Buffalobwana
Well-Known Member
High fence with skirting around the inside is extremely effective.
Feral Hog Info
- Thread starter Coyote Shadow Tracker
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My favorite way to eradicate them!!!! But it takes thousands of acres of open country/pasture land to be able to hunt them consistently. Too much pressure at night and they will move out or revert to daytime activity. Plus in Texas, it isn't 110 degrees at night so able to hunt them year round.
My buddys son takes us and has a tricked out jeep. Infrared pods on the front with a helmet and viewer that allows him to drive around. FLIR camera on top with remote control, can see side to side while driving. We use thermal scopes on suppressed 300 BO ARs. He doesn't hunt them commercially, rather just for fun and also in "tournaments" that are held. I don't have a pic but he had a 16' trailer full of them from one nights hunt.
My buddys son takes us and has a tricked out jeep. Infrared pods on the front with a helmet and viewer that allows him to drive around. FLIR camera on top with remote control, can see side to side while driving. We use thermal scopes on suppressed 300 BO ARs. He doesn't hunt them commercially, rather just for fun and also in "tournaments" that are held. I don't have a pic but he had a 16' trailer full of them from one nights hunt.
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Comanche41
Active Member
Not in my part of TX. High timber in Davy Crockett National Forest borders me. Huge (50 yds tall and 2 to 3 ft diameter) shortleaf pines fall across my fences all the time. Can't keep fences up of any kind where I am.
Coastal
Active Member
It's a complex problem. Letting hunters shoot pigs is about the poorest method of reducing pig numbers there is. You can't make any real difference with standard hunting methods including baiting. Especially with one dead pig here and there. You have to kill whole sounders, not a pig or three a weekend. Trapping with big corral and net style remote triggered traps is the best option but requires a lot of expense, work and time. Helicopters can make a big difference when done right and in the right terrain.
Just letting people come hunt for free is a really poor strategy. You won't see the results you want. You'll have all kinds of issues from the hunters. Your hogs will get really smart in a hurry making them harder to trap and kill. And on top of that it would take a bunch of time and effort from the landowner just in dealing with the free hunters. It's just not a good realistic method to control numbers. At least here in Texas it isn't.
That isn't even getting into the complexities of hunting leases and how would deer leases and allowing joe public to come hunt hogs for free co-exist? It won't. And that is a huge reason landowners are not allowing the public to shoot pigs for free in Texas. The big money isn't in the pigs, it is in the deer/waterfowl/quail/turkeys. The hogs are just part of the mix.
Just letting people come hunt for free is a really poor strategy. You won't see the results you want. You'll have all kinds of issues from the hunters. Your hogs will get really smart in a hurry making them harder to trap and kill. And on top of that it would take a bunch of time and effort from the landowner just in dealing with the free hunters. It's just not a good realistic method to control numbers. At least here in Texas it isn't.
That isn't even getting into the complexities of hunting leases and how would deer leases and allowing joe public to come hunt hogs for free co-exist? It won't. And that is a huge reason landowners are not allowing the public to shoot pigs for free in Texas. The big money isn't in the pigs, it is in the deer/waterfowl/quail/turkeys. The hogs are just part of the mix.
Buffalobwana
Well-Known Member
I know eradication on a small scale, in a controlled environment is possible.
I fenced 1000 acres and religiously patrolled the fence for any issues. I skirted every slide and snared varmints making them. I did snare a fair number of pigs, but no matter how heavy the snare, I never once actually found one in a snare.
I trapped pigs ruthlessly. After about 18 months, all I had left in 1000 AC was a big fat boar.
I would see him patrol the fence line in the river bottoms. Any pigs walking the outside of the fence was mirrored by him inside. I think he was keeping them out. Or maybe he was just following sows in heat? I dunno, but I had no pig issues.
For a few years, all I had was that one big boar.
One day I shot him because at long distance in the grass he looked like a smaller sow. Not long after, the pigs returned.
It was an interesting experiment. It took a lot of effort, but showed me how possible it is to manage pig numbers.
I fenced 1000 acres and religiously patrolled the fence for any issues. I skirted every slide and snared varmints making them. I did snare a fair number of pigs, but no matter how heavy the snare, I never once actually found one in a snare.
I trapped pigs ruthlessly. After about 18 months, all I had left in 1000 AC was a big fat boar.
I would see him patrol the fence line in the river bottoms. Any pigs walking the outside of the fence was mirrored by him inside. I think he was keeping them out. Or maybe he was just following sows in heat? I dunno, but I had no pig issues.
For a few years, all I had was that one big boar.
One day I shot him because at long distance in the grass he looked like a smaller sow. Not long after, the pigs returned.
It was an interesting experiment. It took a lot of effort, but showed me how possible it is to manage pig numbers.
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FirstBubba
Active Member
"... If a land owner is concerned about liability issues from a person they are allowing to hunt on their property, have them sign a liability waiver. ..."
Mary Ann signed a "Restraining Order" on Joe Bob!
Joe Bob walked in the front door and shot Mary Ann.
A small farmer (about 200 acres) had neighbors sell out and a sub division grew up around him!
City slickers (?) moved to get away from the crime in town.
The farmers property was fenced and posted. A couple of 13 year old kids were out wandering around. One of them decided he could walk the top wire of a barbed wire fence.
When his foot slipped, it nearly castrated him and he nearly bled to death. His parents sued the farmer.
By the time it was all said and done, the farmer had to sell the farm.
"... liability waiver ..." my left hind leg!
End up with a liberal lawyer, a liberal judge and a sympathetic jury and you can kiss it all goodbye!
Mary Ann signed a "Restraining Order" on Joe Bob!
Joe Bob walked in the front door and shot Mary Ann.
A small farmer (about 200 acres) had neighbors sell out and a sub division grew up around him!
City slickers (?) moved to get away from the crime in town.
The farmers property was fenced and posted. A couple of 13 year old kids were out wandering around. One of them decided he could walk the top wire of a barbed wire fence.
When his foot slipped, it nearly castrated him and he nearly bled to death. His parents sued the farmer.
By the time it was all said and done, the farmer had to sell the farm.
"... liability waiver ..." my left hind leg!
End up with a liberal lawyer, a liberal judge and a sympathetic jury and you can kiss it all goodbye!
HRM Johnny
Well-Known Member
Amen to that, brother.
Buffalobwana
Well-Known Member
Yep. No good deed goes unpunished.
Double Naught Spy
Well-Known Member
It is a complex problem, but the trapping you suggest doesn't seem to be winning the war on hogs any better than hunting. Trapping may get more hogs on occasion, but the same problem remains where all the hogs are breeding on somebody else's property that doesn't allow for hunting or trapping. The hogs still come back. It isn't like the trappers are going out of business. I know people keep saying this is the way to take care of the problem only the problem isn't being taken care of when people do it.
This is a reality. The only safe way to play is to not let anyone on your property. The civil courts are full of contested waivers and contract and a lot of them don't hold up. The problem is that the person suing will be suing for something not covered by the waiver or will be suing that the waiver is somehow unfair and hence invalid and if the judge agrees, POOF your waiver effectively does not exist.
Fortunately in Texas, we have posting codified. Again, not absolute, but it does help. It falls under agri-tourism. My properties are posted as such and we point out the signs to guests.
It is under this same guise that we train beekeepers.
The problem with the law is that 1) it hasn't been fully tested and 2) does not appear to protect from 3rd party suits. What happens when the hunter you allow to hunt your property shoots at a hog/coyote/chupacabra and the bullet leaves the property and kills your neighbor's wife. Now, you are named with the shooter in a lawsuit because you ALLOWED the shooter to use your land ... and chances are between you and the shooter, you probably have more resources to lose in a suit than the shooter does, who may be going to jail, anyways.
FirstBubba
Active Member
Worked for a gentleman up here in Oklahoma, driving a tractor.It is a complex problem, but the trapping you suggest doesn't seem to be winning the war on hogs any better than hunting. Trapping may get more hogs on occasion, but the same problem remains where all the hogs are breeding on somebody else's property that doesn't allow for hunting or trapping. The hogs still come back. It isn't like the trappers are going out of business. I know people keep saying this is the way to take care of the problem only the problem isn't being taken care of when people do it.
This is a reality. The only safe way to play is to not let anyone on your property. The civil courts are full of contested waivers and contract and a lot of them don't hold up. The problem is that the person suing will be suing for something not covered by the waiver or will be suing that the waiver is somehow unfair and hence invalid and if the judge agrees, POOF your waiver effectively does not exist.
Fortunately in Texas, we have posting codified. Again, not absolute, but it does help. It falls under agri-tourism. My properties are posted as such and we point out the signs to guests.
It is under this same guise that we train beekeepers.
The problem with the law is that 1) it hasn't been fully tested and 2) does not appear to protect from 3rd party suits. What happens when the hunter you allow to hunt your property shoots at a hog/coyote/chupacabra and the bullet leaves the property and kills your neighbor's wife. Now, you are named with the shooter in a lawsuit because you ALLOWED the shooter to use your land ... and chances are between you and the shooter, you probably have more resources to lose in a suit than the shooter does, who may be going to jail, anyways.
His largest wheat field, about 240 acres had just been planted and we got a good rain to help bring it out if the ground.
The next morning, we found a set of muddy ruts out to about the middle of the field that ended behind a trashed out Toyota pickup with dog boxes in the back.
Two genuine rednecks came traipsing across the muddy field and wanted to know if we could pull them out.
The landowner went absolutely ballistic on them.
"What the hell are you doing out in the middle of my field?"
Their excuse was their dogs "treed".
"We had to get our dogs back!"
By the time we got them out, we had wasted 2 hours of our time and probably destroyed 5 to 10 acres of wheat!
Sue them?
Fat lot of good THAT would have done!
.....and they damned sure didn't offer to pay for any damages or losses!
