Feral Hogs Swimming Across Lewisville Lake

Feral Hogs Skinny Dipping in Lake Lewisville

First time I've seen something like that.

Some of them were fricken big!! Dang it man! Pig man where are u!!! There needs to be an all out war on them hogs.

Kind of interesting---But it makes me sick

I smell bacon!!

You got that right! We can hunt them here year around even at night with a green light but the summers here are soooooooo hot and humid it's terrible! If I see them during hunting season though I will take one out no hesitation!

RC

I've shot some of them but doubt that I would do it again. I just don't like making things dead that I'm not going to eat.

I generally find that all of the media info about their damage is mostly BS. I've had them about 10 years. They've rolled around in a couple of seasonal water holes but have never caused any damage on my place. I've watched them graze on mu wheat like cows.

Dave I wonder what predators go after the piglets? I heard all the adult females have 3 or 4 litters every year....you would think at that rate they would be everywhere...I wonder if the yotes and bobcats are getting a lot of the piglets?

I think the yotes are working over the pigs and not bothering the fawns as much. When pigs come in with piglets there hardly ever see more than 3-6 and not 10. I hope they are anyhow.

DD1
Them piggies can tear up a planted field in one night. Hay fields they love to eat
the rhizomes ruining the crop. We eat the heck out of them. But you have to do the smell test to see if it edible. If the pig don't smell then it's edible.have had big boars tear down a deer feeder and push it over a 100 yards! Pure power.

Generally thats Me2 Dave....
but I have nothing against hunting.

When we bought our place the former owner left 5 large hog traps.
Although I realize the hogs are destructive it was a bit
un-nerving after a local guy trapped several hogs in one
of the hog traps and began executing the hogs one by one...
the last few hogs cowered in the corner of the pen because
they knew what was coming.

It's funny how we see land animals differently than fish.
I bet if any of us found an Asian snakehead in our pond we would have no problem killing it.
Hogs are also an invasive species and should be treated that way!

Yeah for real!! Man they tear up our hunting lease to the point where some spots you can't hardly walk without twisting your ankle! The few I have killed I have ate and they were fine. Course I killed the sow's not a bore. If I killed a bore I would let it lay the yotes would find it and it would not go to waste I'm sure!!

Dave you may have gotten lucky with the ones on your land but most 80 to 90 percent of them are very destructive!

RC

Wow.....what next, pigs flying? lol

I defiantly don't like killing anything I am not going to eat.....with the exception of hogs! Kill with extreme prejudice.

I guess they are kind of like roaches...

Not much on killing for the fun of it but in the case of hogs, It has to be done.

Anybody check those swimming hogs to see if their throats were bleeding? That was a commonly held belief even when I was a boy.

Wow a lot of money and man power is being spent on these stupid pigs. Cool video thx Zep

RC

RC51 I guess I will shoot some too.

Leave 'em out for the yotes to feast on.

Small ones I might tie to cinder-block
and pitch 'em in the catfish pond.

Really aught to consider eating some. Excellent on the pit or ground into hamberger. We eat them as a primary meat source

Yeah if you have a place to process them and you trust them it makes it all that much better. The sows I have killed I had made into breakfast sausage and ribs and chops and they were pretty good! I have never had a Bore but I have heard over and over that they just don't taste as good, but if it's a Bore then let them yotes eat that instead of a fawn!! I would take that trade every day and twice on Sunday!! Dang pigs are running are deer away and tearing up our food plots! Errrrrrrr!!!!

RC

The feeder that is now in my pond was being used for deer about 150 ft from my back door. I loved to watch them and took photos at night with my game camera near by. I have a photo with 18 hogs and pigs under that feeder at one time. No more deer.I heard a racket one night and all 18 of those hogs were under my porch and in my bird feeders at my house!! I turned the porch lights on and screamed at them and they would not even leave until they finished eating all the bird food and destroying the feeder. I took the deer feeder down the next day.I was 15 ft away from some of them and they would not run off!! That's spooky.

Flame do you have a dog?

How do hogs react to a non-toy dog around a farmhouse?

Boars around our place can some times be just fine to eat. They are usually fat , just do the smell test... If they stink they are no good... However most don't stink and the meat is just fine. If in doubt cut off a piece of strap and throw in pan and cook, if it stinks don't clean the boar... Give to coyotes...if it smells like pork then it's good to go... There is to much good meat to just waste. Lots of people love to get it for the price of cleaning it

Zep, I do not have a dog of any kind. We travel a lot and do not want someone else to take care of it while we are gone.I would think a dog around the place would help.Just not for me right now.

Pat I had lots of volunteers talk the talk,
"oh sure I want one, just let me know".
but 99% when I called them to say
"hey we've got hogs in the trap..you can come get one"
"uh well I got baseball this weekend"
"darn this week doesn't work"
"gosh I'll take one next time"
blah blah....lol

another guy came once and loaded a bunch into his trailer
his plan was to sell them to some gator farm near-by
but they have to be live for them to buy them
so he spent all afternoon loading/unloading live wild pigs
and said with gas, time, work he'd be better off on minimum wage

This is all true but the close by folks around me will come get if I have too much in freezer already, there is a place in centerville tex that will buy them live

When I bought my place but prior to the closing, I put out some game cameras and found 1 bore that roamed the property. A week before we closed the bore was taken out by a car down by the hiway bridge. I am glad it was not my car because it had to do some serious damage. So several yr's went by with no hogs, till the 9,000 acre refuge across the rd from me did a burn. And then the hogs showed up. We shot and ate several but did not reduce the numbers. I bought a trap and we caught a sow with a couple of piglets and my son could not kill them so he let them go and caught them again the next day. He just could not kill the moma and its two very small piglets. We stopped using the deer feeders that put corn on the ground and now use only the gravity feeders that keep the corn in the tubes. The pigs left and we have not seen any in the past two yrs.
Tracy

Ditto. We have a huge population of hogs in the river bottom just across the road. We've never seen one, or had any sign, but we have 3 gravitational feeders for my wife's deer watching. We never put anything on the ground.

We almost destroyed our old deer lease by not caging around all the slinger throws, as hogs started showing up 20-30 at a time.

What is a "deer lease?"

Bill, Deer lease is property (acreage) that has been leased for the purpose of deer hunting. Leases are renewed each yr. I am not a member but I might be interested if there were Dear leases, two legged maybe
Tracy

Anyone have photos of the best gravitational feeders you speak of. I would love to feed my deer again without the hogs showing up. I am not a hunter so am unfamiliar with the type you speak of. Only know about pvc pipe feeders.

Something like this? This is a protein feeder.

Flame you and I are thinking alike. I am also not a hunter.
I have been scanning my local Craigslist and would like to try something small and simple at first...
but like you I don't really know what I am looking for.

I'm texting with this guy, but I wonder if this would really be hog-proof?

Craigslist Small Gravity Deer Feeder

That one is hog proof, except the deer will pull out some feed and guess what - pigs

See how high up it is- young deer can't reach it either

I think sometimes for practicality you may have to go with
"hog-resistant", kind of like a house door lock helps,
but if someone really wants in....they're coming in.

Put a feeder in the middle of a 3' high fence and prob solved. Deer will jump and piggies won't ( most of the time)

Game ranches do that around their protein feeders

That's not hog proof at all!

Maybe if it was mounted a couple feet higher on the tree?

yes exactly...I would assume mounted a bit higher it would be
hog-resistant to some degree.

If a hog gets a few corn kernels I'm not going to let it ruin my day!

Deer aren't much taller than pigs are so its a fine line . And I've watched hogs stand on their hind legs to get to the feed, the best solution is a low fence

Zep, Those hogs are still going to come to the smell of that corn and then be rooting everything up in the area. At least they would at my place. Best thing I did was quit feeding all together. I still see a few deer wandering around on my place without feeding and tracks show they are there pretty often. Just not when I'm watching. Experiment, If you find something that works good please let me know. I have not tried the fence like Pat said.

Flame I have about 25 acres of bottom-land/flood plain land and that's where I plan on placing the feeders. A lot of this bottom-land as I call it is kind of "toe-up" anyway....so I will try some feedings there and let ya know how it goes. I can't do the fence thing...just seems like what's the point? But that's just me.

I have two of those that I made for the Wood county property. I Haven't used in years. I need to go get them and start using them again.

Tbar...them hogs are trouble-makers in all kinds of ways aren't they?

Can't even feed the deer without those rascals wanting in on it!

maybe this type would work?


I guess this is the fence type, not as bad looking as I thought.


wonder how much higher you could go to avoid hogs but deer could reach?

There it is problem solved

Pat it's better looking than I thought,
but I wonder if you'd need a concrete base
so hogs wouldn't go under fence?

About 40-44" maybe. I drilled a hole at the top below the lid and passed a galvanized pipe nipple through it. I then passed a chain through the pipe and attached to a bolt/screw in the tree. Unfortunately it sure didn't stop the coons. Maybe sheet metal on the tree?

Lots of folks attach a piece of the fencing flat facing out so me piggie can't root it. About a foot or so out and they can't hardly git in

Oooops!

Large hogs are as tall as most of the deer around us( at the shoulder)

Mark, these are what I made. I've used these several years, and racoons and crows usually eat what little corn that hits the ground. The feral hogs that I've dealt with learn the feeder throw times just like deer. Since these don't have corn under them on a consistent basis, they don't "seem" to attract them.

I hang mine about 30' to 36' off the ground, and doe seem to feed just fine.

Thanks Al. I think I will try one...see what happens.

Al have you ever seen anybody with one of these?

GravityFeeder

I think one day in the next 20 or so years snakeheads will just be another gamefish. Having caught them here in Virginia and biologists now realizing they're not such a big deal. As they grow in numbers, anglers will bucket stock and spread them all over. We're seeing them showing up in lakes, ponds and new near by river systems. If it was legal, I'd love to experiment with them in a pond. They fight and taste far better than LMB.

Flame, the protein feeder shown by Tbar is a nice one and I have one very similar to it, but I also have some that are made from a 55 gal drum that are much less expensive. They will not keep all hogs away but most hogs away. I found my feeders at local feed and seed stores across E Texas.
Tracy

Oink......target rich environment.

Mark, the best bet is to build hog panel fences around the feeder. Deer can jump it to get in.

I've built a lot of the pvc pipe feeders. They work well also but need to be high enough to keep MOST of the hogs out.

Or, I can bring my 16 year old Grandson and his predator buddies to clobber the pigs. Those guys are deadly with both bows and rifles. Those guys would rather pig hunt than deer hunt, play football, or chase girls.

Thanks Dave!

That top one is a big boar!

is this a snakehead?
wow

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1003006493061493&fref=nf

I don't care for killing what i don't eat either but when it comes to a hog, I have a rule on my place, if you see it, kill it. I've had them jump 42" tall panels to get in and destroy more than 1 feeder. The Texas Hunter feeder, well I don't think a cow can knock them over.
That start out all cute!




I'll try a small one and put him on the grill or maybe the egg but anything over 100 lbs, goes to the 'yotes. Then the 'yotes go.

Brian, TPost and wire to the legs. They destroyed 2 of mine before I did that.

If you guys get some of those critters, send me the backstrap/loins. I've got a fantastic recipe to turn them into "top bacon" aka "Candian Bacon" for those of us in the Lower 48.

(You could also send me a PM, and I can give you the approximate recipe.)