[redneck]

This is kind of a hypothetical question at the moment, and I don't want to turn it into a what caliber for hogs thread or anything like that. I'm just wondering how many folks shoot hogs on sight? Even if you're not hunting and don't have the time/means to do anything with it? On public land?

Reason I ask is hogs are taking hold in Ohio. Population is growing, farm reports are starting to have articles on crop damage, trapping, DNR contacts for research etc. , and one of the areas showing the biggest population is an area where I occasionally take my horses to camp and trail ride.

Got asked the other day if I were to see a hog while riding in the state forest if I would shoot it ? Now I can't imagine them really bothering us when on horseback, and doubt that I'd come across them near trails during daylight but it did make me think. I have a hunting license, concealed carry license, and haven't found anything to suggest it would be illegal. There is no season, tag, or limit on them here, and the area in question is a state forest/WMA. So from a conservation side of it, it seems like if you see one you should kill it. On the other hand, it doesn't seem quite right to shoot it and let it lay near a bridle trail to rot.

I do see alot of wildlife while riding. Lots of white tail, a couple fox, and the largest coyote I have ever seen in my life. So it might not be that big of a stretch to see a hog.

[22-rimfire]

Depends. But in general I support the shoot on sight approach if a shot is safe, practical, and a sufficient caliber used. I don't care about the meat. Leave it for the vultures, crows, coyotes, and skunks.

After they get a good population in an area, the damage is substantial to the woods enviroment. I wouldn't worry too much about defending yourself against one, but it could happen if one is cornered or particularly aggressive. You will find them to be very smart and illusive animals and shooting them on sight is not easy. They breed and have lots of piglets. Based on other state problems with hogs, the survival rate seems to be quite high for the young.

[General Tso]

No. I don't shoot living things to let them rot. I would shoot it and harvest it though. You can always get rid of extra pork!

[peptoe]

I wouldn't carry less then a 500 S&W if I'm going to encounter hogs while on horseback. :D

Shoot them on site, they're. menaces

[dakotasin]

any pest species should be shot on sight.

we don't have feral hogs in s.d., but given what i know about them i would treat them as skunks or feral cats: shoot on sight.

[nathan]

SHoot them is what most farmers would like to do. Hogs destroy crops and mess up the land , fences, compete with food plots intended for deer as well as corn feeds.

[schlockinz]

If you can hit them and have a big enough gun, shoot them on sight every damn time you see them.

Don't shoot at them though, they get smart very quick, so make sure that you can hit them.

As other have said, let em rot if'n you want. I don't like shooting animals and not eating them, but I can't give away a hog on most good days, and the places for hunters against hunger don't always take them (the ones that I know of don't).

If you shoot a small one, eat it, they are delicious. Big sows are delicious to. I wouldn't bother with boars, they always seem to die in the most god awful spots, even if its 200yds and you've taken out their shoulders and vitals (I've shot one boar that didn't make it to a swamp or briar patch that I couldn't get him out of by myself).

[Art Eatman]

Just think of them as not a whole bunch different from cockroaches or houseflies--just bigger. At least they're edible if you are in the mood...

[TEAM101]

Last I heard ODNR would like them shot on site. Personally, I find the opportunity to hunt them appealing. I also understand they can do alot of habitat damage in short order. I don't like killing anything I don't eat , but I don't have a problem doing so for a greater good.

[Flintknapper]

Not only is it "O.K.", its your duty!


Feral hogs are a scourge, worse than cockroaches.


DO NOT feel bad about leaving the carcass to be consumed by scavengers. IF you can find a way to utilize the meat resource, by all means do so, but don't feel about it... if you can't.

You are only hastening what Mother Nature had planned anyway.

If the DNR, Landowners and Sportsmen allow hogs to become established in Ohio, they will regret it.... believe me.

My advice:

Get on 'em NOW
Get on 'em HARD
Show NO MERCY!


IH8HOGS!

[ambidextrous1]

Shoot them on sight.

They will not lie thre and rot; if you return the next day, you'll find very little left of the remains.;)

[MCgunner]

I shoot 'em on sight, but I ain't wastin' the meat!

[chas08]

But in general I support the shoot on sight approach if a shot is safe, practical, and a sufficient caliber used. I don't care about the meat. Leave it for the vultures, crows, coyotes, and skunks.
Just think of them as not a whole bunch different from cockroaches or houseflies--just bigger. At least they're edible if you are in the mood...
I agree whole heartedly with the above philosofies. Just be careful shooting off horseback. You might start a "RODEO" :D

[hoghunting]

I shoot them any time I can get a firearm aimed at them. Some are harvested, and the others are left for the other animals to enjoy.

Unless your horse is used to gunfire that close to his head, you'll be in for the ride of your life shooting from horseback.

[Gunfighter123]

I agree , shoot on sight ---- they breed faster then Chicago rats !!! If I could , I would drag away any I killed from near a rideing/walking trail at least a hundred yards.

[41 Mag]

First check with the folks over the WMA and your area game officer, as some of them are pretty particular about shots being fired in some areas. Just be sure ahead of time that it is all on the up and up.

Then hold no quarter, get them by any legal means available.

You probably notice that quite a few responses are from Texas. Well we have been fighting a long battle with them and loosing ground the whole time. As mentioned, if you shoot make it good, if you trap, change the way you do it, the location, and vary the feed, if you hunt them by any means keep things changed up as they learn faster than you can imagine, to avoid things that do them harm. Once they go nocturnal all bets are off.

When I first started helping out a friend on their property I was told over and over again if I saw them shoot all I could hit. I never saw any for the first year or so, then one evening we were on a ride around the property and came up and over a hill back in the woods and there must have been a hundred or more. I managed to get off 4 full clips from an SKS and they were still running everywhere. After the shooting stopped, I was like man we got a lot of cleaning to do now huh, the owner told me pick out the best one if I wanted any and leave the rest. Well that didn't sit too well with me that trip but after fixing roads and tractors, and mowers, and disc due to the holes they had rooted up in roads and pastures, it got pretty easy pretty quick to bust there backsides and if I had time I take them if not I move on.

There are times I will try and find someone who can use the meat, but with the way pork will spoil quickly, unless I make arrangements to have ice on hand ahead of time, anytime the temp is up over 75, they have a good chance of feeding the local scavangers.

Good luck to you and the rest of the folks in your area.

[qajaq59]

If it's legal, by all means shoot them. They are so destructive it is unbelievable.

[Double Naught Spy]

My wife's grandfather and I chatted about hunting hogs. He is a nice guy, old, but nice. He went into some detail in explaining to me about resource conservation and selective hunting in order to maintain the hog population on my property. The old guy probably had not been hunting in 25 years and can't now because of eyesight issues. Anyway, there was nothing I could say to convince him that my hogs didn't need conservation.

Sometimes we feed the buzzards and 'yotes. Sometimes we find someone who wants the meat. Some folks just don't want to be called after midnight to come pick up a free hog.

[heeler]

They should be treated just like Norway rats.
Killed on sight.
I do and everyone that hunts on our lease does without hesitation.
These things will soon be affecting the Whitetail herd very negatively.
And on some places it already has.
Not to mention ground nesting bird species such as turkeys.
Hogs are nothing more than hooved locusts.

[Jonah71]

I wholeheartedly agree! So far, in this area of Missouri I haven't seen or heard about much of a hog problem. Hope it stays that way.

My brother feels the same way about Canadian Geese. I did go play 18 holes with him at a course in KC a couple of years ago. We got bombarded by goose crap and had to putt around it on the greens. A very minor and insignificant problem in the scheme of things, but over population by any animal can eventually become serious. And it's against the law to shoot the geese!

[TehK1w1]

Out in central TX where I hunt, the hogs are all nocturnal. The only way we know they are present is from the huge patches of ground that they shred when rooting. If I could see 'em you bet I'd shoot every one I could. They're certainly in no danger of being extirpated, more's the pity.

[paintballdude902]

ive seen the damage they do here on the blue ridge parkway if i see oen where ic an legally shoot it its dead

[redneck]

Well I kind of figured the overwhelming majority would say shoot it :D Guess this was kind of a biased poll :evil:

As far as a rodeo, I've shot small bore stuff around my horses a fair amount and it doesn't phase them. I'm more concerned with what one will do in the event we see a hog! The mare I usually ride isn't really bothered by anything unless it catches her completely off guard. We've gotten within 10 ft of deer before (it actually walked next to us on the trail for about 200 yards), and once I even threw her some rein when a doe blew by us on a narrow trail and she did her best to run it down.
The mare my girlfriend rides spooks randomly at deadfalls and tree stumps. Usually 2 or 3 times in the course of a days ride we'll be going through thick pine forests or old growth hardwood with downed trees all over and she will suddenly just miss a step and end up standing there bowlegged and snorting at a stump along the trail. Nothing else seems to bother her though and she aways goes right down the trail after giving the stump a good snort and stare down :scrutiny:. She really is a pretty solid horse and hasn't been bothered by any of the deer or other animals we've come across.


As far as where shooting is allowed on the WMA's I do think there is a minimum distance from the posted trails for hunting. And of course I have to be careful of the trails that border state parks or cut through them. I really doubt that I ever come across a feral hog hanging out on a bridle trail though. If I do, I'm sure it will be on one of the less used trails that are more then a couple hours ride from camp and we would probably be the only people within a half mile. I'm not holding my breath. Mainly just thought this was an interesting scenario to get opinions on after someone asked me.

[LeonCarr]

Shoot them all. If you don't, they will eat you out of house and home...literally in some cases.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

[MCgunner]

Most hogs on my place are nocturnal, too. They really don't bother anything down there as it's all pasture and while they wallow, it's not a crop they're tearing up or anything. I think they're pretty cool as an inexhaustible source of protein and year around hunting. I might take a different attitude if I was a grain farmer. There are no more quail coveys down there anymore and the hogs may be the reason, but I've never owned a pointer and he'd have to be snake proofed to keep from getting killed down there, anyway.

I trap 'em, mostly. The trap works 24/7. :D I have had 'em die in the trap when the weather got too hot and fed the coyotes and buzzards with 'em. Funny, when I have a hog in the trap, I can usually tell as I'm walking into my place. The buzzards seem to know and they'll be hanging out in nearby trees just waiting. :D Disappoints 'em when I kill the hog and haul it off, I guess. I can't get down there every morning, so I don't set the trap when it's hot weather.

[General Tso]

They really don't bother anything down there as it's all pasture and while they wallow, it's not a crop they're tearing up or anything. I think they're pretty cool as an inexhaustible source of protein and year around hunting.

I agree 100%!

[Flintknapper]

I think they're pretty cool as an inexhaustible source of protein and year around hunting


Same thing could be said of Cockroaches. ;)


Doesn't matter though, (in Texas) both are here to stay. :fire:

[kyle1974]

I Kill everyone I can... you *cannot* kill them all, but as long as you try to, their numbers might stay somewhat in check...

shoot them all and let the fireants and buzzards eat.

[3pairs12]

No. I don't shoot living things to let them rot. I would shoot it and harvest it though. You can always get rid of extra pork! You would be surprised how hard it is sometimes. My friend donated 1700 pounds last year to various places finally nobody wanted any more. His last trip he took in the 20s not one person wanted any. Yes KAP kill all pigs.

[General Tso]

I Kill everyone I can... you *cannot* kill them all, but as long as you try to, their numbers might stay somewhat in check...

shoot them all and let the fireants and buzzards eat.
Statements like this are why there are people that are "anti-hunter".

[3pairs12]

I might take a different attitude if I was a grain farmer.I agree 100%! Did you read the rest or you just agree with they don't bother anything. The average pig will cause $1400 in damage in its lifetime. Multiply that by the 3,000,000 or so hogs we have in Texas and you have a real life issue. I undetstand some not minding them and that is thier right, but for the few that just pretend they are neat little creatures you are kidding yourself. The same guy I referenced ealier has a huge farming operation with his family. Thy estimate between 35-50k in lost produce labor and repair each year. That is some serious coin to be losing and if he needs to feed the vultures more power to him.

[3pairs12]

Statements like this are why there are people that are "anti-hunter". Well when those anti groups start paying for lost income that non game species costs thousands of families each year than I will care what they think of swine.

[RumRunner]

take em down

[General Tso]

I hope we get some in NW Ohio. Free pork! Sounds like they are easy to hunt. Easier than deer anyway.

[Flintknapper]

General Tso wrote:

I hope we get some in NW Ohio. Free pork! Sounds like they are easy to hunt. Easier than deer anyway.


Ummmmm, that would be a big "NEGATORY"!


But if any of the "Anti's" want to come and remove some of the cute little piggies from my property, I'm all for it. :rolleyes:

[General Tso]

General Tso wrote:




Ummmmm, that would be a big "NEGATORY"!


But if any of the "Anti's" want to come and remove some of the cute little piggies from my property, I'm all for it. :rolleyes:
The way these guys on here act, they breed like rabbits, and they're gonna overrun everything! So they should not be hard to find.

[schlockinz]

You'd be impressed with how hard they are to find. I've gone a year with never seeing one, but it looked like the fields got tilled nightly.

After that year of not seeing them, its now not uncommon for me to find thirty at random times, usually when I have nothing more than a pistol on me.

[ClickClickD'oh]

Yup, schlockinz tells it how it is. The dumb ones are easy to find and kill. Problem is, that just educates the rest. Then you end up with smart pigs who are pretty tough to hunt. In the end, you end up going in the heavy cedars where they sleep.

There's nothing in hunting that quite compares with the rush when you stand up a 450lb pig at ten feet.

[22-rimfire]

Feral hogs are one of the few animals that many ranchers in Texas will actually let a non-lease holder take.

Feral hogs become very smart. They are smarter than whitetail deer by a longshot. If I recall, the are the next smartest animal below humans. They might be down a few notches, but believe me, they are very smart and very adaptable to their environment and conditions.

[schlockinz]

I'll argue that the average feral hog is much more intelligent than the average human in the US after they've made it a few years (the pig, not the human).

But, that might not be saying too much.

[kyle1974]

statements like mine aren't why people are anti hunting....frankly, I"m sick of people who are concerned what anti hunters think.

what's next, you're going to tell me about the anti fur trading groups?

I could care less what they all think...

[General Tso]

Feral hogs provide excellent table fare, represent a challenging game species to pursue with weapon or dog, and compete with the white-tailed deer in some areas as the most popular animal to hunt. As mentioned, there are many pro's and con's regarding the status of feral hogs and there always will be as long as we have biologists, farmers, ranchers, hunters, and of course, the feral hog.

From texasboars.com

[t george]

I donno where the numbers came from but I was always told that in order to keep the population steady you needed to take at least 80% of the population per year... and thats just to keep up...

[redneck]

I hope we get some in NW Ohio. Free pork! Sounds like they are easy to hunt. Easier than deer anyway.
I hope not. Ohio is one of the top 10 states for hog production and a feral population increases risk for brucellosis and other problems that can completely stop export(think mad cow disease scare). The economy is bad enough as it is.

[Art Eatman]

General Tso, I give far more credibility to those who live on the land than I ever would to those who don't. It's the difference between doing something compared to reading about it.

On balance, the negatives of feral hogs far outweigh any positives. I've seen it on my own land about ten miles south of Cuero, Texas. And I've listened to the very-hostile complaints from adjoining landowners.

If you're not farming your land and you're not raising livestock on it, it may be neatsie-poo to have hogs and maybe find a sucker who'll pay money to hunt them. Otherwise? Again, "Cockroaches".

Never forget that the ad valorem tax man doesn't care whether or not you have a crop failure. He wants his cash money and tough luck to you if you don't have it. What, you're gonna get a Willie Nelson FarmAid benefit to save you?

Hogs in a farmer's crop field are the same thing as me walking into your house and loading up out of your pantry and refrigerator...

[kyle1974]

Cuero?

holy cow... I used to live in cheapside when I was a little kid.. back in the late 70's, early 80's. small world.

[TIMC]

We shoot on sight out at the ranch. I guess living up north some people don't realize the damage they do and yes they breed like rabbits!

Shooting on sight every time is all we can do to keep them in check. 20 years ago we had only a few pigs, lots of quail, lots of deer and even lots of rattle snakes. Today we have a huge amount of pigs, the quail are all but gone and the deer population is down; heck we don't even see that many snakes anymore. the pigs do a lot of damage and I have seen pig herds take out an acre of crop per night in the peanut fields.

[AKElroy]

I shoot on sight. I have harvested when they are clean shot, but I have no guilt in letting them rot. Irony is, it is likely the rest of the sounder bone picking the carcass anyway.

[cliffsgsr]

Just got back from Van Zendt co. Hunted all day sun and mon. Saw all kinds of tracks but nobody fired a shot. Owner said he expected us to get 40-50 pigs a day. Don't know where they were. One of our guys gave the owner a hard time about going out with little pig feet and made all those tracks before we got there. The 2 he had mounted were shot from his house. How convenient. If anyone has a problem with pigs, I have friends that may be interested in clearing some out. Let me know. Cliff 208 375 8694 after 10 am Boise time.

[General Tso]

General Tso, I give far more credibility to those who live on the land than I ever would to those who don't. It's the difference between doing something compared to reading about it.

On balance, the negatives of feral hogs far outweigh any positives. I've seen it on my own land about ten miles south of Cuero, Texas. And I've listened to the very-hostile complaints from adjoining landowners.

If you're not farming your land and you're not raising livestock on it, it may be neatsie-poo to have hogs and maybe find a sucker who'll pay money to hunt them. Otherwise? Again, "Cockroaches".

Never forget that the ad valorem tax man doesn't care whether or not you have a crop failure. He wants his cash money and tough luck to you if you don't have it. What, you're gonna get a Willie Nelson FarmAid benefit to save you?

Hogs in a farmer's crop field are the same thing as me walking into your house and loading up out of your pantry and refrigerator...
I agree with what you're saying, I just hate to kill things just to be killing them.

[MCgunner]

I hope we get some in NW Ohio. Free pork! Sounds like they are easy to hunt. Easier than deer anyway.

Not really. You can ambush 'em over a feeder if you don't mind staying up all night. They're quite nocturnal. They rarely come out of heavy cover in broad daylight unless lightly hunted and/or quite overpopulated. I've been on very overpopulated places where you could kick 'em out of the brush like rabbits, but that's not quite the case YET on my place.

The best way to occasionally fill the freezer is by trapping. All, but a couple I've killed on my place have been in a trap. They're pretty thick down there, but you just don't see 'em often in daylight.

I'm not sure what you might think of trapping, not actually "hunting" or free range or anything like that, but it's the meat I'm after, couldn't care less about the hunt for 'em down there unless a stupid one wanders in when I'm deer hunting, which has happened.

Like I say, i bought that place to hunt and hogs don't bother me, in fact, I welcome them. But,I've hunted with dogs in rice fields with a guy before over near College Port. He was allowed free access to thousands of acres over there, ran dogs at least 3 or 4 nights a week. It was his thing. Those things will tear the heck out of a rice field. I do understand the farmer's plight.

One thing, too, hogs are hard on indigenous wildlife. I used to have flocks of quail down there, quite a few. Loved to hear 'em breaking coveys all over the place in the morning when I was deer hunting. Killed an 8 pt one year, bout 150 yards out, walked up to it and just as I nudged it with the barrel, a covey flew up around me and I nearly soiled myself, ROFL. There hasn't been a quail down there in at least a dozen years since the hogs have gotten so thick. That's a bit of a shame. I'm not certain it's a direct cause, but probably since there are no more snakes or fire ants down there than there ever were.

[MCgunner]

Oh, BTW, soon as it dries out enough down there to get my feeder goin' again, I'm going to spend some evening hours on the stand this year. I've not done much of that in the past. Skeeter's carry you off down there. But, I got a new "Thermocell" and that thing works pretty good if the wind ain't blowin' too hard. If the wind is blowin', it keeps 'em down up on the stand, anyway.

[jglcolosprgs]

I wouldn't carry less then a 500 S&W if I'm going to encounter hogs while on horseback. :D

Shoot them on site, they're. menaces
Can you post on Youtube when you touch off that 500 over the top of your horse's head?

[Flintknapper]

They don't just tear up rice fields.

I'm working on one right now that has rooted up nearly 300 "pot holes" in two pastures.

I've been trying to get him to "pattern" by putting out corn....but he doesn't come in every night...and almost never enters or leaves the same direction.

Just this week...he has gone under the same place in the fence two nights in a row. If he does it again tonight...I will set a couple of snares.

My older brother is coming up next weekend to visit and we are going to put in an "all nighter" at different ends of the pasture the hog is tearing up. Hopefully the hog will show up.

As it stands, I will have to repair roughly 10 acres of pasture.

Danged hog!

[AKElroy]

I just hate to kill things just to be killing them.

It is not killing for the sake of killing, it is controlling a pest. I have as much concern over killing termites.

[Double Naught Spy]

It is not killing for the sake of killing, it is controlling a pest. I have as much concern over killing termites.

Right. I am pleased to say that we have a local guy that is more than happy to take them off our hands, but isn't always available. He is actually a livestock inspector. As he noted last night when he collected another from me, he is happy to take them, but suggested I not curtail my hunting just because he won't be available for a while. They may be good eating, but being left to the buzzards and coyotes is nearly as good as far as the local ecology is concerned.

Shoot all you can. Don't worry. They will make more...unfortunately.

[22-rimfire]

Have any of you seen the program on Discovery Channel on the "Pig Bomb"? Interesting. Yes, definitely kill them on sight if possible.