hog hunting tips

[oldblinddog]

TAKE A GUN TO THE FIGHT. Silsbee Tx one day I was visiting my hunting buddy. He said lets go check a snare he had set. Never heard of snaring! We got there and sure enough he snared a 75 pounder that was mad as could be. He had cleaned a 10 ft circle to the bare ground. Where is the gun? You have a knife? Reached in my pocket and pulled out a Case Trapper with a sharp well worn blade. Gene finally grabbed its back legs and I piled on watching that snapping jaws. Cut his throat as best I could with all 1 1/4 inches blade. Turned him loose and backed up. With bloodshot eyes he glared at. After about ten minutes we realize he was not cut good. Caught him again and finally cut him in the same place cut deep enough to bring some blood. Dirty, bloody and sweaty always take a gun to a fight! Game warden stopped us on the way out. Asked us what we are doing. Gene said we are running our hog traps.He said the spoter plane had seen our lights and he was waiting for us on the main Hwy. Where is your guns? Pulled out my dirty blooded knife and showed him. He new Gene and his reputation of hunting bare footed your round in the swamps.

What was this hog snared by? Leg? Foot? What? You should have been able to throw him to the ground and pin his neck with your foot. My wife did it for me once with high heels and a dress on while I had hold of a 75 lb pig by the back legs after dragging him out of a live trap. If you get them by the hind legs you can wheel barrow them anywhere you want. The three teenaged boys that had set the trap wouldn't come close.

[huntrick64]

Traps were empty again, but the helicopter guys scored big time east of Trader's bend on private land. My buddy that traps there was on the ground picking up the little ones for me. 30 lbs - 100 lbs on the hoof. Perfect!!!

[Oklahoma Rebel]

nice looking haul there, that black one looks delicious, someone shove an apple in it's mouth, quick!

[shafer44]

the pigs are pretty smart. In Texas, we can bait and we had feeders at every stand. The hogs would make the rounds, going to every feeder we had in the mornings and evenings when we had the timers set. The trail cameras had pictures of some of the hogs at different feeders, and of course at different times. Sometimes, there would be pictures of them sleeping under the feeder, waiting for it to go off. You just had to be at the right feeder at the right time.

[flyingrhino]

Some insist that hogs are nocturnal. They are to the same extent that deer are but it has more to do with local and temperature. In my experience I can see them any time of the day. Right now I'm seeing deer and hogs from sunup to sun down but it isn't really hot yet. As we heat up during the day I won't be seeing them mid day. The biggest hogs I've seen this year so far were at 2:00 pm on two consecutive weekends. Temp was around 70. During the summer they are active at night and just the first couple hours after sunrise. After that they are where they can keep cool. The smaller ones seem to move more during the day than the big ones. I'm in the Charleston, SC area so it's thick almost inpenetrable brush. I've got shooting lanes bush hogged out from my shooting blind and have PVC tube feeders on the ground with corn in them.
If the ground looks like it's been bombed then you are in the right place. A game cam will help you determine the best time to be there. As I've said, I don't wear camo when hunting hogs. They can't see me well enough to know if I'm a tree or a person. Besides, camo is just too hot here. I have walked around outside my blind within 20 yards of the hogs and they never knew I was there. BUT...you have to be very mindful of the wind. They have an uncanny sense of smell. They also hear very well but they make so much noise on their own that I've never had an issue with them being sensitive to my sound.
You just have to figure out their routine for your local. I enjoy hog hunting SO much more than deer hunting. They are much more forgiving. I can take my granddaughter out and we are almost guaranteed to see multiple hogs every time we go out. She doesn't have to be mouse quiet and we don't have to camo up. We sit in the blind and chat without fear of scaring the hogs. It's a blast.

[David2011]

First, develop a relationship with your local game and fish people along with your state representatives and senators. Push for revising the law when it comes to destructive wildlife.

All of my hog hunting has been in Texas so that affects how things were done. They are primarily nocturnal but if there are deer feeders on timers they will respond to an afternoon dinner bell. They're almost always at the feeder before morning shooting hours. Since they're not a game animal it's ok to shoot them any time of the day or night. Baiting, spotlighting and night vision are permitted on nongame species. With a steady replenishment of food hogs will be there before the deer every morning. An illuminated reticle is very helpful in low light conditions. I've talked to people that swear by using rotting apples, shrimp buried 1-1/2 to 2 feet deep and Kool-Aid as attractants.

I shot a sow around 250 pounds once with a .223 but wouldn't use that caliber again for pigs if I had a choice. The real issue was that I used a V-Max bullet more than the cartridge selection. That bullet is better suited for soft targets like coyotes, prairie dogs and rabbits. All of the rest of my pig kills have been with a 6.5mm 120 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip or handguns in .44 Mag or .45 Colt using Ruger only loads and cast boolits. The Nosler BT has explosive expansion.

I prefer to to shoot for DRT results so take pigs with either a head shot or along a line between the ear and shoulder joint. The spine runs along that line. It's an easy shot when they're eating and the effects are pretty much instant. Such a shot does require off season practice, an accurate rifle and the ability to shoot well but it's worth the effort and practice. Shoulder and chest shots will kill but the results may not be as quick.

David

[Oklahoma Rebel]

I think it is **** that wwe cant bait for hogs! they are, in the words of fish and game, a nuisance animal, so why not? are they afraid we will be feeding them more than killing them? atleast they could ccomprimise and maybe set a limit, such as, no more than 5lbs of food can be set out, and no more until none of the first bait is left. does that sound reasonable to y'all? I think 5lbs of food would be plenty to bring them in. and if you keep at it the pigs will certainly make it a stop on their frustratingly difficult to figure out routes/habits

[BK7saum]

Why can't we bait for hogs? I don't see any restrictions except baiting restrictions on Department managed lands including Corps of Engineer property.

[725]

Powdered drink mix of apple, grape, peach, etc. tossed into the wind seems to be a good attractant. Only anecdotal experience here, but, each time when my hunting partners come in empty handed, I've come in with a porker.

[BK7saum]

I did reread the op and see that youre trying to hunt WMAs. Yep, no baiting allowed there.

725, maybe you're just a much better hunter!!!

[Oklahoma Rebel]

725, where do you and your porkers hail from? lol

[725]

I'm at the Md. / Pa. border. My pig hunting experiences come from Ohio, Tenn., Ga. Fla. & S.C.. Usually a few different places in most of those States. I want to go to Texas. My big fear is that I won't come back.

BK7saum -- I don't know about that. Even blind mice find cheese, once in awhile.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

i didn't know they had them in ohio, so have they made it to most of the northern states? I know they are established here in N.E. OK but not in real big numbers. not sure if they have gone much into or past Kansas, but there isn't many places for them to hide there. plenty of corn though! oh and in wma's they referenced using lures on public land is ok, including urine minerals and they mentioned you could "bait" similar to trapping setups, and they used sardines as a example. so I think they mean just very small amounts. I was thinking, get 2 cans of sardines (regular) (in oil), blend them into a slurry, then pour a long line perpendicular to the wind. for ex. if the wind is blowing from the south to north, pour a line east-west. that would put a large area of scent over a long distance. and if a game warden came out, they wouldn't be able to see any bait.

[725]

Don't know if they run wild in Ohio. It was my first time out and we went to a pay to hunt place. We never went back, even though we shot big pigs. Down south, however, it has been a different experience. They have made it around, though. My buddy, deer hunting in western Maryland, thought he saw a bear. Didn't walk like a bear, but was big, dark, and as it closed, it became apparent it was a pig. Non-petting zoo or farm escapee, it was a wild pig. So they are around but not in numbers up here. (This was due east of Ohio. )

[huntrick64]

It is my understanding that our (Oklahoma) department of wildlife recently passed the "no baiting on public land" issue due to the issue of corn containing aflatoxins and the spreading of diseases by concentrating deer around feed. I don't think it had anything to do with feral hogs. If that is really a threat to the health of the deer heard, I think they would have made it illegal on "any" lands in Oklahoma. My own personal opinion is that baiting for deer on public land has caused quite a bit of conflict among deer hunters claiming that they had baited "their area" and then someone crowded in and hunted "their deer". I think there have been quite a few calls to wardens wanting help resolving those issues, and it probably got to the point where the wildlife department felt it was better to remove baiting than spend all of their time resolving disputes over corned areas. Now, if my assumption is correct (and it probably isn't) then they should make it illegal to bait on public lands one week prior to and during any deer season. Then we could bait for hogs the rest of the year.

My best setup for baiting hogs has been to just trickle corn down a bunch of trails and crossings and then "listen and stalk" into the wind. Once you locate them you have to hurry and get in front of them and wait for them to feed past you for a shot. I'm bowhunting, and the wind can be my best friend and my worst enemy, depending on where the pigs are. They are pretty funny to watch leapfrogging each other to get to that next kernel of corn. Makes me think about my mom telling us kids, "quit eating like a bunch of pigs!"

[Oklahoma Rebel]

I see your point about the fighting, this last deer season, everyone and their uncle showed up at the wma's and it was really frustrating. I want to get a small aluminum boat, about 14-16ft so I can use the lake to get to those hard to reach places! I would be so happy, I hate being In the woods if theres more than a couple others there. half the reason I hunt is to go out into gods country and enjoy some peace and alone time!