Hawaii and Hogs

[Dragoon 45]

I was watching a series on Nat Geo tonight, that is about the wild hog problem in the US. Part of it was filmed in Hawaii. I believe the show was titled: "When Hogs Attack."

A hog control biologist/hunter in Hawaii, was hunting a rather large boar after dark with nothing but a bow and a machete. He hit the hog with an arrow and then went after the wounded hog in something that looked like a stand of elephant grass through a tunnel the hogs had made. He got the hog, but I do have to question his judgement going after a wounded hog in that tunnel. Gutsy but still kind of stupid to me.

That leads me to my question though. Why didn't the guy have at least a side arm for protection or does Hawaii have that screwed up of gun/hunting laws?

The rest of the show was about more convention styles of hunting hogs with dogs in Texas and Florida which I have done. I never went out hunting hogs without a at least a large bore pistol as a backup to the dogs when I did it.

[RugerFan]

Some parts of Hawaii that allow hunting are archery only. And yes, he was nuts either way.

[Beagler]

discovery channel right now hogs gone wild marathon

[starmac]

My uncle was a civilian in viet nam and told me stories obout hunting hogs with the mountain ards. These people were just using knives. I really didn't belive it for several years, until I read about the mountain ards in a hunting mag.

[GabbyM]

Just watched that myself. Me thinks a little showboating for the camera. If you think about it the film crew was in there too. I figure he was about three feet down the tunnel. He was pretty much in residential back yards so the Archery is probably accurate. That’s doing it the hard way for sure.

[RugerFan]

discovery channel right now hogs gone wild marathon

Yup, got it on now. Thanks for the heads up.

[beagle]

No showboating. That's the way they hunt in Hawaii. There are few restrictions on native Hawaiians and pig hunting with primitive weapons. They usually hunt using dogs and use spears and knives/machetes. There is a rifle season but I don't think it's very long. I saw one guy using a Marlin .35 Remington when I was over there during gun season.

There's a pretty good population on Oahu but the population of hogs and wild goats on the island of Hawaii is really heavy.

They were a nuisance when we were running field problems over there as they have very little fear of man and will come right into the bivouac areas hunting food. When we were eating C-rations, I've seen many cans that the pigs bit open to get the contents.

They don't have much of a sense of humor either and have learned to ignore blanks fired at them even from an M-60 machine gun.

I came in about 1:00 in the morning from making a water run to one of my sites when I was a 1SG and a big boar had all of the motor pool guys "treed" in the back of a 2 1/2 ton cargo truck. I was able to finally run him out of the immediate area with a jeep and wished for my .357 Magnum. He stayed in the immediate area but left the mechanics alone for the remainder of the night./beagle

[44fanatic]

That sounds like one of my stupid stunts. When I was stationed in HI a buddy took me hog hunting with a bow. I had arrowed a hog and followed the blood trail through the tunnel in the grass, 8" buck knife held out in front of me. When I found it, it seemed like it took me about 5 minutes to break out of the grass tunnel, probably more like 30 seconds. After I had thought about it, I realized how incredibably stupid I was. But then, I would do it again. I am not about to shoot a game animal and not make all attempts to recover it.
BTW, when I did recover the hog, after crawling through about 50 yards of grass tunnel, the hog died about 15 yards away from where I arrowed it.

Additionally, on the Big Island, there was a unit training and had gotten messed up pretty bad. They had a pack of hogs come through their bivouac site. A couple of Soldiers fell in blister pits running from the hogs and a couple of others got tore up by the hogs. I think there were a total of seven injuries.

[44fanatic]

Forgot to mention. If you are hiking in HI and find a chair in the middle of nowhere, it may be a hog hunter that left it there. Was told that the locals would bury a spear, tip up, stand on the chair below a tree with a limb over their head that they could reach. Bait the hog in and get it to charge. Pull themselves up as the pig hits the spear.

[JIMinPHX]

I've known guys to hunt a big cat with just a rope. I've known Florida Crackers to feel along the bottom with their bare feet to locate a downed gator. There are plenty of hunting methods I am aware of that I would not try myself. You can add this one to the list. I'm perfectly happy to snipe from 100-yards out with a big enough gun.

[stubshaft]

When you arrow a hog, you usually wait 30 minutes before you take up the trail. They usually run, stop then lay down to die. I've crawled in many tunnels tracking them and YES Hawaii does have stoopid laws restricting the carrying of ANY firearm in an archery only area.

I guess it's just a matter of what you are used to. I learned to hog hunt with a knife and 1 dog to track the animal. The dog would track the hog and start barking, getting the hogs attention. Just a matter of grabbing either the rear foot (to control the direction it can turn) or one of the ears (control the head and you can control the "hooks" or tusks) and sticking em in the chest. For really big boars you gotta go in behind the shoulder to avoid the shield.

Do I respect the damage they can do with their tusks, HECK yeah. I've seen dogs gored and thrown into trees.

Do I think they are hard to kill. NO, I have shot them with everything from 22 CB caps to 458 win mags. Shot placement is important, just hit them between the eye and the ear and the will grunt and fall over. Hit then in the paunch and buddy, now you have a problem!

[randyrat]

Y eh, well I bite the hogs with my teeth. Just after they are cooked nice N tender

[Charlie Two Tracks]

There you go Randy! Best idea I heard.

[Taylor]

I was at Schofield in the late 70's.I was informed it was the tradtional way to hunt them.A manly thing I guess.Anyway,what I witnessed was dog's and a knife.Saw some really big one's come out of East Range.

[RugerFan]

They were a nuisance when we were running field problems over there as they have very little fear of man and will come right into the bivouac areas hunting food.

Still a common occurance in the mid/late '90s.

[markinalpine]

One of the advertisers at the Box O' Truth Forum, Wild Hog Hunters (http://www.wildhoghunters.com/)
has a pretty interesting website.

Mark :coffeecom

[GabbyM]

They showed the lady of the group in Texas go in with a huge knife she brought out for the show. There dogs had the hog held down. In that instance I can see where you would worry about hitting one of your dogs with a bullet. I think my old AR with the bayonet attached might be the ticket for me. Never considered the bayonet as a hunting tool but to get into the middle of a dog and hog fight I can see myself putting the knife on a stick. Then if the hog broke loose I’d have a rifle in my hand.

I’ll have to admit it was good TV seeing a pretty girl with all her makeup on jumping in a pile of three dogs and a big hog to stick it in the ribs.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI'
Hog problem would go away, if hunting them was encouraged.
Something like a $1 tag, take as many as you want to eat.:Fire::Fire:

[RugerFan]

HI'
Hog problem would go away, if hunting them was encouraged.
Something like a $1 tag, take as many as you want to eat.:Fire::Fire:

If only it were that easy. Ft Benning, GA pays a bounty on each hog tail brought in ($20 I believe). A few year back while hog hunting there myself, I ran into a soldier whose job it was to drive around all day and kill hogs. Still, the hog population there is doing just fine. They are just too prolific and will go completely nocturnal if pressured too much.

[nelsonted1]

I grew up on our farm in MN. We had hogs in confinement. My brother and I dragged out an old steel fishing rod. We climbed up on the feeder with the rod and a twine string tied to a bare corn cob.

We'd fish for hogs. They were about 50 lbs. They had nothing in the world to do except eat so when the kids with a corn cob showed up they had a chance at some fun. They'd climb on each other, bite ears, squeal at the top of their lungs, bark and chase each other around.

My brother and I had the most fun we'd ever had until Dad caught us. We got the worst talking to we'd ever gotten in our lives. We were told they'd eat us if we fell in. We lost the fishing rod.

We, of course being four and fivers, got a stick and went back to fishing. Dad heard the squealing and barking and caught us again. We lost the fishing pole, lost the steps up the side of the feeders, got pants-down spanking. The thing that got through to us was the sound of absolute fear in his voice. We never fished again.

Anyone who doesn't respect hogs, even tame ones, is ignorant or a fool.

I have a picture of a pet pig we had that that would take a bottle of Mountain Dew in his mouth, tip it up and slam the full bottle down without missing a drop. Besides being everything else said about pigs they make the greatest, most entertaining, easiest to train pets God put on the earth.

TED

the pik is trapped in my old broken down computer.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I watched the show also. One question I had among others was, why do they go into a dog/hog fight and try to tie the oonker's feet. Why not just shoot the critter. I have received e-mails of men in various southern states shooting huge piles of wild pigs everynight and they arn't making a dent in the hog population. They mentioned saving the meat for human consumption but I doubt if they would be all that tasty. Kind of rank eating I think.

[stubshaft]

Some of them will catch a young boar and castrate it. Mark it (usually by splitting an ear) and release it. It makes for a better eating hog. I personally prefer sows as they don't have the shield and are fatter.

[RugerFan]

One question I had among others was, why do they go into a dog/hog fight and try to tie the oonker's feet. Why not just shoot the critter.

I had the opportunity to watch a man and his hog-dogs in person in Texas a while back (a friend's cousin). He would bring the hogs back alive and grain them out in a pen and then butcher them. Better eating he said.


They mentioned saving the meat for human consumption but I doubt if they would be all that tasty. Kind of rank eating I think.

I've killed a bunch of feral hogs and only had one (a large boar) taste a bit gamey. The rest were just fine. A little bland if anything. The key is proper meat care (which could be said about any wild game meat really).

[Dragoon 45]

The following is some of the problems I have run into trying to find a place to hunt hogs in Oklahoma.

In Oklahoma, feral hogs are considered nuisances and can be hunted anytime of the year as long as you comply with any regulations in force for what ever hunting season it is, i.e. wearing hunter orange during deer season, etc. At least that is the story that our Wildlife Dept puts out. But our Wildlife Dept is less than helpful when it comes to finding areas where the hog problem is the worse. For instance they could not give me any idea which state managed lands open for hunting had hog problems, but if you talk to any wildlife biologist outside the Dept, they say the entire state has a major problem. Needless to say I am not terribly impressed with the Okla Wildlife Dept. Supposedly, the Wildlife Dept also maintains a list of hunters that they refer to land owners with hog problems, but no one at the Wildlife Dept could tell me how to add my name to the list.

I used to hunt hogs with my ex-father-in-law in Florida with dogs in years past. His method was to have the dogs catch the hogs, then take them home, fatten them up, and then butcher them. But he passed a number of years back and I haven't been hog hunting since. Now I have a Marlin 1895 CB that I am just itching to take out hog hunting, but have hit one huge snag. I live alone and could never eat all the meat. I contacted a number of feeding kitchens in my area and was told they could not accept the meat due to Health Department Regulations, and I admit I don't understand this as I have friends who have regularly donated vension to them in the past. I just can't see the point of killing a hog and then letting the meat go to waste if at all possible.

I have been told that some land owners will allow hog hunting on their land, and want the hunter to leave the carcass where it fell, as the land owners believe it will help scare off the other hogs. I personnally don't know if this works, although the same thought is used for coyotes around here. You see lots of dead coyotes hanging off fences around these parts. You hear other hunters talking about this but when you ask them who these land owners are, they don't know.

There is some talk of putting a bounty on feral hogs in Oklahoma according to a rep of the State Cattlemens Association I talked to. Don't know what the amounts will be. But if the the bounties are set high enough it would do a lot to control the population, especially if the amount for a sow is set higher than for a boar.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

If I were you Dragoon45, I would start knocking some doors . . . get a freezer.

Pigs have a high chance of transmitting disease, so I can understand the concern . . . however, if handled properly . . . but, they just don't know how you handled it, and how long it has been dead.

I little fear goes a long ways.

[August]

A friend of mine lives in Hawaii and considers hogs to be a huge problem.

He uses a suppressor to keep the neighbors happy.

[GabbyM]

Dragon 45:
Seams the good old boy system is in full play. Imagine how close to the chest those DNR types would be playing it after there brother in law starts collecting bounties on hogs. My general opinion is the more you can keep a government out of it the better things are. They sound like a bunch of sooners to me.

[Dragoon 45]

If I were you Dragoon45, I would start knocking some doors . . . get a freezer.

Pigs have a high chance of transmitting disease, so I can understand the concern . . . however, if handled properly . . . but, they just don't know how you handled it, and how long it has been dead.

I little fear goes a long ways.

I don't deer hunt anymore, don't need or have a place to store the meat.

But according to our Wildlife Dept there is a lot of disease in our deer herds: all the different Tick Borne diseases, wasteing disease, and a bunch of others that I can't even begin to pronounce or spell. It does not sound like the deer herd is any healthier than the swine population. If as they say disease is such a problem, I would think they would want hunters to thin out the herds as much as possible to control the diseases, but what do I know?

You keep hearing how much of a problem the overpopulation of feral hogs and deer are for the state, but it seems like the state does not want to deal with the problem.

[DanWalker]

I hunted hogs for a living as a feral animal removal technician(professional hunter) on the channel islands of California when I got out of college in 2002. Killing hogs with a knife isn't that tough of a trick if you know what you're doing. I worked with a staffordshire terrier and catahoulas that were hell for tough. We had to use knives when we worked in close with the dogs. It got hairy a few times, but I got out o.k. I got charged several times but was only in real trouble once, and some quick shooting with a 38 snubby got me out of it.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

When I was a child my father kept hogs to butcher for meat. This always took place in the late fall so the meat would not spoil. I remember he had one huge sow that must have weighed close to 400 LBS. She would chase him on occaision so he put a ladder against a tree to climb and escape her rage. She was one mean hog. When she had a litterof pigs, if my Dad was't there she would eat them.I was forbidden to go into the back lot. Not that I wanted to but there was a cherry tree in that lot and I dearly loved cherries, still do. One day my Dad got enough and called the butcher. I remember that little piggy took a lot of killing. After the first shot she started to run around the parameter of the lot. I don't recall how many shots it took to finish her but I was glad when she was gone. I could then eat my cherris without looking over my shoulder. I don'tremember how many hogs I saw butchered but I do remember they all took a lot of killing. I remember one as though it where it yesterday . The pig was shot in the head and then the man plunged a knife in the pigs chest, the pig began to scream. We have all heard that expression. I listened until I could stand no more and I went home. After seeing all those hogs being killed I have always thought that if I ever hunted them I would want at least a very big handgun. I certainly would not go after them armed only with a knife and a rope.

[wills]

The following is some of the problems I have run into trying to find a place to hunt hogs in Oklahoma.

I have been told that some land owners will allow hog hunting on their land, and want the hunter to leave the carcass where it fell, as the land owners believe it will help scare off the other hogs. I personnally don't know if this works, although the same thought is used for coyotes around here. You see lots of dead coyotes hanging off fences around these parts. You hear other hunters talking about this but when you ask them who these land owners are, they don't know.



I recently saw a video in which two hogs were shot under a deer feeder. Two more came up and were feeding right next to the decedents when they too were shot. So much for that theory.

[stubshaft]

Hogs have no problem with cannibalism. I do alot of predator control hunting and have used gut piles as bait stands for other hogs. I have shot hogs at 5:00pm and returned at 6:00 in the morning to find only scraps of skin.

[Dragoon 45]

Hogs have no problem with cannibalism. I do alot of predator control hunting and have used gut piles as bait stands for other hogs. I have shot hogs at 5:00pm and returned at 6:00 in the morning to find only scraps of skin.

Thanks for the info. I suspected that was the truth, but had never talked to anyone who knew for sure. Also thank you to Wills for a second opinion.