@Alibiiv if there are two pieces of property within a reasonable distance, one is free and one charges, which do you think gets the most pressure? I took enough people hunting for free to learn that I didn't want anyone on the property, regardless of the profit. People just are not good stewards of the resources they do not pay a premium for or own outright.
Pigs are not deer, elk, antelope or sheep, they have 3 or more litters a yr, they are compact and can easily avoid detection. Pressure, hunting, educates them, a smart pig is a hard to kill pig.
There is a tipping point, you walk a fine line with hunting. Poor shots or reckless hunters do more to educate pigs than a single hunter shooting 1 or 2 every few days. Trapping is the best method, I have literally caught pigs within hours of setting up traps. The very first trap I sat back in the 90s caught over 40 the first time I set it. The problem with trapping is monitoring the trap, God forbid you let a pig die because of dehydration and a tree hugger finds out, even if you intend to put lead in it's brainpan.
I have a pecan orchard that the pigs destroy each fall when the pecans start to fall. My dad is too old and his health is bad to help, so I basically give the pecans to a local farmer's market in exchange for a few pounds of shelled pecans for my dad. They come in and shake the trees to keep the pigs from getting them. We had a nice wild turkey population in and around our place, the pigs wiped them out. I would see 1 or 2 just about everytime I was at the farm, we didn't hunt them. It has been decades since I have seen or heard one.
If you think pig hunting is profitable like deer hunting, you are mistaken. People expect a nice dry or warm blind, corn, feeder, cameras and easy access, start adding that up and then factor in the maintenance of everything, the monitoring of the "customers" and you soon have a very tiresome job that pays **** little.
Traps are just as big a hassle as hunters, I have done both and I hate both. It's obvious that some people have never had the luxury of having feral pigs on their property or they would not be saying charging is the problem, the whole **** thing is a problem, short of all out war, it is a battle we slowly lose daily, the longer it goes, the further it gets out of hand. When these little damnations start effecting deer, elk, antelope and sheep areas, maybe y'all will understand exactly how big a problem it becomes regardless of how you try to handle it. The last person you want helping is a government official. I had a state agent reach out to me about pigs, hunting versus trapping and what they needed to do to study them. I wasted 8 months of my life trying to help them, they refused to believe anything other than what another state biologist told them, even when given visual proof of the best methods.
Things I observed, you rarely see good deer on the same camera you see pigs. You learn to cage/trap feeders so pigs cannot access the corn or bait, pigs will eat anything, including each other.
Trap and kill is the best method and even that can get you hurt. Shot these 5, but not before they broke the 14g galvanized wire tieing the panels together directly in front of me, one brushed my leg as they exited. The panels were overlapped and they still managed to break out. That trap was also about 30yds from the kitchen door.
The big boar took me several months of "hunting" to finally get him, and getting him meant stripping my boots off and putting the sneak on him downwind. He was tearing up my dad's garden just about every night. The barrel on that 6.5 Creedmoor is 24" long for reference.
