Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Hogs

Well, it has finally happened. After years of knowing wild hogs were thriving 20 miles away, they have moved onto my land.

About a month ago I found shoreline wallows on two ponds. Okay, how much damage could an occasional pig cause? No big deal. That's changed.

I have one small pond that I recently sealed with bentonite/red clay and it is or was really pretty. I was going to stock next weekend with BG and use it for forage production. It is only about 30 x 40 ft and about 4 to 5 ft. deep. I drove by it Saturday and it has been turned into a hog wallow. Evidently a sow and her brood has moved in. They have made a real mess of the pond and surrounding area. Surrounding vegetation is destroyed and the pond is a muddy mess.

I find about 20 trees with mud on the trunks where they have scratched. That tells me they have visited more than once and have found a home. Actually, they have found lots of homes. I visited all water holes (8) and found wallows and rooted areas in mud. Surprisingly enough, I found none along the creek.

Just venting here. I know there's nothing I can really do about it.

Hey Gator, can I borrow Pete?

BBQ pork. Problem solved!

DD,

They can be a real pain! I found that traps work for awhile but they soon figure them out also. They have replaced the armadillo for # 1 road kill in my area.

Trapping is about the only option & all you will do is thin'em down. You'd be better off to get started on that if you are gonna do it. I was talking with a fella from around Graham & he said if you don't live very close to your place the best method is to set up a trap and wire the door open. Go to some place like walmart and get one of those cheap bucket type dusk/dawn deer feeders. Rig it so that almost all the feed will fall into the trap. He said if you do this one weekend, by the next they should be coming to very regularly. Get out there on Friday or Saturday, set the door & the next morning you should have hogs. Repeat as necessary...

I have never done any trapping, but last month a fella trapped hogs off the property behind the land we hunt on NW of Gatesville. He got 64 of'em. We have several game cameras out. He didn't get them all by any stretch...but we saw a big drop off in what is coming to our feeder areas.

Good luck,
Ross

Thanks Ross, I think I'll try it. Soon!

dd,

Yes - I can loan out Pete! : )

The only good news I can share with you that hogs tend migrate regularly...they will hang for a few weeks at a time then move on. Im not sure what causes them to come and go.

- Good News: They will move off of your place soon.

- Bad News, They will return.

Gator

are they fit to eat? If so, I bet the young ones would be tender

They are excellent eating...make the best sausage you've ever tasted.

is there a regulated season or can you harvest at random? This seems weird to me the ferrel hogs running loose at such large quanities. I have buddies that go south and get a couple hogs but I thought they were hunting on hunting ranches set up for it. I have seen the mess that domesticated hogs will do un attended with out hog rings, Man running a muck they could be a real problem.

MMMMM! Sausage

in texas you can harvest til you cant harvest anymore. by any means you wants heck you can go jeep hunting if you wanted
I dont think feeral hogs will be in any danger soon
Fatty

Trialsguy- Here in Mo you can hunt hogs year round. MDC strongly encourages shooting of all hogs not easily identified by tag or tattoo. Hogs are destroying public and private lands thru out the state. There are huge packs of hogs running within 25 miles of us both. It is just a matter of time before we will all be dealing with them.

DD1-- Good news is the hogs will kill every snake they find!!
Bad news is they are smart. A family friend fought them for years and found the only way to get rid of them was hard hunting pressure. He opened up his property to hog hunting only. Several people hunted non-stop for 6 months with highly trained dogs. The hogs that didn't get shot left from the constant harassment.

Wow I didnt know? Hey by the way h20fwlkillr a good friend of mine lives there in holden that makes great high quality hunting knives,At a fair price. His maker name is Old John knives his name is John Jones

H20, I talked to my brother. He lived in Southeast Texas and was around a lot of hogs. He said that the first thing to remember is that they are smarter than you are. He also said that they are almost 100% nocturnal during the summer. I expect I'll try to trap on weekends like Ross advised.

I hate to open the place up to intensive hog hunting with dogs. That would run off every deer for miles.

I gotta get some good sausage recipes. Looks like I'm gonna need them.

Feral hogs are great eating except for the breeding boars. Best pork steaks you have ever had. By the way you can smell the breeding boars from 30 feet. Just drag them off in the brush. If you shoot one or two from a group they will go away for awhile. Very smart animals. Just fire a gun near them and they may find better accomadations. (Sp)

Get yourself a girlfriend who likes to hunt!!!

The first two pictres was in April. The second two pictures was last week.

Eddie

We have them pretty bad in our area. Shoot them all because you won't get them all. They will figure out the trap thing and then you won't be able to trap them either but that usaully takes a while.

There are even people around here that will come with dogs and hunt them at no charge and some might even pay.

I guess I'm the only one here who wants them Send them all my way, I'll make my own smoked sausage, share them with my friends (who highly prefer them over deer), and sell the rest. They root around a little, but that goes away after several rain showers.

Here's a site with field tips for the meat, recipies, and a forum : www.texasboars.com

Here is the link to meat prep : http://www.texasboars.com/articles/recipes.html

Eastland
Trap some younger ones and pen them on free-flow corn for 45-60 days. Plenty of clean water and we enjoy them. Friends actually ask for chops.

Dave, you mentioned that you have deer. If you have feeders for the deer that the hogs can get to, they won't be going anywhere anytime soon. We processed 4 hogs this season and made several different kinds of saugage. The Italian Links and the Jalapeno & cheese links were pretty outstanding!
This link is to a video from my game camera over a feeder. It's (3) 10 second clips from one evening. Quality isn't great, but you will get the idea. Oh, anyone on dialup might not want to mess with this one:
http://www.huntingfootage.com/showphoto.php?photo=2578&cat=500&ppuser=3262

Ross, neat pictures. I don't start feeders until about Sept. or October. I've seen hog traps for sale at the Bowie Flea Market that occurs this weekend. I've never paid any attention to them because I didn't figure I'd need one this soon. I'll be looking this weekend.

I thought about cranking up the welder and building my own but, as usual, projects and work in the metroplex have kept me from getting to the country much this year. As a result, I'm way behind on priority projects there (and here).

Hey Dave check out www.noble.org then search hog traps.They have a very simple design I will be using this in NE Montague county as we have also started to see hogs.

MadHatter, Thanks for the link. The corral trap looks almost too simple. I think I would use a bunch more T-Posts. I wonder if they could dig their way out? I don't know enough about pigs to know. I doubt if they would be sedate about being penned.

Where is your land?

DD,

My trap is similar to their "portable trap". It is made of heavy cattle panels, cut and wired together and has bottom and top covers. A simple trip wire to a gate gets them. They don't get out of it...but they would get out of that corral trap, IMO....especially the pictured one without a top. No way would it hold an East Texas porker.

Dave my place is just south of St.Jo

Ross, cool video ! Nice Job.

Dave, get a sturdy pipe frame with welded hog panels. They sell for around $300 in my area, they are awesome. The coons figured out how to get out thru the spring door.

Just fyi, I have trail cam pics of a whitetail going inside my trap...I keep the door tied open while I'm away. Hog pics galore...I love midnight hunts with my night vision scope, the good scopes can shoot a twig off a tree at 100 yards, simply unbelievable stuff.