Hey, Eddie Walker, look here:

[N80]

Eddie, this guy is nowhere near as big as the one in your picture, but he was pretty stout for around here:

He weighed 225 pounds, but get this, he had no right front leg! It was missing above the knee joint. It was perfectly healed and I couldn't tell if it was from an injury or congenital. So, he might have weighed a little more with all four. And it did not slow him down any either; he was healthy as a horse and fat as a ....pig.

In any case, I shot him on the far hillside of a very deep hardwood valley. There is a dirt road on the near ridge top but getting him up that steep hillside would have been tough. (I think it is harder to drag a hog than a deer even if they weigh the same). So, with it getting dark fast and me feeling very lazy, I decided to try to get my tractor in there by coming in at the end of the valley. It would be about a 400 yard trip through trees and across some slopes and shallow ravines. There is no running creek but there is a fairly deep ravine in the middle. My son and my Dad and I picked our way through that valley with the Kubota L4400 with me wishing two things 1) that it was a smaller tractor and 2) that I had better lights on it. It would not have been possible without 4wd. My Dad and son walked along side with flashlights and checked for clearances around trees. I had to knock down a few smallish trees but after about 15 minutes and more than a couple of serious pucker moments crossing slopes, we got to him. Scooped him up in the bucket and took the same route out. Round trip was probably about an hour. The three of us (me 43 and in so-so physical condition, Dad 70 in better condition, son 15 in okay condition) probably could have dragged him up the near hillside but it would have taken 15-20 minutes and half killed us. It is steep enough that walking up it without a load gets me out of breath and involves a bit of huffing and puffing. We could have dragged him down the valley which would have been easier but taken longer.......but hey, why am I trying to justify using the tractor to you guys. Y'all know what its all about. You shoot a pig just to get an excuse to play with the tractor.

 

[scott_vt]

PIG ROAST AT GEORGES HOUSE !!! IM ON MY WAY !!! ILL BRING THE BEER !!!

What some guys wont do to use the tractor

 

[escavader]

PIG ROAST AT GEORGES HOUSE !!! IM ON MY WAY !!! ILL BRING THE BEER !!!

What some guys wont do to use the tractor

SCOTTY
Mabey we can use a gear reduction unit and use his tractor pto to turn it. Ill bring the MAINE TATERS,and some lobster!!

GEORGE
Nice lookin pig,we dont got them up here .How do you hunt them? Seen them on OLD YELLER THOUGH remember that one?"TRAVIS GET YOUR GUN TRAVIS"!!!
ALAN

 

[N80]

They are a recent addition to upstate SC. They are mostly feral (domestic pigs gone wild), but a large portion of these are being released intentionally to establish another game species. This is against the law and most folks around here consider them to be a nuisance. Early on the pigs around here still had a domestic look to them, some even had spots. But the ones on my place now are almost all black (like the one in the picture) and probably have some Russian stock, which means they were probably released in the area on purpose.

There are no game laws that protect them in any way. Some folks here even trap them in big traps. Some run them with dogs. But you can hunt them any way you want to. We just shoot them if we see them while we are deer hunting. (I guess I'm a softy but I don't shoot sows with piglets.) I shot this one at about 150 yards, which is a long shot for me, with a .270. He went straight down. You can bait them, but not during deer season here, because baiting deer isn't legal. We have a bunch of corn to bait hogs with after deer season.

I did not keep this one. I called a local fellow who took him. I don't try eating these big, musky old boars. Very tough and gamey. But, after deer season I hope to get a shoat around 150 pounds. That should make a good barbecue!

I understand from the local biologist that they are pretty much here to stay, like the coyotes. You can shoot all you want and it won't make a difference. So I'll shoot a few shoats to eat and a big boar as a trophy, but I'm not trying or hoping to exterminate them. I wish they were gone, but shooting and trapping them isn't going to do it. The biologist said that a good hog hunter with dogs can probably get them off of your place.....but these are probably the guys who are releasing them.

I'm not sure what impact they will have on the local wildlife and game. They will certainly compete for food but I'm not sure that is a real problem. I do wonder if they have an impact on turkeys. They have extraordinary sense of smell and I'm sure they will eat turkey eggs, but I have no idea if that is a real issue or not. It may be coincidence but we usually have tons of turkeys on my place in the fall. They are everywhere. This year the hogs are everywhere and we've seen very few turkeys and no big flocks. Might be a complete coincidence, but one wonders.

 

[texasjohn]

Hogs are a new predator on the loose. Their destructiveness is hard to overstate. They hunt and kill fawns, we had a cow that lay down to calve at the wrong time... they killed her and ate her. They dig up everything, mess up fences.... shoot the varments!

 

[EddieWalker]

George,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

That's a mighty fine looking hog you have there. They are a great hunting animal and it's nice that you can hunt them year round without any rules. California used to be that way, but Fish & Game started selling tags to make more money and it sort of lost it's fun to me. Texas is pretty much open season on them like you, except we can bait deer here, so my corn is out year round.

One thing I've just learned about corn is that when the acorns are down, nothing eats corn. I had my feeders turned off for over a month with corn sitting on the ground. For months they are here just about every night eating it, then for a month not one animal.

Tonight at about 7:45, I went for a drive on a trail I'm making for my Christmas hay ride with my 6 year old son. We were cruising along in the thich hardwoods when we saw a hundred pound hog 20 yards in front of us!! He stood for a few seconds, then ran off.

My son got all exited and couldn't wait to tell his mom and sister what we saw!!!

For him, it's as much fun just seeing them as anything else.

Thanks for the great story and posting you picture!!!
Eddie

 

[N80]

We had a _huge_ acorn crop this year and I'm sure that's why the pigs have been here. But the acorns are gone now so I'm hoping when we put the corn out it will be a big hit.

This pigs are a good game animal. Very destructive but good game nevertheless. They are much more wary than the deer and seem to have better noses too. They don't see well at all but if they hear or smell anything at all they just vanish, no waiting around or sniffing the wind to see what it is, just gone!

Early in the year before deer season my wife and I walked down to one of our deer stands. We had our lab, Dash, with us. Way across the creek bottom we saw a bunch of 50-75 pound shoates come down the far hillside. He's a pretty savvy hunter so I quietly pointed them out to him and he took off up the hillside. The pigs took off too and he followed them out of sight. Next thing you know, here he comes barrelling back down the hill with a big old sow on his heels. It was clear she couldn't catch him, but he wasn't waiting around to see!

 

[EddieWalker]

The damage they cause is there only drawback. I have one spot where they have been digging in the ground to the point I'm sure they have killed a tree I wanted to save. The deepest hole is almost two feet deep!!!! They are also rooting around my lake. It's not on the dam, but it is an area that I want to have a nice smooth lawn, and those rootings are pretty bad.

I'm working on a plan to build a pen that will allow them to walk in through a one way gate and not let them out. Most hog traps have a trap door that shuts when they eat the food. It works good for one or two hogs, but if there are more, they just run away and become smarter.

If I could get one to come through the trap door, others would follow. It needs to be big enough to hold a dozen or more hogs without them going into panic mode. It also needs to be strong enough to handle a constant full on charge!!!! The door is the real trick and I'm not happy with any of my ideas yet. I've seen them lift trap doors with there snouts and there strength is just unbelievable!!!

The only successful method I'm aware of to get rid of them is to poison. It's illegal and I'm not gonna do it, so trapping is the second best method to keep there numbers down. I read someplace that in good times, they can have three litters a year. I don't know how often that happens, but I know twice a year isn't unusual. If you have a few now, you will have allot in a few years!!!

Eddie

 

[TBDonnelly]

Last week Nightline/ABC did a story on feral pigs and their population explosion. I located the printed version on their website. See the link......

ABC News: Wild Pigs Menace U.S., Whet Appetites in Europe

Don

 

[texasjohn]

Eddie, on the family ranch we use a hog trap designed as follows.... if you wish more details, PM me.

It is in an area with brush and cover.... made in a circle of cattle panels... T posts hold the panels upright. It is large enough that quite a few hogs can get inside.... maybe to 80 feet in diameter (I think larger is better) the circle is a secret... they kinda bounce around and run around but don't hit a flat spot and tend to seek to dig out less than if they found corners. The cover and size gives them a sense of security and less tendancy to try to get out. Now, to seek to describe the entrance and trap trigger.

The entrance is an inverted V (kinda like a minnow trap) where two cattle panels are curved INTO the circle for about 8 feet (or half of the panel) and held apart by a stick that will fall down when hit. The natural spring of the cattle panels make them snap together closing the V when the trigger is sprung. Then, an animal will run around the inside of the circle, and when they come to the inverted V, it will give but also divert them to the far side of the trap. You place the trigger kinda high so that it takes a large hog to hit it with their back to spring it... thus a number of smaller animals will go inside before a large one....this technique has resulted in catching as many as 11 hogs at one time.

You can bait the trap, leave it locked open until a bunch is regularly visiting the site, then set the trigger and check on it daily. Good luck in filling your freezer!