Discovery Channel

There is a show airing on the Discovery Channel that will be of interest to all the hog hunters. Maybe us southern boys will be getting our own version of dangerous game! The Pig Bomb!

I DVR'd that last night. Can't wait to watch it. In my part of Missouri they are moving in. Never had them before but got a trail camera picture of one last fall. The Missouri Department of Conservation has a shoot on sight provision trying to eliminate them from spreading here. I'm afraid it might be too late.

I read one report from Texas that stated if a piece of property currently held 100 hogs, one needed to kill 85 per year just to keep the population at 100. Don't know how true that is, but I do know that each sow can have at least three litters per year with 6-10 piglets per litter. Eat mo' pork!!

Those piggies can spread like wildfire real quick, but they sure are fun to hunt. I lived in South Texas for about ten years and they were on all the ranches we hunted. The great thing about hogs is you can hunt them all year round. Anytime you needed a quick hunting fix, you could find some real cheap pig hunts. It was great archery practice. Some of the guys I knew hunted them with dogs and knives, but I found that a little too crazy for me.

I went hog hunting last week. Tried my bow for the first time. When I missed my hog with the bow we went out with the dogs. I thought shooting the hog after the dogs caught it was kind of like an excecution. After watching that show, I didn't feel so bad!

The folks who are illegally releasing these hogs have no idea how destructive these critters are. I have witnessed it personally on a relatives cattle ranch in California. Several pastures looked as if a tank had maneuvered through them. Save a cattle rancher, harvest a hog. Or two! Good Hunting!

I have yet to figure out the logic of the Florida Fish and Game. There is no season on hogs provided it is on private land. Hogs can only be taken on Wildlife Management Areas in conjunction with a designated season and to hunt many of these areas require a permit which is acquired by lottery. The hog population on private lands is thriving, yet hogs taken from the management areas are not healthy. The local wildlife meat processors won't touch them. I live 5 miles from a management area and have yet to set foot on the property. The Florida Fish and Game regulation book is pretty complicated, so I just go on the privated (paid) hunts. Maybe I need to read deeper into the books. I may be missing something in the interpretation.

Hogs can tear up a crop field in no time flat. I turkey hunted on a ranch near San Antonio, TX that had freshly planted fields. I think they were turnips, but I can't remember for sure. From one night to the next morning the entire place looked like someone came through the field with a shovel and worked the whole thing over. In Texas I have also been told that wild hogs can do some serious damage to the quail population. When it comes to the state fish and game rules, I sometimes feel like you need a PhD to understand them.

Tarawa,

I agree, the FL Game Dept has most things backward. I have hunted on WMAs for the last two years, and have seen lots of does (hundreds) and no bucks. Most bucks harvested on public land in FL are 1 1/2 yrs old with six inch horns. You are not allowed to take does on most, if not all, WMAs. I think they have the population out of whack.

I have been able to take a hog per year. The first was kind of sickly, but last year I took a really nice 90 lbs sow - she ate well.

Where do you hunt on private land? I have been in search of a good deer outfitter ....

BangFlop (great name)
I have only hunted with 2 outfitters that have access to several thousand acres. Both hunts were different, but both were very professional. Hogs, deer and turkey everywhere, even bison and water buffalo. The hogs were all nice and healthy.This hunt was last Friday. I was taking the picture. My two buddies are in the middle and the guides were on either side of them. Fun day. 6 hogs in all.

Ah yes - Chappy's. I hunted with them in Aug of 2007. Did an afternoon stand hunt that netted a nice 125lbs boar. First one I ever shot. Good folks.

Who was the other outfitter?

Outwest Farms about 13 miles west(?) of Okeechobee on SR70. Good folks too.
Florida Alligator hunts, Alligator Hunting Guides, Florida Hunting Outfitters

Hogs are fun to hunt. But all the studies basically say the same thing. Once established they are almost impossible to control, much less eliminate.
One policy that needs to change in almost every state is letting dog hunters catch and transport live hogs. I am sure there are good guys out there that catch hogs, grain feed them and then slaughter them. But a lot of caught hogs are simply moved to a new area with no hogs and released. Bingo they now have a new area to hunt.
If you want to do something about it, Kill every sow you see (boars dont have babies) and call your state representatives and game officials.

Thanks Tarawa .....

Even though Florida has plenty of hogs, I have yet to see any in my rural area. I've seen a few along the road while driving to work and a few along the interstate while driving north. When you get on the hunting reserves (ranches) there are tons of them.

They go where the food is high and human threat is low - seems to me anyway ....

Hi,

I've lived in Texas most my life and love hog hunting. I'm currently in Alaska and love it, but, have not found the right place to put my roots down, so, I want to chase another dream, that is teaching/hunting in another part of the world.

I've looked at Africa and it seems a possibility, but, I've heard that New Zealand is great for hog hunting.

So, I"m looking for other prospects where I can teach, live and hunt!

Remote is fine with me!

On teh hogs, holy cow, they are hurting the deer population in Texas by eating up teh acorns adn driving them out of places...the islands have lots of deer now on teh lakes..., the hogs eat up the snake eggs around the sloughs so we dont see as many snakes inland as use too...mostly the snakes I see these days on on the steep banked rivers...adn i've had lots more luck calling in deer with a hog grunt than deer!!!!...For real, they get HOT, SNORTING mad when i hit the hog grunt with some hog urine on my kotex that hangs off my old shotgun!...they will stomp, snort and come up to me as a herd, but, it's hard to get a shot off with 15 deer looking at your every move...they are in competition for the acorns...I've seen 3 ft holes that looked like a bomb hit it, perfectly shaped, one after another, seeking teh big grub worms we have in teh clay earth in north texas...

Hopefully, i can find a place to raise hog dogs again....

Hope to see some ideas on where else to move, i'm on teh africa and new zealand forums as of now...got til march to make up my mind...

Scotty

There is a new show. Do a search (Discovery channel film Gardens Hogs Wild) They are hunting traping snaring and capturing wild boar by hand.This is going to be the best show to be released by Discovery channel.

Originally Posted by G-MAN

In Texas I have also been told that wild hogs can do some serious damage to the quail population.

That is a very true statement. I live in northeast Louisiana, when I moved here in 1995 and quail numbers were virtually non-existent. Fact was this region was abundant in quail up until the 1970's. Most blame it on red ants & coyotes, but in reality it is a compilation of things. One thing that has been determined by Quails Unlimited is that areas that have an overpopulation of hogs see a marked decline in quail population (an unofficial study).

In Louisiana there is an open season on hogs, the parish I'm in wild hog population was getting so bad you couldn't keep a garden and they would decimate a crop in no time flat. Not to mention the boar wallers and dead patches in pastures/hay fields. They run off deer and compete for food (i.e. acorns). At one spot where I had a deer stand set up with a feeder we counted 20 different hogs we caught on camera in a group that raided the spot (that was in 2000). Fast forward to now people have hunted them so hard here that the estimated population for our parish is below 30 (as estimated LAWF -state wardens).

So, I say kill more than two, kill a 100.

Of course now we need more coon hunters.

Well we don't have any Hogs here in CT yet, thou they say that they are in Some Areas of NY state. I have a small plot of land just about 80 acres. Good Deer hunting, but I could see in another 10 or 15 years having a hog problem here too. You can shoot them fast enough. When i was working in South Texas in the Port O'Connor area, I was flying helicopters offshore in support of the oil industry. I saw hogs all the time they were all over the place. Didn't get to hunt much since at the time the company was short pilots and I had a lot of fly over days. Now I would not mind at all, times are tough for pilots these days. Work is hard to come by.