I live in southern Virginia. At the Tennessee and Kentucky corner. How much should I expect to pay for a hog hunt if I ever get to?

In Texas, $500 per day for a night vision hunt which includes guns, thermals, ammo, room & meals.

In Georgia, $500 per day without meals and lodging

Not my gun, and only at night? Blech.

They would be happy if you used your own rifle and ammo but many hunters aren't set up with quality night vision. As far as hunting in the daylight; my experience is that it isn't very productive, and it is nowhere near as much fun as opening up on an entire sounder.

yep in Army at Ft Stewart Ga. when in the field on field exerzises . Never saw hogs during the day . During the night sounders would run all around our fox holes ,and us only with blank rounds ,I was not a happy camper

Did you ever see the REAL hogs at Graf?
Watched a big sow push around a garbage bin on wheels like a NFL lineman.

Most of these hog hunting places have prices that are ridiculously and obscenely high! Big offenders are places located In Tennessee. Others are in Texas despite the fact that all of these landowners are crying that the hogs are overrunning their land. Remember, it’s all about the money. My rant!

Field and Stream has an article that states that the northern states may be getting hogs that can stand the winters, they may be coming down from Canada.

I was on a hog hunt south of San Antonio where the rancher fed us and put us up for the weekend. He cooked the hogs, but he screwed that up. the meat was way way overdone. We didn't bitch much because it was all free.

I did a hog hunt with "S.C. Trophy Hunters", which was supposed to be a free-range hog hunt. It was a total scam like many of them are. On the first day they took you out to a stand in the early morning hours (dark). It wasn't apparent that you were in a large low fence enclosure. You were told that you could only take 1 pig per stand. Within a few hours I saw a large group of pigs and shot one. My buddy got one nearby too. Eventually they picked us up in a 4x4 and you could see fencing in a few areas on the way back to the lodge.

The next 5 sits on stand(s) were NOT in any enclosure and we never saw any hogs (either one of us). The stands were clearly whitetail stands and there were no hogs, or even hog prints, anywhere around. Other hunters came into the lodge and each one was put on the "honey hole" for one sitting. It became apparent that the outfitter's goal was to get everyone one pig in the enclosure and then put hunters on stands that they knew you had no chance of seeing any pigs. It was all about the money, and the pigs that were shot were part of their "put & take" operation. We left a day early even though we were fully paid for our hunt.

On the bright side, they had a superb cook. The lady made the best ribs and smoked butt that I've ever had.

I understand that more and more of the hog hunt places are turning into put and take operations. Somebody traps the hogs and then turns them loose into the hog hunting area before the shooters arrive so they have something to kill. Is this pretty prevalent now?

It certainly seems so. Where can you go and KNOW that this isn't the case?

I just booked another hog hunt, but this time I'm going to TX. A guy in my NC whitetail camp highly recommended the place. We'll see.

My son went on a hog hunt last year with friends. He said they all got hogs on the first day and seen several more. When returning to the lodge, trucks were bumper to bumper in a line with cages in the back. All were selling hogs to the outfit, that they had trapped the night before. You had to look real hard to see, but it was a high fenced in area. They were disappointed it was not a free range hunt. He said he would never go back there again. If you got a huge hog they charged you a trophy fee. All the locals trapped hogs to sell to the outfitter for money. It was a racket.

Most are like that

Ive hunted hogs in Texas a LOT and seen all kinds of things. What to watch for down there is if all the hogs pictured are the same size and smallish...thats a put and take operation.Other thing to avoid is places offering 'unlimited ' hogs...which generally means you aren't going to see any, or somebody is trying to make a buck while you are helping clear his land of hogs ( and usually in those cases theres very few)

I hope your hunt down there is a good one...Ive run into a couple good operations for sure.

If I'm going hog hunting, I'll be looking for the better table fare.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of paying Texas property taxes, don’t complain about prices.

In FL looks like the going rate is around 250 for a meat hog, 500 for a trophy. Plus 40-50 bux to hack it up and toss in yer cooler. That is excluding room and board. I'm fixing to do this, and have been researching.

For one thing, aside from getting a meat hog for the table, I plan to use a larger caliber that will work well for Alaska and bear or moose. 2 birds with one stone sort of approach.

Illegal in Texas and Oklahoma. Trap 'em all you want. Sell them to buyers.....
DO NOT relocate them! ....even if it is on private property!
South Texas is famous for it's "high fence" exotic game ranches. Over the years, it has been proven time and time again, even high fence can't contain animals. They WILL find a way over, under, around or through.
There are fallow deer, blackbuck antelope and nilgai all over central and south Texas.

I have hunted hogs in GA and in TX. The TX hunts were at night using night vision and green lights on the feeders. I shot 6 hogs during a 3 day hunt. Everything was low fence (which means nothing to pigs, BTW).
In GA I was on a combo hog/deer hunt along a river in middle GA. The hunting was from deer stand over fields and feeders. Was able to shoot 4 hogs and 2 does the first time out and a pig and three deer the second time with them.
The place in GA does hog only hunts too, but they have limited them recently due to flooding of the river putting a big dent in the pig population on the property.
Both places had great accommodations. The food wasn't included at either place, but both had great kitchens and grills/Green Eggs available for guests to use. I like to cook, so it wasn't bad for me at all.

Back when old Heck was a pup, south Texas scrub brush ranchers hubbed it year after year to pay taxes, etc, every year. It was a hard scrabble lifestyle....but they had a bunch of really big bucks.
When corporations figured out that clients could be wined and dined while hunting and the cost could be written off as "entertainment" on their taxes, they went all in.
When ranchers figured out that leasing hunting to big corporations, Exxon, Mobil, Dr. Pepper, Frito-Lay to mention a few, would not only pay their property taxes, but would also replace revenues from low profit years, why the hell not?

If you're a corporation wanting to lease hunting rights for entertainment, where do you go to lease 10,000 (or more!) acres of land covered with some big old bucks?
TEXAS!
Not only did those old hardscrabble ranchers finally begin to make money, those corporations would come in and set up accommodations for their high dollar clients.
They hired ranch hands that knew the area as guides.
Local laborers earned money processing game.
Cooking. Cleaning. Driving.
Land that once would barely make a living was suddenly stuffing lean bank accounts and it hardly interfered with the ranchers chose profession...raising cattle!
Win-Win.

See continued rant below.....!

The

That makes a lot of sense, taxes are tough.

In before someone complains that it should be free because they're doing the landowner a favor. Lmao

RANT Pt 2

When hogs "really" became a problem, yes, ranchers, farmers and land owners were ecstatic to have hunters come in and reduce the pig population.
When Skeeter and Bud had a hot spot to hunt hogs for free, they took Willie and Joe Bob.
Willie and Joe Bob went back next week with 4 of their pals.
First thing you know, Farmer Brown is finding toothless, snuff dipping, red neck hog slayers all over his farm.
He's finding his fences cut, crops rutted by ATV's and 4WD's. Livestock injured or killed. Gates left open. Litter. Trees cut down. Impromptu fire pits and camp sites, etc, etc, etc!
Suddenly, allowing free hunting to get rid of hogs was costing more than the hog damage! 🤯
That's not to mention the suits filed by ne'er-do-well hunters (?) 'cause a bull stepped on his best "hawg dawg" and other idiotic BS suits.

SO....if you want to complain about the cost of a pig hunt, think about what it costs the landowner!
Sure, you're responsible, but he doesn't know that. You could just be another Skeeter or Possum.
Deer leases in Ok and Tx now often come with a liability release and a property damage clause.

You don't want to pay to kill a hog?
The landowner doesn't want to have to sell his land to cover legal expenses due to your stupidity.

That gate swings both ways!

I’d have to need the money real bad to make it worth fooling with a bunch of people I do not know with guns. We have to sign a disclaimer every year on our lease. I’ve killed hundreds and hundreds of pigs through the years. It ain’t all that, trapping them is more fun to me. I’d take the money, buy some good meat from a butcher. You could buy a hell of a lot of meat for what they are charging, plus travel expenses, but what the hell do I know.


The same could be said for me even having a lease. I probably spend 4,000 with cost of lease, corn, traveling back and forth to lease, food, beer, etc. since I retired I can go for 4 or 5 days which is nice.

RANT Pt 3
When I was a kid, I wandered the entire country side.
Property owners around us knew us, knew where we lived and never minded our (Jim Ed & me) presence.
We didn't cut fences, only stole the smaller melons, didn't tear up crops, didn't leave gates open, etc, etc, etc....
If we did any of that, THEY would bust our butts, but they woukd tell our parents and we got our butts handed to us again. We would have to provide unpaid labor to correct our misbehavior, and then there was the possibility of barring access.

Then the suburbs came along.
Kids that had no idea about the responsibilities of a "country lifestyle" were soon wandering the countryside, cutting fences, burning barns, injuring livestock and damaging crops. Suddenly, free access was no longer available and "NO TRESPASSING" signs went up everywhere!!

Case in point:
Our neighbor had 80 acres. Some screwball city kid, despite the signs, trespassed. He decided to show his buddies he could walk the top wire of a barbed wire fence.
The ensuing injury resulted in near castration!
His parents sued the landowner.
The landowner ended up selling half his property to help cover legal expenses!

How could an owner be liable for that?? If a car leaves the road, hits a tree in your yard, kills driver, family can sue you cause your tree killed driver??

You may not be.held responsible in court ,But .... They hire a Lawyer , you hire a Lawyer. Lawyers figure out pretty quickly what you have , and bingo they get it....

Check out these guys. https://jagerpro.com/ It's been quit a few years ago since I hunted with them. But They are a first class operation. No fences, no tricks. Hunting free range hogs at night with top notch equipment. Hunting agg fields in Georgia. It was a blast. I went with 2 good friends. we killed 18 pigs between the 3 of us in one night.

Well, it was the late 70's when "litigation happy" became a "thing" and "city" people started moving to suburbia and home/property insurance wasn't such a big deal, etc, etc...
I do remember the landowner eventually had to sell part of his property to keep from losing ALL his property.
One of them "out of court" settlements.

Well, it was the late 70's when "litigation happy" became a "thing" and "city" people started moving to suburbia and home/property insurance wasn't such a big deal, etc, etc...
I do remember the landowner eventually had to sell part of his property to keep from losing ALL his property.
One of them "out of court" settlements.

Per trip.......

Annual trespass fee..........$2K

640 miles round trip @ 12MPG ..........Say $160

20 gal gas for Generator.........$60

Food, Say ...$75

Ice........ $30

Adult Beverage & Stogies ....$75

Corn/Protein..... $150

total: +/- $715 per trip

Usually go about 12-15 times per year.

Did I mention I luv perforatin' hoglets!



I could do a hell of a elk or mule deer hunt for what I spend annually,

but then I'd have to have a guide and march to the beat of a different drummer

Nada!

GWB

GWB,

I gotcha beat. I live on my lease.......own it even. The pigs are gone for now but will be back in force come March or April. I love pig hunting more than any other type of hunting. The last two years they have destroyed most of my crops but I have killed a bunch of them. I plan on building a big pig trap this year. I used to trap them and sell them. Prices went way down so I just started shooting them in the cage, dragging them to an open area where I could see them, and hunt coyotes over them. Keep up the good work Sir.

Jim

I love rolling up on a big pen full of pigs, then shoot cshit out of them. I have four round pens and a cage trap, caught 30 or more some weekends

closest navy federal credit union



boa bank hours

citibank branch near me now

What general area you huntin in Geedubya ? Looks alot like my lease in Comfort.

It is easy to build a hog trap pen in east Texas with drive posts, better to prefab fence sections in Rocky country. You can set it up in ten minutes, move to different locations quickly.

Do you have traps GWB ????

Built several traps out of those 16 foot cattle panels. They work.
Built several making an angle iron frame and cover it with cattle panels.
Yeppers! A loaded pig trap does my heart good!

It has to be the 4”x4” or small pigs will go through, even hog panels at the top where holes are 6”x6”

Traps, pens and snares!































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

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

GWB

GWB,

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

Thanks,
MD

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

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

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

Sir,



That is a K1 in 222 Rem.



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

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

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



Merkel K4 Damaszener, 30-06 Springfield


ya!


GWB

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

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

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

Jim

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

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

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

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

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

GWB,

Very nice collection!

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

MD

Hey dmd! All is well I hope!

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

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

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

10/4




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

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

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

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



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



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

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

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

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







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

Two other things I like,



Merkel K1, 9.3 x 74R

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

ya!

GWB

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



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

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

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

Jim

@ texbatman

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

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