieg Heil, my man....

Nobody has a problem with a profit it's just hard to understand the mindset of "I have a pest problem come here and pay me to help with it" if you're not used to it.

I don't know , are you going to sue me ?

You mean like:

Individual rights trump all. I think the government killed Scalia. I don't care if the family thinks nothing is wrong, the government, that I don't trust, should do an autopsy.

Government that I don't trust steps over the family's wishes (I'm for family's wishes, unless I'm not). They (government) find no foul play. Since I don't trust the government, and think they had him killed, they obviously 'doctored' the autopsy results to fit their agenda.

Now I'm pissed because the government stepped over the family's wishes, just so they could provide us with some make believe report.

RWE, how close are the hogs to you in N.C.? I've hunted them near the S.C. border in N.C.

It depends, do you have liability insurance?

I've heard reports in neighboring counties, but have yet to see one, nor see any damage caused by them on our property.

And as far as the reports go, I've yet to see a photo attached to any of them.

I hunted them north of Wadesboro. They were definitely doing some damage there.

What if the owner of the private parking lot doesn't want you to plow it?

You get mad when he says "No"?

No,but I might ask wtf if he got stuck in the snow and bitched about it later in the day.

I doubt he'd call you to bitch.

BTW... What part of "Hunting isn't putting a dent in the feral hog problem" do some of you not get?

sure.....you need liablity whether you let hunters in or not.....does that mean youre going to sue ?

Just because the current route isn't working doesn't mean a different approach can't.

What would you suggest?

Please inform all of us people that don't know anything about the best procedure for permanent feral hog removal.

We do have a pest problem. It's called liberalism. As long as there is a place for hogs to be safe and multiply the rest of us have to contend with them.

It's illegal to hunt feral hogs in Nebraska, if you shoot one you have to leave lay.

-------------

If Texas called them liberal or congress hunts, rather than pig hunts, they'd likely be able to double their prices.

Noah Smithwick stated in the 1830's. The two things alligators liked to eat were Negros and hogs. Not particularly in that order.

The only thing that flourished in La Salle's former colony at Garcitas Creek (1685-87) were the hogs they brough from France. Governor Deleon said they were everywhere along the creek. Bet they were Red Wattles!

You very well might be right that hunting can't control the population,you certainly know way more about it then I. I just don't see how people can restrict the hunting and in the same breath say hunting doesn't work. Hell people say the same things about wolves until hounds men were given a chance here. They killed them no problem.

I don't want to be the guy telling people from a different part of the country how it is or should be. The landowner mindset down there is way different and that's the barrier of understanding why you guys believe the way you do. Most Texans seemed to be happy with it,so clearly it works.

I see photos of RevMike with dead Florida hogs lying under a 7x57.

Surely he's making a difference...

DF

It's not only Texas. It's anywhere feral hogs are located. They breed and spread and multiply.

When I was a Wildlife Specialist, I wrote a feral hog control program that was adopted by the Natl. Forest Service and implemented into use.

Even with all plans of attack laid out and adhered to, the best anyone can hope for is to hold them at bay. And THAT'S very, very unrealistic in itself.

Feral hogs CAN be eliminated from an area or state (it's been done). However, the problem has to be identified FAST, it has to be contained as quickly as possible, and the means of eradication have to be brought to bear ASAP and kept up until eradication is completed.

It's just like any other infestation problem; if you don't get on it in the infancy and you let it get out of control, then you're screwed.

One can expand that concept to roaches, or illegals, or radical muslims, or any number of other problems - the solution is always the same, and it's always to fix it EARLY. Once it reaches a certain point, you've got Hell to pay.

I've got friends that have wanted me to go hog hunting with them down in Texas. I told them that as long as it costs me anything I'm not going. I'm not paying to do a favor for someone else. He found a ranch that we could hunt for free but the hunting license cost money so I told him no thanks. I'll continue to go north or stay home and hunt

Watching the game warden shows and seeing those California pigs writing tickets for improperly tagging your hog had me lol. No f'ing way I'm paying anything to shoot feral hogs!! They want to charge? They can GF themselves.

They can within certain areas.

Using methods such as trapping the entire sounder, or snaring in certain areas geared to that success.

Even helicopter hunting can get most of them in a particular area.

Problem is, as Pat stated, the areas around there have hogs, and soon the area is overrun again.

With each female birthing up to 24 offspring a year, starting at 9 months of age, the numbers are on their side.

I went South of San Antonio with friends and shot hogs a few years ago. The rancher put us up, cooked for us. We could not have found a better host.

This year. I looked at going on a hog hunt. The price started at $3,000. Then there was food, housing etc.

I say **** you ***holes. You can have your ****ing hogs. Don't whine to me about it.

"I swear, I thought that bull was a hog."

I could let 20 people a day hunt my place for hogs. I'm pretty sure that all I would get out of it are rutted up roads, litter, a shot up piece of equipment or two, fewer deer, and very wise spooky and nocturnal hogs.

The only kind of hunting that will make a dent is relentless hunting with dogs and traps. Letting a few yahoos out on your place to "hunt" hogs ain't worth the trouble.

Everyone keeps saying "Don't whine to me about it."

Show me where "they" have whined to you.

Elkhunter is spot on. As someone with a stake in land, I can also say there are other factors at play. If I manage my land of cattle, I don't want to hear any bitching about where the cattle are if you are hunting for free. I'm not going to change the way my cattle/ pastyres are managed to often to upset what I am doing. Cattle is the main business so they come first.

Also, my experience with letting people hunt for free with permission is they invite people to hunt that don't have permission. They have left gates open, cows got out on the road. If a car hits one, it's not his backside in a sling, it's the rancher's. I've seen people on the property that "heard" it was a great hunting place and they wanted in on it. I've seen locks cut, fences cut, trash left behind, etc... Some people have been burned enough that they only want people to pay, so they can lay down some rules. Others like to hunt too and letting too many people in cuts out their hunting.

Landowners own the land, they get to make the rules on who hunts it.

That is exactly the attitude to earn the special discount, three times half the asking price... just saying

Poison(sodium nitrite) is the most cost effective solution.

It's interesting (at least to me) that in contrast to the feral hog explosion, the true wild European boars introduced in West Virginia early in the 20th century are slowly disappearing. The state continues to allow hunting, but has pretty much given up on maintaining the population as a viable hunting resource. They inhabit some of the roughest terrain in the state and from all accounts are very difficult to hunt. You would think that if feral hogs can seemingly prosper to the point of becoming a pestilence, right under our noses, true bad-ass wild boars would at least hold their own under truly wild conditions. Apparently not.

The state suggests that habitat loss from mining and depredation by the growing bear and coyotes populations is a big factor. Poaching hasn't been mentioned, and given the terrain, I can see why.

Meanwhile, the threat of feral hogs invading from North Carolina, via Virginia seems to be very real. Go figure.

Bottom line,

Many here don't really look at it as a "war". Or as pest. More of an inconvienence. Yes they can be destructive, and they can tear hell outta stuff. But most have their preferred method.
When they show up on my place, manna! The little ones go straight into the freezer. Big ones buzzard bait. And they are gone for another two or three years.

Currently the boys who run the big hay operation across road from us have been doing a pretty good job of keepng em r-u-n-n-o-f-t.

Alaska had a thriving population on Marmot Island off Kodiak but a few bad winters coupled with sea otters eliminating all the food on the beaches did them in...

If they could work the bugs out of it, it would be.

Getting the hogs to ingest it (Masking the taste), and not having huge collateral damage to other wildlife and livestock are the main issues.

They're coming at the problem from three different perspectives. Hunters-recreational opportunity. Fish and Game-control (it's their job) landowner- control, it's their livelihood. Figure out how to meld the three and there's the solution.


Are there any biological controls available? Maybe a parasite or pathogen specific to pigs?

Thoughts on the deer feeders supplimenting the pigs nutrition- Could the deer reach higher than the pigs? Would an elevated feed station work to limit pig use?

Why is it that Texas seems to have a bigger problem with them than anyone else?

Sorta my take as well. I was down there a few years ago and we were thinking of going hog hunting. That thought went out the window as soon as I learn you need to buy a license to hunt hogs an invasive, destructive species.

I'm very interested in this technology.

Last I heard it was still experimental.

When will it be commercially available?

DF

Deer feeders. You'll note that the population took off in the early 80s at the same time that people started putting out the feeders on their leases.

I talked to the Kerr WMA biologist who said they are encapsulating it(like time release pills) which gets the hogs to ingest it without vomiting. They are seeing 85% mortality.

If that's true then it's a little difficult to elicit much sympathy from me. They need to figure out a way to supplement deer without feeding hogs.

Not just feeders. It's the perfect environment. Lots of brush, lots of water, lots of places to hide.

Most of the hunters on land around here only fill their feeders from Oct. 1st and quit filling them after the season.

A 5 day non resident exotic hunting license in Texas cost 48.00. If you guys can't afford that then you really need to give up hunting. It's not hard to see why a landowner wouldn't want to put up with this kind of non sense!

I wonder if this could be a problem for someone who shot one for Meat after it ingested the Sodium Nitrate? I wonder if he is talking about the same simple Sodium Nitrate used in preserving foods?

Last time I looked, a 5 day N R license for non game animals was around 50 bucks.

You'd be surprised the amount of damage that a bunch self entitled Yankee arseholes can do when they think they are "helping" a landowner just by being there.

It does offer hope.

But the Kerr WMA doesn't have livestock.

That's one of the big problems with allowing "the public" to do anything. What is a privilege is soon seen as a right, and while I know everybody here is a 110% ethical sportsman and fastidious steward of the land, especially when it involves someone else's property, it's all those "other" slobs that ruin things.

I've seen someone with a private range let a couple of "friends" use it, and within a month people the owner never heard of are out shooting every damn thing in sight and leaving beer cans and trash everywhere. If the owner tells them they weren't invited they claim their friend said it was okay. They get downright angry when told they can't use someone else's private property.

Na nitrate and Na nitrite aren't the same thing although they're closely related. The body to some degree will convert nitrate to nitrite. Both will mess with the blood's ability to carry oxygen. I don't know what level is toxic.

Don't know if y'all noticed but the article in the OP is from 2013 [not that most of you read it]. The problem areas will have shifted at least twice since then.

They do their damage to cultivated fields primarily. They don't hurt rangeland much. But they do kill quite a few fawns.

JoeBob nailed the big reason Texas has a BIGGER problem with feral hogs than any other part of the U.S., corn feeders, the "Texas state flower."

While some landowners, or the people who lease their hunting rights, only have feeders running during deer season, that's a pretty long season, and any extra nutrient source is going to enhance the ability of pigs to reproduce. Plus, the outfitters who offer pig hunts often keep feeders going longer, to attract pigs, or "corn" roads to draw them out of the brush so clients can kill them easier.

You can kill all you want, by whatever method, but if humans keep providing lots of high-calorie pig food, they're going to keep producing piglets faster than they can be killed.

I've hunted feral pigs in other states, some with far better pig habitat, but never seen as many as there are in Texas.

"They do their damage to cultivated fields primarily"

Spot on Curdog!!!!

Another thing that endangers all the cultivated areas here is widespread urban sprawl!!! Moreso than any wild hog ever thought of doing!!!
As well as prime grazing land!!!!

Thank you for correcting me. I did indeed have the wrong Chemical in mind here, my mistake. Considering liability issues I would personally be concerned that it could be traced back to me if someone became ill or died. Could it become counter productive if folks became afraid to even hunt them because of something like this? I guess it would boil down to how fast it terminates the Animal?

Here is a current study happening now. Tom


http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0146712

4ager
Feral hogs CAN be eliminated from an area or state (it's been done). However, the problem has to be identified FAST, it has to be contained as quickly as possible, and the means of eradication have to be brought to bear ASAP and kept up until eradication is completed.

It's just like any other infestation problem; if you don't get on it in the infancy and you let it get out of control, then you're screwed.

One can expand that concept to roaches, or illegals, or radical muslims, or any number of other problems - the solution is always the same, and it's always to fix it EARLY. Once it reaches a certain point, you've got Hell to pay. [/quote]

A Texan who owned a game farm in Wisconsin brought several hogs from Texas and let them loose on the farm to hunt. A bunch of them escaped and became a problem. The Wisconsin DNR told the public to shoot them on sight.

650,000 deer hunters a year in the field and DNR sharpshooters helped the general public, plus I am sure the wolves got a few. Wiped the feral hog population out.

Offering no dialog regarding land owners v. the shooting public, but anyone thinking a combination of hunting and trapping can't control hog population is full up with pasture pie. Have seen it done on both small and large scales here in Florida.

Small Scale Dan

I agree with most of this. The only problem there is a lot more land in Texas that is not hunted than land that is hunted. They still have plenty of hogs. Hasbeen

South Florida is the one place on earth that needs MORE hogs. I promise you that if there were more, the python problem would be a thing of the past. Sure, the big snakes would kill a pig or two but any snake that ran into more than two or thee hogs at a time or was less than ten feet long or so would be in trouble. Snakes are like licorice sticks to hogs. There is nothing they like eating better.

Once fed and bred, hogs have a tendency to wander a bit.

I had a chance to shoot hogs on one of the bigger ranches in Tx. Some of the most fun I've ever had hunting.
If I owned that much land and wanted help getting rid of hogs I'd probably get hold of TF160 and see if they wanted a place to do some gunnery training.

I think you can buy it now but you have to get a permit to use it from the state. There is a least one commercial product, I think it's called "Hog Gone". I'm not sure if it uses encapsulated sodium nitrite. A big part of using it is using a feeder which only targets Hogs. Sodium nitrite is extremely volatile so it reacts quickly and isn't a threat to the environment/other animals. I have no experience with it so you'll want to get help/information from someone who knows what they're doing.

The other thing most people use hog panels around their feeders. Don't want to feed hogs and Javalinas . Hasbeen

Feeders have a small impact in small places but contribute very little to the problem statewide. Hogs inhabit a place favorable to them until they reach the saturation point, then they spread to another area.

When Farmers and Ranchers lived on their land, it was harder for migrating hogs to get a foothold since they ere spotted early and killed.

A hog can make a living damn near anywhere.... he don't need feeders.

Not to mention that we are just bigger to start wtih than most...

Funny to read (J. Frank Dobie, A Vaquero Of The Brush Country) how both Turkeys and hogs were herded like cattle to railheads in the 1870's. Example Cuero to Smithville.

Hogs ranged Wild a la Ol' Yeller for years! Know of ranches in hill country that have always had wild hogs. Especially in Llano County around Click. Only thing old timers told me that slowed em a bit was the hog cholera
Outbreak in the 50's.

When I was a young man in the 1970's I hunted on a ranch near Llano that was owned by a hog farmer/rancher named Harlow. Mr. Harlow told me several stories about the same cholera outbreak you mentioned. Said he lost almost all his hogs as well!

Some years we have acorn masts that break the limbs.
The hogs are set for months.

Hogs don't need human assistance to thrive. They have been here for over three hundred years. They are much smarter than any native game animal. They are almost impossible to catch or kill when they are educated by pressure. Texas requires no license for depredating swine.

There, I fixed it for you.

Geno

All you have to do to rapidly reduce those pig numbers is to move a couple clans of Amish folks down there,armed with Remington 760's and 10 round magazines, they have a natural talent for killing Gods creatures, both big and small.

On a side note, be careful as they both breed at about the same rate, when properly fed.

All the Texas guys say that feeding has nothing to do with, yet nowhere has hogs like Texas. It isn't that there wouldn't be hogs without deer corn, it is th difference between two litters of piglets a year and three. Over time, that extra seven or eight pigs a year made possible by supplemental feeding adds up.

For any of the guys fussing about liability of the land owner for hunters on their property, has anyone checked the property liability laws in Texas ?

I know nothing about Texas, but in Ohio and some other states there is a state law that prevents the landowner from getting sued by people he gives permission to hunt on his property.

Myron

A local problem I'm dealing with( I've killed more hogs so far there than anyone else thats tried) is a similar situation... the pigs come from land and thickets no one is allowed to touch. As long as you rely on them coming out to forage and you having to time the killing right and thats after dark every time, its almost impossible to do much of a dent without a large trap. Even tannerite won't do the trick.

My next step is cattle panels and keep trying to feed them a bit and finally close the panels to a gate eventually...that could take months, and will get the majority if not all of this particular sounder.

Problem will be it won't be the only sounder, just the current one.

And in months 25 could turn into 100...or more very easily.

I mentioned a lawsuit here in TX earlier... must be no protection...

The place I have the issues with, currently, the pigs won't come until after dark. The feeders dont' do anything other than to keep them coming to snoop basically... the deer eat the feed 99% of the time well before the pigs ever have a chance to come...

And the place I"m on has zero feeders to start with yet the pigs are there for the wild onions, and the bahia... natural forage. I keep them around now with feed so its not so much of a wild goose chase as to when they show, and keep a couple of cameras on 24/7 so I know whats going on.....

It really doesn't matter if that place has feeders or not. This extr litters made possible by the feeders five miles over have to go somewhere.

We have an Amish population in Southern Minnesota
that has a problem with inbreeding. They will go into town and recruit men to come and breed the women. They say the clothes have to stay on and the women stay under a blanket while the husband watches to make sure you follow the rules.
I think they pay cash too.
Anyhow if a rancher could publish contact info
and display it at the Deer Classic in Yankeeland.
(Minnesota) or Cabelas. It would help.
I am retired and would be more than happy to help out.

IMHO we have more litters due to no winter ever.

This part of TX there are not that many deer feeders adn even 10 years ago they were almost totally non existant...

When you can buy beer with your money or corn and a feeder, you buy beer.. for most locals...

Our hog population seems nomadic, but never really leaves. We don't see them that much during October/November due to all the hardwood bottoms around our property (refuge) and the mast crop they become preoccupied with. When all the acorns are gone in winter, they come back to the piney hills and root everything up. We hunt them occasionally over 4-5 corn feeders we keep running just for that purpose. As long as we're not hunting them constantly, they don't get too spooky. It can be fun for the springtime.

Lots of arm chair quarterbacks in here that feel the need to chime in about something they don't know about, are not educated about, and have no clue as to the real problem, it's root cause, or what to do about it.

Some of the funniest replies have been from some pretty surprising sources here.

Most serious hunters in Texas lease, at least, some land. One of the requirements for leased land is that it is not sub-leased. But, I'm pretty sure that most of these guys are just trying to be nice about saying "no"...kinda like when you're retarded neighbor asks to borrow your car "Uhhh...I'd like to but my insurance won't let me.". Any of you guys that I don't have on ignore are welcome to come hunt with me. It ain't easy though.

So what about deer and hogs? Lots of people say hogs are detrimental to deer. I really haven't seen that yet. While I know hogs will eat some fawns and compete for acorns, we have enough year around browse out of the reach of the hogs that I don't think it is all that much of an issue. Although, I might well be wrong.

We see boars chasing young deer all the time. I can't say as that I've ever heard of one catching one, but it's probably not good for them.

Pigs will eat their own young if hungry enough. They certainly will eat whitetail newborns and fawns. A group of pigs will leave a smell in the area that will spook mature deer. Grunt like a pig when a deer is in front of you and see how they react. Tom

Are they running them or just chasing them out of the way?

Hogs will kill fawns, but you don't catch them at it often. I doubt it occurs too much.

There's lots to be learned by the general public and publications like this one are out there, free for the reading.

http://plumcreek.tamu.edu/media/10192/feralhogpopulationgrowthdensityandharvestfinal.pdf

To say that the feral hog problem can solved by hunting, or it's root cause is deer feeders is pure horseschidt. (Sorry John, but nothing even comes close to substantiating that.)

They're definitely running them, but it's no contest and I don't understand why they do it, unless it was good to them when the fawns were little.

Nope, no evidence at all. No wildlife biologist would ever utter such nonsense.

http://www.nola.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2013/08/louisiana_deer_hunters_unwitti.html

And I've seen deer almost abandon feeders and food plots when hogs show up hard and heavy. The cameras prove it.

That is kind of weird.

Finally!!!! Recognition!!!!!!

Thanks Barry!!!! LOL!!!

(Jez funnin')

There's no doubt that, but they don't go far. I don't think hogs are hard on deer. They're hard on people. There are only three things that are really bad for deer. Dogs, drought and the rut.

Not saying they don't chow down at them. I'm saying the root cause is not that.

There was a very strong growing population in recent years in the Sacramento Mountains in NM, where I was stationed as a Wildlife Specialist dealing with the issue.

The hogs have ZERO deer feeders there. None for a couple hundred miles or more in any direction.

Yet they thrive.

Hog populations are thriving in environments suitable to them thriving.

Where is Jerry "American Hoggers" Campbell and his dysfunctional family who were catching hog on TV a couple of years ago?

And I continue to kill deer regardless if dogs are around, but I don't doubt they kill a lot of deer and young deer... yotes get the rap, dogs do the killing, speaking of wild dogs...

The hogs sure move the deer off known food sources, plots, feeders, protein feeders etc....

You don't have to go that far to find em back though typically, they just don't want to be all that close to pigs.

A strong and growing population is one thing. Swarms of them are another altogether.

A strong and growing population soon becomes a swarm in 6-9 months. Tom

JPro ,

About the same here come hunting season -no hogs - in other words if the weather is cool enough to feel like hunting and skinning -no hogs- . Plus as stated earlier when deer hunters fill feeders for deer season hogs eat a lot of it at night and are gone when deer hunters are hunting.

I put out 600lbs. of corn yesterday -our lease has an unspoken thing called CORN-WARS - I plan on heading out to hunt my spot tomorrow.
Think of how many hogs 600lbs. of corn feed .
Our members would rather hunt hogs than deer -coyotes/bears/gators/eagles have killed most of the deer so people hunt what there is to hunt.
2,000 acre lease and only 2-3 deer killed per year.
Myself I don't bother with deer -wouldn't shoot one -there just aren't enough to justify it for me.

Like Eddybo the board member who passed away a couple years ago said -hogs will grow in numbers until the next great depression .

Memory sucks... lincoln area? Maybe?

I remember hunting there in the early 2000s... MZ. Had not been there in 10 years... we are up on top trying to find back a 25 inch buck that an elk hunter blew out along wiht elk by stupidly wandering around in fog you couldn't see 50 feet in... but I digress...

So up on top, glassing and hear grunting.. buddy says pigs... I say nope, ain't none of them SOBs here...gotta be a bear... we keep watching, across low oak scrub comes more noise... and then finally somehting like 8-12 hogs. Not pigs. Hogs... I doubt there was a single one under 300. I didn't want to shoot and spook the possible buck...I'd have never drug em down either...

But I was flat amazed.. that was somehting like 2003 IIRC.

We had bowhunted in the area, I can't recall the name, it was between blue canyon and buck canyon though(last one was wildly aptly named over years of archery) Mayhill maybe.

Yet there are no deer feeders here...



You get swarms as time goes on. Some areas in NM have very dense populations and just as much damage from hogs as in Texas.

Yeah, Mayhill and the Lincoln Natl. Forest are the most impacted area I have seen.

Multiplying regularly.

I guess it's the pinon nuts...

I was FLAT amazed. Never expected to see them there...

Yep.

For sure. I've seen it myself.

We were noticing how quickly hogs, deer and coyote carcassas were devoured over night at our camp gut pile. We assumed it was coyotes, but put out a trail camera. To our surprise, it was a bunch of hogs that came in at night, cleaned the carcasses down to the bones on all comers, including hogs.

Hogs are equal opportunity scavengers and will eat just about anything, including their own kin...

Disgusting critters.

DF

I've had hogs root up pasture and knock over feeders that weren't staked down but i've never had them leave gates open so cows could get out, leave beer cans and trash everywhere or think that a one time invitation is a lifetime pass to bring everyone they want out. But i have had guests do all of these things. Between opening up the place to anyone and everyone and putting up with hogs I'll take the hogs. I would probably feel different if I planted row crops or something similar but using the land for hunting and a few cows the hogs are minor nuisance that are offset by having something fun to hunt. I think that's probably how most landowners in my area view them as well.

Texas does have a statute providing that landowners who open up their land for recreational purposes free of charge are immune from suit unless they willfully injure the person. But that's not something that is going to prevent a lawsuit, rather its something that will get the lawsuit dismissed after the landowner's spent several thousand dollars getting the suite answered and motion to dismiss filed.

Bowhunting years ago a buddy gut shot a doe in Llano... rule is you don't follow gut hits for 8 hours and they will be in the first bed dead within 100 yards. Pretty simple. Daytime anyway. Although this is the only one in 20 years we lost at night.

Found the bed the next morning. Found some hair not a lot. Never found any bones or anything, other than a few jaw fragments of the doe. NOTHING else at all.

Certainly an interesting "discussion" you've gotten started here mudhen. One thing is for sure, whether it's landowners or Fish and Wildlife departments, there's a supply of money to be had apparently, for the "privilege" of reducing numbers of a non-native pest species. At least in some states.

Years ago the same issue cropped up in California. "landowners' wanted the numbers reduced, there were tags available for $5 a piece in a book of five, and that book could be replaced when filled. As I recall, and I may be mistaken in some areas, access was usually easy to obtain and either free or for a reasonable fee. Landowners wanted the dang things gone. When it became known that folks were willing to shell out money, and probably for "inflation" of management costs, prices went up, substantially in my opinion.

From the CDFW website
Non-res license: $163.65 Res: $47.01

Non-res pig tag: $77.34 each (not five as before) Res: $22.41

Pigs harvested (reported) in '14-'15: only 1605 total.

https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=115776&inline


Now, I wonder if harvest go up if fees were dropped?

Seeing as how a good percentage of the hogs are taken n private land, usually a guide is needed. Here's a couple of examples:

Tejon Ranch (largest private one in CA):
Guided: weekday, $1200 each, $1800 single hunter 3 d. hunts
weekend: $1400/$1800 as above
Or there's a group hunt for ONLY $6000 for up to 8 hunters.

sacriverguide: $350/day guide fee + $400 kill fee

There's more info out there for those interested in checking prices for a hog hunt.

These are not fees that a fella of low-moderate means can afford to hunt a pest species. At least not the fellas I know.

Now here's one that gets me, in a wine region where the hogs are mostly not welcome:

Northern California hog hunting on 7,500+ acres of private land. The Outfitter takes pride in his Quality Management Program and will only harvest boars. (my emphasis) I couldn't find a price, but this is what pig managers are up against.

There's enough money to be made that there is a "reverse" incentive to getting rid of them. Another poster rightly pointed out that the excess production from nearby sounders will soon invade neighboring properties. I have to wonder if the 7500 + acres mentioned above is unsuitable for crop production so they let the sows ride free, to the detriment of the neighboring Ag areas?

Someone suggested finding a pathogen/parasite to deal with them. Scary stuff there, I bet our southern friends down Australia way would like to go back in time and redo cane toad and fox introductions that were used in an attempt to control invasives.

If possible, maybe some of our WY/MT and that area guys could chip in with what landowners up there think/charge/don't charge for "pest" (gophers. prairie dogs) removal by willing hunters.

I'm one who has a hard time spending good money for access to remove a pest species from someone's land. I'd also consider it "complaining" if a landowner asks for depredation permits to remove the state's animals from the property. If not a problem (complaint) then why apply for a permit. Note , this may not apply to TX as I'm not familiar with their regs for "pests" on private property, whether the pests belong to the people of the State or not. If a landowner doesn't want the animals on their property, fence them out. ( just like if you don't want the hawks to get your chickens, you better put up the bird mesh overhead, same goes for deer in the orchard)

Geno

PS, how's this for a solution, sure to bug the H out of the Texans. Take all that land in TX and have the State buy it up for Public Land, charge grazing fees, lease out hayfields, and open it up to Public Hunting! (sarcasm font off now)

They will not eat dead javelina, though mountain lions will....

Now that's interesting, they won't eat a javelina.

I had thought of including introducing/re-introducing mt. lions to parts of TX as a solution to the pig problem, and they'd more than likely help out with the javelina on those places that don't like having so many. Pretty sure they are the major predator of javelina in AZ.

Geno

PS, rost, stay safe on your call-outs. one can never be too careful there.

Nuts here lately, though I"m almost at 48 hours without a page right now which is NICE... It was probably Christmas time starting that we had not gone a single day without at least one call...

I don't know about mountain lions and live pigs and live javelina, I know they eat/bury dead javelina and pigs both.

But feral pigs have never touched a javelina when I've been around.

I'm thinking his health is pretty bad. As I have said before I nearly ran over his ass in his ratty old Jeep as he was trying to cross over the hwy from one pasture to another. Big Ford diesel was waiting behind him. He and his family lost their jobs in the excitement of the filming of that show. Only a little industry in Brownwood. This was about 4 miles from the farm when I had left and going back to DFW.
He needs to be kept off the roads for sure.

Not many hogs on my place, one pic. in 5 years. 2:00am

Here's a question-what does hog chit look like. Who has a pic.?

I see weird scat , not sure if it's a hog or what.

My outfitter buddy down in AZ says they just love the little "reds". Haven't spent enough time out in the wilds down there to have seen it myself, but they sure would be a tasty snack for a big kitty.

Enjoy what's left of the day there, I better get to doin' a bit more here too.

Geno

U guys need some wolves ! 1st off tag every wolf you turn lose ...after some time most all the pigs will be gone ...then turn on the taged wolves "tags". ...then wack them ! Easy chit!

wolves would die of heat stroke here... LOL. I damn near do every year..

Was only in the 60s the other day and fought a car fire with full bunker gear. Even my socks and drawers were wet.....thats flipping February....

Even me?

Deer will be thrilled to know disease, wolves, coyotes, bears, and cougars are no longer a threat to them. I'll be sure and pass the word along.

Don't forget deep snow and poor habitat.

Let's add down here in Tx. Fireball

I know I had to laugh too. Having a Texan lecture us about deer hunting is like taking love advice from a hooker.

Who's us?

Pig [bleep] is not far removed from people [bleep]. Depends on what they've been eatin' and how wormy they are. Same with hogs.

I went and googled it. You are correct.

http://articles.extension.org/pages/63654/feral-hog-field-sign

That's not what this looked like. Should of taken a pic.

Not you.

Whew

Last time I was there me and some co-workers killed a couple dozen (26 to be exact) and did about same the two times before that.

Ate another one (we let the rancher get us an eater and they cook them

I would like to do the helicopter thing but too expensive

"Us" would be those of "us" that live amongst several different species of deer and that hunt those different species. "We" know the difference, behaviorally speaking, of the various species and corn feeders don't factor in.

"Us" don't have leases and have real mountains we hunt. Generally speaking "us" live in the mountainous west.

I didn't include you in the "us" for those reasons and believe you could benefit from the deer lecture.

Hope that clears it up for ya. Carry on.

texas has plenty of lions.

TFF I'm dying

Thanks for the compliment! Hookers are professionals, I guess that makes us the same.

Hard to believe with Texas' lax hunting regulations... just look what the nation was able to do with the buffalo herds! Hell I think most people prefer rely on pork more so than beef, problem should be easy to cure.

Phil

How did the hogs that ran wild around the southern areas of the country less than 100 years ago all get wiped out until recently?

What worked then that won't work now?

Hell even here in California hunting is year round and as many as you purchase tags for.

Phil

As long as there are areas for pigs to retreat to and not be pressured they will multiply and thrive. Around here there are military reservations (Camp Bullis 28,000 acres) mostly cedar with few roads, state parks that don't allow hunting and ranches and so on. Never gonna control them through hunting. Tom

Right. The only place that it's illegal to kill hogs around here are the numerous State and Federal wildlife refuges.

I reckon you can include Volvos and meteorites if we want to get technical.

A Texan who owned a game farm in Wisconsin brought several hogs from Texas and let them loose on the farm to hunt. A bunch of them escaped and became a problem. The Wisconsin DNR told the public to shoot them on sight.

650,000 deer hunters a year in the field and DNR sharpshooters helped the general public, plus I am sure the wolves got a few. Wiped the feral hog population out.

[/quote]

It was interesting while it lasted.

They never got as thick as they are now. They were harvested every year in the fall through community hunts with dogs and lots of people. Plus, things weren't as thick then as they are now. Most of these bottoms and thickets out there now we're cotton and corn fields back then.

My friend shot video of deer being run off a corn pile by turkeys. Must be sensitive souls.

Spent some HOT summer days and nights at Bullis during my Army days. Saw a fair amount of game, turkeys, etc. It's a shame they don't allow hunting in there. Would be a good place to kill some hogs.

DF

Funny you mention that. Somewhere around 95% of the hogs I've whacked in the course of an eradication program went to a non-profit whose primary function is to give wayward lads a second chance. The judge sez something like "Boy, I ought to hang you but I'm going to give you a choice. Jail or XXXX."

They almost always go for the second chance. They greet me with knives in hand and eat pork for a few days or weeks. There's usually 50-60 hungry boys there. They nearly messed their drawers one day when I dropped 5 hogs on them at one time. That's a lot of skinnin'...

They used to allow hunting by drawing on Bullis. Least they were 8-10 years ago. That may have changed. Seen some big deer there!!!

OK ..my cold weather wolf idea got shot down....how's about we load up teaxs 😂 with a bunch of japs/Asians...they did a fine job of killing all the game in Korea during the big war ...hell they even took all the trees! The way dogs and cats are gone from a city once their settled in is F/ing amazing!

..just trying to help ...or I could coming down an shoot few ,just to do my part! 😀😀

Hunting is allowed there but only during regular hunting seasons and usually weekends only. I have bow hunted there for 26 years and it has gone from no pigs 4-5 years ago to groups of 15-20 pigs coming to my feeder 2-3 nights a week last year. They are mostly nocturnal but I did get 2 last year. Large areas of land behind the ranges as well as main base area are off limits to hunting. Feral Hog study is currently underway there. Tom

To win a war on feral hogs, land owners need an attitude adjustment. Have to forget that they are food animals and think of them as enemy animals. It needs to be OK generally to get over the idea of wasting food, and start poisioning them like coyotes used to be poisioned.

How many litters of calves does a buffalo cow have per year?🙄

No doubt, if someone comes up with a truly effective method of eliminating the hogs, the Protectors of Pigs and the Texas Historical Society will go to court and get an injunction to stop the slaughter of these historic relics of the Spanish Expeditions...


not to mention, Old Yeller.

As long as feral pigs bring in as much money as they do to state and local economies they'll never be eradicated.

I guess I should stop wishing we had them in Oregon in huntable numbers.

You should ,you are part of the "we" you have mountain deer of various species to hunt

Ain't no money to speak of made from hog hunters.

Yeah....sure. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big proponent of the money hunting and fishing brings to small local economies. It's a great thing. From food, beer, ice, gas, butchers, guides and waitresses all benefit. How much will the local economy benefit from 26 good dudes descending upon Crystal Texas? How much are out of state licenses and tags? How much is a lease? How much corn gets involuntarily donated to feral pigs? It all adds up.



2016 Campfire hog hunt 3/9/16-3/13/16(Wed-Sun)
Arrive Wed. Afternoon hunt Thurs.-Sat. and depart Sunday a.m.
All meals and lodging, 3 hogs on 14,000 acre ranch(5000 high fence 9000 low)
45 blinds so no doubling up unless you choose to.
3 to a room each room has its own bathroom with shower
Cost for every thing(excluding license,butchering and tips) is $750.00
We will be hunting near Crystal City TX once again
There WILL be hogs to shoot!
We will have a max of 26 hunters,and again previous attendees will have 1st dibs.

Here is a link to the ranch

the depression, i would guess.

Idaho's elk population recovered from the depression just in time for the feds to turn the wolves loose on them.

The boys in Texas are welcome to all the wolves they want to trap and transport.

That's not a drop in the bucket compared to deer hunting by locals in that same area.

There just aren't many large scale hog hunting operations around. Certainly not enough to have much impact on the economy.

Screw worms were the limiting factor. Screw worm eradication helped the livestock, deer, and unfortunately the pigs.

Interesting how people who are NOT landowners always want free access to land? If you folks think hogs are such "pests", why would you even want to hunt them? I have hogs on my property, much prefer them to trespassers! Even here in Texas, they kinda frown on us shooting strangers we catch on our property, but not so the hogs!

Also, the ones who spout off the most nonsense about the hogs situation, naturally, are the ones who know the least about it.

Since Flave doesn't seem to be around, I'll say it - GFY!

Lots ya'll will never know about the hod situation down here, or a lot of other things.

That's exactly the question I'm asking Mike. WTF would anyone pay to hunt a feral and invasive species is beyond me.

The "you owe me something" non-land owners are easy to spot and fun to laugh at. They don't have a clue.

Excellent post.

Hogs were never "wiped out". At least not here. During the great depression, the woods were full of hogs and were considered somebody's property.

Hogs were never "wiped out". At least not here. During the great depression, the woods were full of hogs and were considered somebody's property. [/quote]

I was born and raised on the Concho river just east of San Angelo, Texas. This part of west Texas is covered up in WT deer and has been since before I was born.
My father on the other hand never saw a WT deer until he was 15 years old and that was near Houston. According to him we have always had hogs along the river bottoms but the deer only showed up after several truckloads were brought in from south Texas to a big ranch west of town in the early 1950's.

Same here. My parents and their siblings were dirt poor and raised in the red lands of East Texas, living off the land. I'll never forget my uncle (who would be 100) telling me that he was 18 before he ever saw a live deer.

Then why so much bitching about hog problems? miles

My granddad was the same. He was born and raised in Llano County, and told me when he was a kid, there were no deer there.

Someone must have put a bunch of automatic deer feeders out every few steps in the 50's and 60's for the population to have grown to what it is in that county now...

Jeffbird hit on a factor that is seldom recognized as the epic event it was for wildlife and livestock survival.

Good job, Jeff.

On that note, it is estimated that the whitetail population of the entire United States was 250,000 in 1900.

I'm always the first to laugh at an Aggie joke but it was some folks at Texas A&M that came up with the method to eradicate the screw worm. It's development completely changed the game for livestock and wildlife in the south!

Some fairly recent estimates of a few states on deer populations.



Musta been all those deer feeders...

My dad tells me that when he was a kid in the 50s that if someone saw a deer track they went to town and told about it as a big deal.

As for deer feeders, they have nothing to do with deer numbers as that deer only breed once a year and they provide little in the way of nutrition for them. On our place, the deer won't eat corn. They prefer other stuff. All you get are pictures of coons and hogs on the corn.

I was surprised, when reading "Journal of a Trapper, that Osbourne Russel who was born around 1800 and lived in Maine had never fired a rifle until he went West around 1830.

Apparently game was not nearly as plentiful by that time as I had always imagined.

In 1960, when I left for the Service, I would have to travel 20 miles to find deer. When I came home in 1964, they were all over this country.

There had always been wild hogs in the Squaw Mountain area in Northern Jack County but they had never migrated west of HWY 281 into Young County.

In the 'seventies, a couple of brothers who owned a ranch in the Squaw Mountain are rigged up a trailer with a trap door and caught hogs. Leasing pastures for deer hunting was becoming common by then and hunters would pay the boys to bring a trailer load to a pasture they had leased. They would feed them corn and water them in the trailer for a few days, then release them with a corn feeder placed where the trailer had been.

I know of three pastures, myself, here in North Young County where this was done.

In a very few years, hogs were plentiful all the way from Squaw Mountain to Jean. They seem to set up boundaries and stay in those boundaries for a long time. I saw the same thing in Cottle County, out under the Caprock. They stayed in pockets, even though the country adjacent to them was just like the area where they were established. Then they would suddenly appear miles away.

Just like W T deer, they use the rivers and large creeks as migration routes when they do spread out.

One of my long time M D hunting partners has a flying service in rice country and has a helicopter used strictly for facilitating rice "breeding" and killing hogs, since they are death on a rice field.

They do little damage to range land, wheat, or cotton, but play hell with a hay field.

Watching you tough guys "drive" hogs around here would be worth BIG money.

I could drive one right out of that 500 acre pine plantation into that impenetrable thicket.

I'd buy a ticket to watch

It would be the funniest show ever.

Any greenbriars in Wisconsin?

I was thinking prickly pear...

A "stroll" along an East Texas river or South Texas pear flat would be a hoot to watch.

Wisconsin hunters chase black bears with dogs.
I wonder if bear hunting dogs would chase pigs?

Yup. The challenge is getting to them once they're bayed.

They wipe out corn here, simply by rooting the seed as its planted.. Its amazing... folks have to replant quite often... once up its not bad though.

You don't have a clue.
You'd be better of trying to reason with them and LEAD them where ever you want them to go...

Evidently some folks can NOT read, I"ve mentioned a lawsuit to a landowner in this thread TWICE now...

As to pigs being dumber than old bucks.... well that says a LOT for the posters ignorance of pigs.

You can run them with dogs just like you do deer. That's how the settlers used to get them up when they rounded them up every fall. The problem with dogs is that there aren't very many people who actually keep hunting dogs these days. They are just too much trouble and work.

Kids having fun with their pups...

I've seen where hogs have gone through rows shoulder to shoulder eating the freshly planted corn kernels out of rows. When they got to the end of the field they turn around and clean out another bunch of rows in the opposite direction.

Not to worry, I'm sure Monsanto is working on a solution to the hog problem as we speak. We will worry about what the effects are to human consumption when we have to cross that bridge....

True dat, and the hogs that lived in the river bottoms were unmolested...livestock allowed to fend for itself. One of the coolest things about them is how fast they can be domesticated or go "feral".

Pigs consistently rank among the smartest animals. Door latches in pens and hog houses are no problem for them. And I even saw a bunch of them make an improvised slip and slide out of some wet visqueen in a hog house when I was a kid. They were funny and looked just like a bunch of kids.

When I was a lad in high school I didn't know you could hunt them without dogs.

Well, ok, I dont have a clue. Ya can have the hogs then. They are all yours. As for us. we dont have hog problems. We kill them on sight like Roundoak also mentioned. Matter of fact hunters knocked on farmers doors and asked to hunt for hogs. The hogs , although have it tougher up here from winters , didn't last long enough for most hunters in Wisconsin to even see one. And dont think we dont have brush like Briers and prickery pear. We got all kinds of stuff, even tag alder swamps. Oh well, hope I didn't hurt anyones feelings from down south. If you have land and hog problems , there are plenty of guys on this forum that are respectable and smart enough to not shoot a cow ( the lamest excuse to refuse hunters) , shoot tractors, get drunk and leave beer cans and candy wrappers and rut up the fields, ETC. that if you really wanted the hogs gone, again , there are good people on this forum would no doubt get a few pigs removed. Until then, good luck with the hogs.

Joe Bob... in the immortal words of Jerb Snow..."You just get ignoranter and ignoranter all the time".

We kill 'em on sight too.

Problem is, when they are 50 yards from a brushy creek when you see 20 of them, how many shots are you going to get?

Then how long before you see the group again?

...and east of Houston, everything is "brushy"...or swamp...or marsh.

TFF you obviouly have never been to TX

I've NEVER seen Mikewriter complain about hogs. I never have because I"m lucky not to have them.

If you had to hunt them the way I have to for a friend, free and all... you wouldn't hunt them very long... nocturnal. No clue or timing when they come... I"ve invested some cash in a detector and some cameras, and a good mat and sleeping bag... and I sleep nights out, ONLY when the wind is one direction if not tehy will smell you, IMHO their noses are about 1000 times better than a deers nose... And I've had alerts on my detector at 2am, me sleeping behind some stuff and 75 yards from them, make too much noise sliding out of a sleeping bag and spook them... before I could grab the rifle and get a shot... but when its deer or coons or such I"ve never had them know I was there...

30 years ago, before lawyers sued for anything, you could get permission for about anything, 50 years ago for sure.

We even pay to hunt hogs and such at reasonable rates around 75 a day, just for fun and to get away.

I won't pay much more though personally.

And I have seen the expensive hunts. Can't fault a person for trying to make some money off their property really.

And the lady I hunt for, she is really risking a lot of liability, but knows me personally so its not a big thing.

There is no easy solution for sure. I sure see all the sides of this puzzle.

The one thing I can say, shooting will not get rid of htem all, especially if you can't hunt EVERYWHERE. If they have sanctuary, they will continue to thrive.

I agree that a few folks here would make good safe hunters.

The problem is removing a few isn't going to help.

It would be FUN though, thats for sure, but it won't help a thing.

Kill 10 pigs, and thats a stretch for a couple of days hunting, and one sow drops a litter of 15.... you are already loosing again...

I"m not a bad shot.... The most I've ever killed at a single time was 7 with buckshot. 5 with a rifle. As noted when do you see them the next time? 2-3 litters later?

At the end of the deer skin trade (late 18th century) there were Creeks from central Alabama, Coosa/Talapoosa River area, who were venturing as far west as east Texas in search of deer. They had become extinct for all practical purposes in the SE!
At the Poste des Nachitos in the mid 18th century, Louisiana, the deer carcasses rotted outside the post while the Habitants dined on pork, deer hair scraped from the bids was used as temper in the bousiage (mortar) n all the buildings. It was easier to use that the usual Spanish moss. The moss had to be cooked in order to kill it! To keep it from growing in the wall of a structure!

One French officer at the Post des Alibamons (1740's) stated one Creek hunter took 366 deer in one year with bow and arrow!

Interestingly, by 1790, Methodist minister among the Choctaw in Mississippi stated he had never seen a Choctaw male use a bow and arrow! They all had firearms.

Thank you RBB.

We live in the golden age of deer hunting thanks to this effort.





The properties I have hunted all have a standing rule that any hog seen must be shot on sight. Not wanting to mess up a hunt for Mr. Big Horns is not an excuse. Failure to do so is cause to be asked to leave and never return.

Here are a few photos to give a feel for South Texas. This is from the western side of South Texas, aka "The Golden Triangle."

The area is harsh, and most every plant in these photos have thorns, but the country is beautiful in its own way and a place I love.

The first photo shows electric poles for reference; note most the of the brush is about 1/2 the height of the pole.

Skinning deer will have prickly pear thorns in the front legs and chest. It always makes me wonder what they feel living every minute of every day with the cactus thorns in them.

To Miles, no one has ever heard me "whine" about hogs on my place! I have a small piece of land, and the feral hogs that cross it (and stay for awhile) Are both a crop and sport for me - but my place is mostly "jungle", not much they can do to cause damage.

I grew up with feral hogs in East Texas. Hogs here were not introduced or spread by hunters, but by hog owners. A lot of East Texas has pretty much always been paper/timber company land, and hogs were just free-roaming livestock. When I was in high school(1960's) Newton County, on the Louisiana border, still did not have a "stock law", so anyone could register an earmark at the county courthouse and turn their hogs loose to fend pretty much for themselves. They were "rounded up" with dogs and traps. The big boom came when prices of feral hogs went to nearly nothing, and the owners just stopped messing with them. As I've mentioned here before, I killed a lot of hogs as a teenager, but it was not strictly legal.

Feral hogs are considered an "invasive species" in Texas now, with no seasons or bag limits, and very few - if any - restrictions on hunting/harvesting them. Private property still must be respected, and access to state owned or controlled land is limited. A Valid Texas hunting license is required to hunt ANYTHING in Texas, although land owners can obtain permits to kill destructive hogs that will cover anyone they designate and over ride the need for a state license, I think.

As most know, hunting has become a big business in Texas, with exotics and hogs playing a large part in that. Because there are no restrictions on the species, they can extend a "hunting year" considerably, which is good for the landowner and hunters. Hunting will NOT eliminate hogs - they are too smart and too adaptable and too prolific. Helicopter hunts don't work too well in which brush, and the hogs quickly learn what the sound of a "chopper" means. If a landowner is suffering damage from hogs, turning the tables on them and using hunters to make them a "cash crop" is only an intelligent response. The world is a different place now than when I was in high school. Back then we could hunt on most paper company land without "permission", and I had several sections of wooded property that belonged to neighbors I did have permission t hunt on. Liabilities and the behavior of some people have just about ended those days, and the economy has largely taken away free hunting. Most landowners don't allow unlimited access to cut trees, either.

As to "driving" hogs with dogs, you don't really do that. Hogs don't like dogs, and pressuring them with dog hunting will often move them off a property for a time - but they aren't that much afraid of dogs, and will usually stop and fight, rather than run ahead of them. This means the hunter has to go in the thickets with the dogs, as has already been mentioned, when the hogs are bayed. Depending on both the dog and the hog, it may them be difficult to get a clear shot, which is one of the reasons some dog hunters use knives to kill their hogs. This is not a non-contact sport!

Somebody asked me awhile back if I still had a hog problem on my place? I told him, no, that they seemed to have moved off for a bit, but were back regularly now. He thought a bit and then said you obviously don't consider them a problem? Personally, I don't. I usually get a deer every year off my property, but I can shoot hogs all year, day and night - trap them if I want. They keep me busy in my old age, and can provide my family with more meat than I could "raise" on my small property by conventional livestock farming.

So, no, I don't complain about the hogs, and because I do have a small property, I don't need help from the general public to "control" them. Your results may vary, of course.

You can have Texas and everything in it. Give me mountains to run, rain, visibility, canyons, lush creeks, hanging moss, blacktail deer and black bears. I love the desert west, but don't think Texas would be all that much fun to hunt.

Hunt a family place in Deep South Texas. Loaded with hogs. Same rule for hogs; see it, shoot it! The place is also FULL Of turkey, deer, and quail. Matter of fact it is loaded with all manner of fauna! I've literally had to drive the turkey out of my way walking back to ranch house! Sometimes 100's. Occasionally un-invited bipeds show too! All surrounding ranches same way! Loaded! But as I stated in earlier post. Hogs can be more of a nuisance that a pest to us! I've seen bucks run hogs off! And I've seen javelina run deer off.

Thanks to Jeffbird for those beautiful pictures! Folks do need to remember, though, that Texas has a wide and varied geography , with various vegetation. On my part of the Texas coast, we have tall oak and pecan trees, and palmettos instead of prickly pears. Our brush is as thick as South Texas in many places, just not quite as thorny! Oh, and it's WET here! Hogs love it.

I had a plantar wart on my foot. It was painful. When I approached the Doctor about paying me to let him remove it, he laughed.

So what the [bleep] do you have a problem with there? When I was a kid, every redneck I knew who hunted deer had a pen full of blue ticks and walkers. Now, only a few of the diehards and the old men do. Dogs are expensive to keep and they take a lot of time and work. Agricultural jobs gave you the time to do that. Jobs like we have today pretty much don't. And most people don't bother because deer are easier to kill without dogs than they are with them. And around here, nobody cares enough about hogs to keep too many big dogs.

As for how it used to be done. In my town, every year after the first frost, the town got together and put the dogs in the bottoms. They would round up the hogs with the dogs and shoot as many as they neede and divide them out. My one armed great grandfather would shoot them behind the ear with a 25-20 that I wished we still had.

Easy to understand the sentiment, but of all of the places I have hunted, South Texas is my favorite by far.

Guess it all depends on what we experience growing up. Cold and wet is a nice break for us for a vacation in August, but drier and warmer is more enjoyable to me for hunting. Here is some pig hunting in November, note the cold weather clothing.

In Texas, landowners have very limited exposure to liability for hunting related activities.

Here is a link to the Texas Recreational Use Statute for reference for any landowners that might read this thread.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/CP/htm/CP.75.htm
[/quote]

As to a payout yes that's true and Texas Law. As has been talked about above, you still have to get a $500 hour lawyer to defend yourself again said lawsuit, right or wrong. Then you have to file a lawsuit to maybe get your money back, which cost more. Not worth the trouble.

As to a payout yes that's true and Texas Law. As has been talked about above, you still have to get a $500 hour lawyer to defend yourself again said lawsuit, right or wrong. Then you have to file a lawsuit to maybe get your money back, which cost more. Not worth the trouble.
[/quote]

No, even anyone bringing a case is incredibly rare. If one was brought insurance pays for the cost of defense, same as for a car wreck. Honestly, do you know of a suit against a landowner in Texas in the last ten years since the Recreational Use Statute has been in effect?

This was discussed on the Texas Hunting Forum, and not one single person could point to a single suit against a landowner arising from hunting.

I love lots of territory, thankfully I'm not to blinded to be arrogant enough to say I want mine and you can shove yours..

FWIW we have a few mountains, rain, canyons, lush creeks, moss out the wazoo, enough so that it kills trees, and black bears. And we have a bit of West TX that is like desert too...

And we have LOTs of other things..

We don't have blacktails, though we have whitetails, carmens IIRC, and mule deer. I like sitka blacktails... sure wouldn't tell someone to keep them either.

But then again for some reason I expect this type of post from some folks. Those folks likely are better off just staying in their little world rather than expanding their horizons.

Hey we even have public land you can hunt here for free too! And I"ve killed more than just a couple deer/pigs off it... ducks, geese, rabbits, squirrels and so on... amazing what folks have no clue about.

As to comments on thickets... Jeffbirds pics show it to some extent but lets just say I"ve trailed pigs (blood trail) in stuff where the ONLY way to follow and find the pig is literally crawling in tunnels in the brush...and as noted, there isn't much that doesn't have thorns, thank God for whitebrush and bufflegrass....

Good work! I hate our heat. Really HATE it. I quit saltwater fishing in the spring when its to warm to wear a hooded sweatshirt for the most part.

I'd rather put clothes on than take it off.. LOL.

Thankfully I will be mostly solving that heat issue in about 5 years.

Only place I've hunted ducks where I have to keep a can of OFF in my backpack... phug that. Sweat in a deer blind. Sweat walking to the stand.

Its likely one reason I mostly stopped bowhunting, it was impossible not to sweat and stink and deer ain't so dumb that they ignore wind direction most of the time. LOL And pigs NEVER ignore wind direction coming to a stand.

But I digress.

Me telling someone how to manage wolves would be like wolf managers telling you how to manage pigs.

Some probably think if we wanted to, we could kill all crows too.... LOL, ya know they are so dumb too.

During WW2, the government physicians tried to develop a scientific method to figure out physical traits to screen inductees on whether they would function better in cold or hot AO's. Finally, someone decided to just ask the person if they preferred hot or cold weather.

No, even anyone bringing a case is incredibly rare. If one was brought insurance pays for the cost of defense, same as for a car wreck. Honestly, do you know of a suit against a landowner in Texas in the last ten years since the Recreational Use Statute has been in effect?

This was discussed on the Texas Hunting Forum, and not one single person could point to a single suit against a landowner arising from hunting.

[/quote]

Well not a lawyer here, so don't get in the civil area of law at all.
Got to be some lawsuits, but a civil lawyer I'm sure could look up some cases for you. With his fee of course.

If you really want to find out if any farmers/ranchers have been sued for letting others hunt their land, somebodies bound to know how to look that up. Rost (jeff) has said he knows of such a deal up above somewhere.
On Farm, auto, home, liability insurance would use as a last choice. Use it your going to lose it type deal or the cost will go up.
Pay for things if I can.

As far as killing all the hogs in Texas goes. Going to do my best in March of this year for 3 whole days. That should take care of them.
Ahhh well one would make me happy.

That kind of logic might work on a Texan but shows complete ignorance. Perhaps you big mouthed Texans should hire the local Dr to rid you of pigs. Course being rid of the pig problem means you'd have to find something else to bltch about. Next time you need an exterminator see if he'll pay you to fix your problems.

About 20? Years back there were a bunch of pigs that got loose and started breeding on the Olympic peninsula and were breeding in the wild. The state opened the gates of hell on those pigs. No limit, no license no rules. Within 1 year the problem was eradicated. Of course the jungle rainforest isn't Texas and our hunters ain't Texans (thank god). This thread is TFF. Listening to a New Yorker that wishes he was a Texan only adds a layer of stupid you can only get here

It's hard for some folks to grasp the size of some South Texas ranches. The last one I hunted had 2o miles of river frontage. No white men and very few Indians ever walked that. Full of all kinds of game and plenty of hogs. Hasbeen

Just keep your ass up there, we'll be happy with that. Up in Democrat land. Soon you will get to chase whatever with a spear.

They really have no concept.

Remedial reading may be in order. FAIL

For everyone's info. the OP of this article is a women writer out of Houston.
Shannon Tompkins, that's her name.

No that is incorrect. Shannon is very much a man, and very much an experienced hunter and outdoorsman, not that it matters one way or the other.

I know some women hunters that few men can match.

Well OK, I don't live down there in the area as you do. So he's the whiner as the PNW folks like to say.

Just keep your ass up there, we'll be happy with that.

I swear to God they add stupid drops to the drinking water in PNW
3/4 of the ignorance and dumphuckery on the 'fire originates there
Continue to hunt your elusive mountain deer...remember to not wear blue and an azz shot is best

You Texas boys get pretty butthurt over your terrain no doubt. My point is that I have no desire to hunt thorn infested thickets for whitetail deer or pigs. Maybe someday I will, but I doubt it. It's beautiful in the PNW, and we've got some damn wild ground to hunt. Not saying it's better, although the argument could be made 7 ways to Sunday, just more to my liking.

But you guys have some good game there, no doubt about that. Our deer populations are diminishing, for a few reasons, elk are tough to hunt with the hunting pressure we have in Oregon, and we only have one batch of pigs last I knew. Still, we got scenery in spades, and game to be found, although you have to work at it.

FB,
not sure what you are talking about. As long as folks get outside and enjoy the day wherever they are that is good enough me.


dvd,

you are welcome here anytime.

Hell I love to hunt every place,it's hunting. Mountains,prairie,forest,agriculture,hill country or brush country!
Variety is fun

Talking to friends out of state they seem to have the impression that everyone in Texas is under siege by pigs and wants them gone immediately. While the pigs are widespread the places that are complaining of them wrecking havoc and want them gone aren't hunting land, its golf courses, new suburbs that back up to green belts and farmers with row crops.

An out of stater expecting to come in to shoot pigs for free "because they are helping the landowner get rid of a nuisance" is about like me expecting some outfitter in rural Oregon to let me hunt for free because I read in the paper that there are too many Elk and deer in a suburb of Portland.

Most people here that have land suitable for hunting don't seem to mind hogs that much as they give something to hunt in the offseason.

I've seen that happen too. But I've also seen deer eat corn standing fairly near foxes that were also there to eat corn. Go figure....

I got both of these guys one morning after the hog waddled in at daylight and ran off three bucks I was looking at. I shot the buck as it crossed another shooting lane. It wasn't the biggest of the three, thanks to the hog.....

Awesome.

I just like where I'm at, and don't believe I have a desire to hunt Texas. Heck, I get bent out of shape when my socks get full of burrs, I don't want any thorns! Plus it's hot and humid there. Hot enough here too, but cools off sometime in fall. Talk to me about chiggers.

This question intended to you fine Texas gentlemen and no, I am not being sarcastic. I have come to respect many of you over the years here.

First let me explain my bad points. I live in the PNW and understand that is a huge strike against me. I have owned land but I either sold or gave it to family so as not to be tied up when I die so I understand that not being a land owner makes me an undesirable.

The Good. I am low maintenance. If I were desiring to hunt pigs I would expect to bring a camper and all the tools needed to hunt pigs, maybe to even include an IR scope for night hunting. I don’t trash private or public property usually taking home way more trash than I generate. I would expect to feed myself. I have always left gates as I found them. I hunt where I am told I can hunt and stay away from places I am told are off limits.


So my question is, if my wife and I were to come to Texas and want to hunt hogs how many thousands would I expect to pay for the privilege for say a week and would there be an additional cost for every one killed.

"Talk to me about chiggers."






[anybody want to tell him that's his nickname among the Grownups?]

$250/day for as many as you can kill is pretty typical, which usually includes simple meals and staying on the property.

Good, bout the last thing I wan to be is growed up.

Scott, several years ago while I still had a couple thousand acres leased and quite a few hogs, I made a deal with Rickbin to offer "po boy" hog hunts in the classifieds.

I think I offered 5 days of hunting for 200 bucks... kill as many as you could.Nothing furnished except a place to hunt.

I stated truthfully that only two members had ever hunted with me [for free] and both had killed a large hog their first time out, but I knew enough about hogs to guarantee NOTHING.

We damn near wore out the PM machine answering questions, when the answers were in the ad.

"NO, there is no guarantee you will even see a hog."

"No, you don't pay extra for a big hog".

"No, there is no lodge to stay in".

"Yes, you pay your money before you go thru the gate."

"Yes, just as the ad says, I am only offering the hunts for three weeks, maximum 4 hunters per party."

"Yes, you must send a 50 dollar deposit to reserve your spot.The deposit will be returned to you if a bona fide reason comes up that you can't make it."

I got about a half dozen that claimed they had sent their deposit. No money ever showed up.

All the respondents were from out of state.

I retired from the "Outfitting Business".

But... if you showed up here I could maybe put you on a hog, but you would be foolish to drive that far with hog killing in mind.

Scott if you are ever headed this way PM me... if I have any access at the time you are more than welcome.

I don't always have access or even pigs around and I don't know any pay outfits to speak of, other than one that takes 10 folks and while there are javelinas, the pigs are pretty hard to come by as nocturnal as they are tehre too.. Think we still pay him 75 a day

Thanks for the replies. I did forget to add one thing on my plus side, I have never even thought about suing anybody for anything.

Can't call 'em chiggers anymore. It's not PC enough.

Neither is "Chigroes"...

Lol. Tff

I always figured it was something along those lines, a few people are overrun but many enjoy having targets of opportunity.

So I'm a landowner with a hog "problem" and I have friends who are the same.

Some of the comments from non-landowners halfway across the country who've never even seen a wild hog are hilarious.

Feel free to keep guessing. If nothing else it's amusing.



For starters, a friend of mine has property in South Texas, almost 2000 acres. Until recently it was a rice farm and hogs love to eat rice plants, especially when the rice head is in the doughy stage. That farm is surrounded on 3 sides by a 15,000 cattle farm that's extremely dense brush - almost as dense as numbnuts from Washington and Wisconsin who think they know something about wild hogs.

In short, the farm was hog heaven.

I hunt my friend's land occasionally, mostly for ducks, and used to hunt hogs there several times a year. I killed a hog about every other trip since they're mostly nocturnal. Some trips I'd see one, some trips I wouldn't.

My friend allows about dozen friends to hunt hogs there for free. I killed about 6 hogs/year and was hunting there fairly often despite the three hour drive to get there, unbelievable clouds of mosquitoes in the warmer months, and tons of snakes.

Most of the hog kills were close. I once shot into a sounder at about 5 paces while still hunting. The survivors were instantly gone into the nearby brush line. If I was lucky enough to have several in a field in front of me, you could drop on at say 150 yards, but after that, they were all running. In very low light a coal black running hog is a tough target. But I'm sure the dipchit from Washington will disagree, after all, he's obviously been hog hunting before!

My friend who owns the farm also allows a local to trap hogs there too. He's a very good trapper, who knows hogs. He trapped over 450 hogs on the property last year, and that's impressive. Hogs become trap wary quickly. The hunters killed maybe 15-20 hogs, and that's probably being generous.

And yet the hogs keep coming despite an intense trapping regimen and some hunting pressure from myself and several other hunters.

The neighboring ranch had very little if any hunting and trapping on it so my friend's property still had a hog problem, which cost him about $30K/year in rice damage.

So I disagree with folks who say a trapping and hunting regimen will wipe out the problem. Pat's right: You can hunt and trap 24/7 (and who has the time to do that if they have a job?) but if your neighbor does little or nothing, you'll see little to no progress.

By the way, the trapper at my friend's land has become a nuisance in his own right. That man, his daughter and all of her friends hunted deer illegally on the place for a few years before being caught red handed.

Therein lies a major problem with allowing people on your land for little or nothing - they don't value it and protect it as much as something they paid for dearly.



This year on our small farm in east Texas I hunted for deer off and on for about 4 weeks of total hunting time. The hogs had driven off most of the deer from the feeders. I hate using feeders but hunters on all sides of our property use them and experience has shown me that if I don't use them, the deer will leave.

I saw a few spikes and a couples of does. My game cameras confirmed that the hogs had driven the deer away from the feeders and they confirmed the hogs were almost 100% nocturnal. In a month of hunting I saw only 2 sows and about 24 shoats - once. (I killed a large sow and immediately all of the other hogs ran into the woods. I put another round in the chamber and 3-4 minutes later her shoats returned to the dead sow and I killed one of those. That was the extent of the shooting.) That was reasonably good work on my part, but it didn't really damage the hog population.

The hogs were almost completely nocturnal (as they are on my friend's farm) and were almost never seen in daylight hours. That tells me that neighboring hunters had shot into them already.


Many people here think they're doing the landowner a kindness by going out and killing a hog or two (which is about all your going to get of a sounder with a rifle unless it's a suppressed automatic and it has a FLIR scope). And that's sort of funny. That one or two - hell call it 4, if your the fastest thing since Wyatt Earp - dead hogs does no real damage to the sounder which is one of many in the area.

Shooting into them does, however, educate them and make them more and more nocturnal.

The only thing that might wipe out hogs totally is disease, but such a disease would certainly wipe out domestic hogs too.

Poison hold promise, but currently, is a no go around cattle.

So suppression of hogs is the name of the game. It takes sustained and costly hunting and trapping efforts (and they do quickly become trap wary).

For hunting to really be effective, suppressed semi autos and FLIR are the way to fly. Bubba with his Remchester with 3-9 will only be able to kill 1-2 hogs out of a sounder IF he can hit anything at all in near total darkness.

As for the folks who say, "I'd never pay to hunt hogs," that's really funny. It's like some twit who thinks he's doing a girl a big favor just because he has a pecker. Take a number! There are a lot more people who want to hunt than landowners and the landowner, who does really want the hogs dead, is also at risk of lawsuit. So we allow a few people we trust to hunt, but we can't allow jackasses like mAsterBEights on our property. Fortunately, they're usually easy enough to suss out.

For those who are willing to pay, it's a lot of fun to have 20 targets in front of you at a time and the small ones are fine dining too.

Chigroes are one of the reasons I live in the PNW. I hate those things!

Man the girls from Texas are sensitive little butterflies. All those words in defense of a feral pig.

I nominate texasphothog the Feral Swine Club Homecoming Queen 2016. I'm sure her acceptance speech will be long and boring...

Sugartits, please keep guessing about things you've never seen or done!

Thanks in advance!

Hogs have been running wild in Texas since the early 1800's. Guess we should have invited the super hunters from the North East to help us a long time ago! Thing is, hogs are smarter than most of you guys! Texas has hogs, deer, turkeys and exotics. (Also lots of skeeters, chiggers, ticks, etc) We don't have a lot of "public" access land to hunt, and if you want to make yourself feel really smart you might address your comments to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept, like I do on a regular basis - they are the ones who spread a lot of the stories about the hog "problem", yet they make it very hard to hog hunt on land under their control.

By the way, did you miss the part about there being no seasons, bag limits, or other restrictions on hog hunting? Texas has long allowed suppressors, night vision, and night hunting for hogs. Short of explosive devices, almost anything goes.

You can "whine"about hogs, or you can accept them and take advantage of a unique hunting opportunity. I know some guys who book hog trips at night using night vision and thermal imaging. They kill a lot of hogs each year, and g et access to a lot of property that way. They charge a pretty high price, bt they have expensive equipment for their clients to use. For their fee, clients can shoot potentially unlimited hogs, and they also skin and quarter them. They told me of a hunger they had contact them "from up north" who expected free lodging, a vehicle to use while he was here, and really did not understand why he should pay, since he was doing us dumb Texans a favor, If hunting pressure alone would solve the hot "invasion" don't you think there are enough Texas hunters to do the job?

I used to fish with some guys from the NE. One was telling us about how much "fun" it was to hunt pronghorns. Evidently they just drove around until they saw some antelopes, jumped out of the car, and opened fire. Didn't really care if they knocked one down, or it ran off gut shot. Never tried to recover an animal.

Most of us don't approve of that in Texas, but this fellow thought he was a lot smarter than us.

Oh,by the way, I know Oregon is not in the NE. I've always wanted to visit Oregon and Washington state, seems like a beautiful part of the country.

Here is one thing the feral pigs are good for - good start to the morning. Lean and healthy too.

I would be happy to show you around. Free.

What do I get to hunt - for free? Remember, I don't want to have to buy no stinking hunting license, either!

Seriously, Scott, I'd love to take you up on that offer someday! Thanks!

There are two kinds of elk, two kinds of deer, cougar, and bear. Then for fishing there are salmon, steelhead, trout, bass (not as big as yours but still fun), what may be the best walleye fishery in America, and sturgon in fresh water and then bunches of salt water fishing all within 150 miles of my place.

Year around spectacular snow capped mountains then if you get tired of all that we could go laugh at the idiot liberals in Portland.






But nonresident tags are more than a bit spendy.

Pretty much a given in Texas at least that your cannot hunt your way to effective hog control. The best I have heard of is systematic shooting from a helicopter, to the tune of 100+(??) hogs shot in a day or couple of days.

I might not be able to solve Texas hog issues by shooting a couple, but it sure sounds like fun. This thread for all the bickering has got me interested. I see ads all the time but never really looked into it until now. Is it possible to hunt in the summer or is that something that's not even doable? I always have more time in the summer.

TexasPhotog,

thanks for long and detailed point of view. It does help explain some things.

I'll assume there's no "hog proof" fence around that cattle ranch bordering your friends rice farm, or around his farm for that matter. Lacking that, with a reservoir of hogs next door you are right in saying there is no real way to eliminate them on the rice farm. Being of moderate intelligence, I'll also assume there's no way to afford said fence, even if the two landowners split the cost (but of what benefit would that be to the cattle operation seeing as how they don't seem to be bothered that much by the pigs).

Your comments about the hogs running the deer off your feeders make me wonder about designing a feeder just the deer can get to. Maybe use your regular feed to attract them, let the hogs, foxes, turkeys etc take over that, but have a high feeder
or feeders set up for the deer? Not scattered feed but in a place accessible only to a taller animal.

Good luck with your place and thanks again for the input.

Geno

I am a native Texan and I am stumped why the ranchers charge so much to hunt pigs if they are such a menace. I suspect some farmers and ranchers are seeking gov. aid money rather than truly wanting to gets the pigs under control.

Those look fantastic!

It is possible to hunt them in the warmer months although the heat, mosquitoes and snakes may make it unpleasant. And if you kill one in the heat, you'd better get the meat on ice quickly if you want to eat it.

Geno, You're welcome.

I know of no totally hog proof fencing. You can buy hog paneling but it's very expensive, and, even if you could get it installed across creeks and rivers, it would be washed away during floods/high water. Hogs use creeks and rivers like highways.

There are feeders that hogs cannot feed from - they are high and the deer can reach their heads into to eat - but they're rather expensive and spillage still happens. The hogs still intimidate the deer and push them out of the area. Hogs also learn to rub against feeders to knock corn out of them.

You can put fence around your feeders that will keep hogs away from the feeders but that deer can jump over. That solves nothing when they're coming to a huge field of rice. I also could fence around the feeders on our farm but the hogs would still come onto the place to water and eat roots, acorns, ect. They absolutely vacuum mast crops like acorns and pecans by the way.

Many farmers and ranchers do let trusted friends hunt for free. Others charge because, well, they can. It's a revenue source and some operations make as much money from hunting as they do from livestock.

Some Texas counties have offered bounties for matched pairs of hog ears, but those programs quickly ran out of money. I've not heard of any other government aid related to hogs.

I haven't commented until know, and this is just my opinion. Yeah Texas has lots of hogs but little public land. It seems a lot of land gets bought up by wealthy Dell, Apple or what ever company people. Then they use it for week end get always. In other words they are not on it all the time like a rancher or farmer would be to manage it.

I agree a rancher or farmer should get something from guys that want to shoot pigs. but 300 dollars a day for me is to rich for my blood, too a lot of guys that is chump change.

Remember F/Ranching is about the only business where you the producer has to ask; how much you give me, you don't set prices.
Image an oil refinery having to ask how much much you give me for a gallon of gas. Y'all would be saying; 25 cents because there is to much on the market.

Yeah, before someone from "up" north says anything about Texas, I was born and raised "up" north before moving here.

Oh yeah I recall game and fish buying high fence for people up north so they could build hay yards to keep deer out of the hay in the winter. Did these Ranchers let people hunt, heck know, we have to keep the trophys for ourselves. But some had good reason. Dumb arses from town didn't seem to know the difference between an Angus and a whitetail, or they would leave gates open or their trash laying around.

Greed and stupidly goes both ways.

To be fair, that article (if anybody bothered looking at it) illuminates the problem. It's about hogs on the Trinity River Wildlife Refuge..."public" land. It's owned and controlled by the Federal Government. You public land lovers get after it.

I was looking at the girl in the helicopter video...

The self-appointed ex prurt on everything from Washington does a lot of that. From politics to other issues like this in places he's never been to. Kind of a modern day Stick Lite with an expanded vocabulary, but just as annoying.

Regarding Shannon Tompkins, I know him pretty well, he is also from East Texas, and his family ran hogs in the woods in the "old days". Shannon and I have had a few talks about the hog "problem", and pretty much agree. He is the one who told me about a Louisiana game management official whose opinion on hunting pressure's effect on the hog population was, "Face it boys, we ain't gonna barbecue out way out of this situation."

Of several newspaper outdoor writers in the Houston area, I consider Shannon the best.

I know of three different times where guys leasing the deer and hog hunting rights on a ranch had to pay the land owner because they shot yearling steers that came into a corn feed in the dark and they thought it was hogs, and people wonder why ranchers don't want people hunting their land. I hunt and run cattle, I got no problem with people wanting to hunt but not on me, its not worth the problems that come with it, gates left open, windmills messed with, etc. etc., i know most people are good to deal with but after a few bad ones you just figure its easier to say no and go on