Deer Feeder to Attract Hogs?

stevehgraham said:

Since arriving in August, I haven't seen any deer or turkeys, and I've only seen one rabbit. We have coons, possums, foxes, and what appear to be numerous bear turds. Can't touch the foxes or bears.

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I seldom see rabbits as they are eaten by bobcats, owls, hawks, eagles, coyotes, and protected foxes.
You are witnessing what it's like to be a hunter in a region with hundreds of new people moving in every week. People take the best spots thereby shoving the game animals to marginal areas like swamps.

A trail camera is your friend. You would be surprised at what is out there.

If you just point your camera at a pile of corn (don't buy a feeder yet) you will get a better idea of what is out there. If there is no bait, or no bait that the desired critter is attracted to, you only get pictures of whatever happened to be walking by. You can also vary the bait- corn, peanut butter, meat scraps/bones, etc. Potted meat in a can or sardines may bring you some other critters, and is fairly cheap to experiment with. When the wife buys a whole rotiserie chicken, I save the bones and carcass in the freezer, as well as things like baloney and the like when it starts to grow hair. When I kill a deer, I put bones and scraps in shopping bags in the freezer too. Free bait for coyotes and the like. Even used grease from cooking will bring in things like coons and possums.

There are bears in the general area around Ocala. Bears around Tallahassee and in the Appalachicola National Forest.

The only bear scat I've ever seen was in the SW Texas desert; human-looking but gray in color.

"The agency (FWC) estimated about 4,220 bears were roaming Florida before the hunt, including 1,230 in a region that includes the Ocala National Forest and Orange, Lake and Seminole counties. No region in the state has more bears than Central Florida."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...da-bear-population-strong-20160915-story.html

There's bears here too.

Hogs come to my feeder late evening to night. They mostly like the cover of darkness. Deer also come at night, but in daylight more'n pigs until late season. Corn doesn't work worth a toot on either if there's a bumper crop of acorns, though. I get all sorts of critters at the feeder. Squirrels love corn, turkeys will occasionally visit the feeder during the day as do rabbits. The ever present raccoons love corn. I'd have trapped a lot more coon back in 1979-80 when I was trapping them had I used corn instead of cheap sardines. But, heck, I was clueless.

The feeder is the friend of the small acreage owner. I only have 27 acres to hunt here and only 3 of it is mine, so my feeder sits on my place and I run traps for the hogs, too. The good part of this is we're LOADED with game around here, especially deer and hogs. I run MY trap and help one of the neighbors with his "trap", though it's a home built fence with a guillotine door and, so far, he's trapped two pigs since building it that just beat their way out. He needs to WELD that cattle panel. LOL! And, I'm not sure that plyboard "door" will hold if a determine pig goes to beating on it. My trap is a commercial box trap with a swing door that'll let 'em in, but won't let 'em out. I've had it for nearly 20 years and it still holds pigs. It's all welded and galvanized.

Anyhow, if it's legal, I'd suggest once you determine you have pigs, get yourself a trap. I also have great fun sitting with my scoped SKS and laser spotlight which works amazingly well. Pigs don't see the green light and that thing lights up the world on a dark night. It's a poor man's night vision. Pigs come and go. Right now, I have 'em moving in, so I've been trying to ambush one. We have one I've named "Old Spotty" which is a big, fat boar, corn fed from all the feeders around here. We have LOTS of game, deer and hogs, but the hogs do roam and sometimes you'll think there's not a hog in the county and then they'll all show up. So, have patience and set your feeder out with a game camera and keep tabs through the year on what comes and goes.

I would do nothing to intentionally bring pigs onto my land. We have tons of them and they are horrible. You do not want the destruction those filthy things will cause. If you want to feed deer set up pens around your feeders.

stevehgraham said:

"Corn doesn't work worth a toot on either if there's a bumper crop of acorns, though."

Virtually every tree here is a live oak or some similar trash oak. Acorns are everywhere.

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Same here in the areas adjacent to Blackwater Forest- lots of oaks and acorns. But the panhandle deer still go to cornpiles in the middle of these oak forests. The only other thing I use (and I've tried everything) during hunting season is rags with vanilla extract tied to a tree near the cornpile and doe urine when I'm on the stand with the orange scent bomb bottles.

Most of the trees HERE are post oaks. On years that there are acorns EVERYwhere, I don't do well on deer or hogs. Most years, when it's normal production, the deer and pigs eat the acorns up before the season starts or not long after and start coming to the corn. It's been one year in six so far that we had amazing acorn production and I didn't shoot a deer or trap a hog.

Deer often get caught in mine. So, when it gets near deer season, I don't set it. Don't want any traumatized deer that close to season. It freaks 'em out, but they do get over it.

I NEVER got deer in my trap on my place in Calhoun county. Since I've moved here 6 years back, I've caught several in it and had to turn them loose after the danged dog traumatized 'em a bit more.

As already suggested, set up a cam on some corn. My lease has plenty of acorns but the pigs still come to corn feeders. I pen the feeders and raise/lower a panel as deer season comes/goes.

Fair warning, in low light bears look a lot like pigs. Through a thermal scope it's almost impossible to tell them apart. Corn sprinkled with dry Kool-Aid is awesome for pigs, but there's no way I'd intentionally try to bring pigs on my property. Easy way to guarantee you never have turkeys or any other ground nesting bird.

stevehgraham said:

I know there are bears in the eastern part of the county. I was surprised to see poo in the central area.

I don't have any good photos. The most impressive one was a hemispherical mound about 7" in diameter. Like a miniature cow pie.

When I first saw these things, I thought they were from the cattle that used to be here, but after a few months with no cattle, I started to realize no poo lasts that long.

I'm getting good at identifying turds. I planted a blackberry bush, and something dug it up and place it beside the hole. Then it deposited an enormous loaf in the hole. That's how I learned how to recognize coyote dump.

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Honestly, sounds like you are describing wild pig scat.

marksman13 said:

Fair warning, in low light bears look a lot like pigs. Through a thermal scope it's almost impossible to tell them apart. Corn sprinkled with dry Kool-Aid is awesome for pigs, but there's no way I'd intentionally try to bring pigs on my property. Easy way to guarantee you never have turkeys or any other ground nesting bird.

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Odd, that. I was sitting in my blind last evening waiting on pigs when I heard two gobbles just before dark. I'm sure they were going to roost that time of night. A call would have been a waste of time. They roost in trees. I went out today and checked my hog trap, then went to the edge of the property where I'd heard the gobbles, but they were no doubt off feeding somewhere. Shoulda been there early I guess.

It's a popular myth that hogs will run out all the turkeys. I have never found it to be the case, however. We have plenty of both around here.

MCgunner said:

It's a popular myth that hogs will run out all the turkeys. I have never found it to be the case, however. We have plenty of both around here.

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Not a myth. Hogs destroy the nests of ground-nesting birds. They eat almost everything especially eggs. They do not eat citrus however.