overrun with hogs

[TexasPatriot.308]

yeah, these days people will sue you in a heartbeat...if they break into your back yard and get hurt or drown in an enclose pool, they will sue nowadays and the court will be on their side..it is a sad fact of life nowadays...I guess I am lucky, cause I just picked up another pasture next door where the elderly lady asked me to come over there and her property is where the hogs bed down...

 

[Double Naught Spy]

If you are really serious about controlling feral hogs, I can help you out. Runs about $450-500/hr but very effective.

LOL, for $450-500 an hour, not only should killing all the hogs present now, but guarantee that they won't ever come back again.

Just exactly what are your doing for that sort of money?

 

[shiftyer1]

He's sittin in the back of a truck shootin hogs with a big ol grin cuz he convinced u topay HIM for the hunting lease.

 

[TexasPatriot.308]

these hunting rights cost me nothing, I help em work their cattle and I get to weed out their hog problem..I do take friends with me but they are friends that I know well and the let me hunt on their property for deer. I still like working cattle so it is a win winfor me.

 

[Ike R]

You have the same kind of deal I have over here in Winnie TP308. I did convince one of my landowners to let some friends of mine bring in some dogs, we are running them in a few hours down here. 10 people, 12 - 16 dogs , about 60 hogs in the fields.

Weather changed drastically though yesterday, could push them away or make them hole up. Hope not though, looking foward to some fun!

 

[dubbleA]

If you are really serious about controlling feral hogs, I can help you out. Runs about $450-500/hr but very effective.

LOL, for $450-500 an hour, not only should killing all the hogs present now, but guarantee that they won't ever come back again.

Just exactly what are your doing for that sort of money?

My family has a helicopter service. One of the things we do is hog erradication. This is one of the most effective ways of controlling hog numbers.

Hunting them with conventional means such as stalking, sitting over feeders, using nightvision,food plots, driving around in bubba's truck etc do very little to the demise of the hog population. Yes you might feel good doing this and some make a few dollars doing it but it simply does little in the big scheme of things.

Feral hogs are nomadic in nature, they will travel for food and water. If you have both on your or nearby properties, you will usuaaly have them. Hunting pressure can change their feeding habits a bit. Most rancher,farmers and the like will see hogs frequently in daylight hours until deer season hits. Then you will have hunters taking shots at them while deer hunting and it will quickly turn them back into nocturnal feeders. With food and water, hog will travel to where there is some. On large areas you can control the numbers better than you can on smaller properties. We do have to get permission by the state and property owners to do this. There is no way we could guarantee hogs not to come back into a pasture without hog proof fencing, remember they are nomadic.

Using R22 Choppers, AR-15's and skilled pilots and shooters we take the fight to the hogs with alot of fire power. It's not cheap by any means but we can reduce hog populations significantly literally within hours in some instances. Depending on the lay of the land and the type of terrain, hogs can run but usually fail to hide. They can herded just like cattle in some cases. The best scenarios are to get them in single file and start from the back and work your way up. They can run but only die tired.

The best 4 hours was along San Antonio river in Goliad county in some big corn fields that netted 240 hogs out of the gene pool. The best month has been flying around the rice fields in Matagorda county where appx 3000 with taken out in the month of August.

Before folks start chiming in about volunteering and how much fun it can be, let me say this. This is a very dangerous occupation, it's not fun and games it's a job.
So the hourly rate might seem high at first but consider this...... All it takes to get started is $250K for a helicopter, then there is a pilot, gunner, firearms, ammo(lots of it), insurance, fuel, travel, repair and so on to think about.



.

 

[IridiumRed]

DoubleA,

I've seen some videos on Youtube of hog hunting (or perhaps the better term is "hog erradication") from choppers.

From what I remember, they were running Robinson helicopters (R22's? not sure), with EXCELLENT shooters with AR15's. I'm still impressed by some of the shooting.

None of my business perhaps, but is this by chance your outfit? Sounds awfully familiar, but i dont know how many people are doing similar things.

The approx $500 / hr cost you quote earlier sounded..... quite exorbitant, to put it mildly, UNTIL you mentioned what hardware you were running. Those youtube videos were quite impressive, it looked like basically whole herds of hogs being eliminated, not just shooting one or two and letting the rest run off to only return at a later date....

anyways. just wondered if you had any connection with those videos....

 

[x_wrench]

you know, if you think about it, it is rather sad. there are MILLIONS of starving people in this world, that would break their siblings legs for a bite of pork. and yet, there are so many running wild, they are ruining the way of life in some places. if we could only get that food where it needs to go, a lot of people would be much happier. the problem is our all mighty dollar. if the people who needed that food, had $$$$, their shortage, any your problem would work itself out quite quickly. and then, there is another facet to that as well. there are a lot of us northeners who would love to come down and help you guys get the population under control. but, that ugly $$$ problem raises it's head again. it costs a lot of money to drive down there, and back, plus miss work, plus how do you get 200-600 pounds of fresh pork home in a pick up? i would love to come down and get some trigger time. just can not afford it.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

plus how do you get 200-600 pounds of fresh pork home in a pick up?

Its called coolers and dry ice. Been doing it for many years. Cut the hog up there (done so many I can cut your average 150 pound hog into steaks, roasts, and sausage cuts for grind later in about 20 minutes.) Throw it in a cooler, lay some butchers paper over the already wrapped meat, lay in the dry ice blocks, close the cooler and wrap some saran wrap around the outside of the seal to keep it air tight. Will keep the meat below 40* for 2 or 3 days as long as you keep it air tight.

 

[longdayjake]

there are MILLIONS of starving people in this world, that would break their siblings legs for a bite of pork.

My guess is that most of the starving people in the world are part of a religion that finds pork to be unclean. You could be labelled and infidel and killed for eating it.

 

[FLAvalanche]

There is one reason hogs have become a problem. Money.

x_wrench touched on it but is right for all the wrong reasons...

Hogs are a problem because they have little if no monetary value. We, as humans, screw up everything we touch. That can't be argued. We've hunted plenty of animals to the edge of and to extinction. Each and everyone one of those animals had a monetary value. Whether it was for its fur, its meat or some part of its anatomy made some paying customer's crank hard. They all were worth money one way or another.

Pigs aren't. You can bet that if they were pigs would quickly become a non-issue. People would pay the costs to travel to hunt them because those costs would be offset by the gain.

 

[Wolfsbane]

You just need more efficient helicopters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAT-MEImJ9o

My family has a helicopter service. One of the things we do is hog erradication. This is one of the most effective ways of controlling hog numbers.

Hunting them with conventional means such as stalking, sitting over feeders, using nightvision,food plots, driving around in bubba's truck etc do very little to the demise of the hog population. Yes you might feel good doing this and some make a few dollars doing it but it simply does little in the big scheme of things.

Feral hogs are nomadic in nature, they will travel for food and water. If you have both on your or nearby properties, you will usuaaly have them. Hunting pressure can change their feeding habits a bit. Most rancher,farmers and the like will see hogs frequently in daylight hours until deer season hits. Then you will have hunters taking shots at them while deer hunting and it will quickly turn them back into nocturnal feeders. With food and water, hog will travel to where there is some. On large areas you can control the numbers better than you can on smaller properties. We do have to get permission by the state and property owners to do this. There is no way we could guarantee hogs not to come back into a pasture without hog proof fencing, remember they are nomadic.

Using R22 Choppers, AR-15's and skilled pilots and shooters we take the fight to the hogs with alot of fire power. It's not cheap by any means but we can reduce hog populations significantly literally within hours in some instances. Depending on the lay of the land and the type of terrain, hogs can run but usually fail to hide. They can herded just like cattle in some cases. The best scenarios are to get them in single file and start from the back and work your way up. They can run but only die tired.

The best 4 hours was along San Antonio river in Goliad county in some big corn fields that netted 240 hogs out of the gene pool. The best month has been flying around the rice fields in Matagorda county where appx 3000 with taken out in the month of August.

Before folks start chiming in about volunteering and how much fun it can be, let me say this. This is a very dangerous occupation, it's not fun and games it's a job.
So the hourly rate might seem high at first but consider this...... All it takes to get started is $250K for a helicopter, then there is a pilot, gunner, firearms, ammo(lots of it), insurance, fuel, travel, repair and so on to think about.



.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

How much night hunting do y'all do from choopers? Around where I am, hog activity is almost exclusively nocturnal. There is some crepuscular action, but by and large, it is nocturnal.

Before folks start chiming in about volunteering and how much fun it can be, let me say this. This is a very dangerous occupation, it's not fun and games it's a job.
So the hourly rate might seem high at first but consider this...... All it takes to get started is $250K for a helicopter, then there is a pilot, gunner, firearms, ammo(lots of it), insurance, fuel, travel, repair and so on to think about.

Too bad you don't find the work to be fun. I know lots of folks who have risky jobs and part of the reason they do them is because of how much they enjoy the work. Yes, there is a lot of expense in helicopters and all the associated costs as you noted, but that doesn't make the method necessarily cost effective for the land owner. As you noted with the mobility factor of the hogs, not all the hogs that need killing will be on the lands for which you are hired to work. That is an ongoing problem for everyone.

And it is expensive when you crash...
http://www.khou.com/home/Houston-ma...ng-South-Texas-hog-hunting-trip-86905967.html

 

[xcgates]

He said it was " not all fun and games." Not: "I don't enjoy it."

He never said he enjoyed it, he merely stated that it is rather expensive, and has dangers that aren't associated with normal hunting.

 

[dirtykid]

Isint there a trap or snare large-enough to catch and hold them ?/ I would like to see a pig-let try and break-off a length of 1/8" aircraft cable tightening around it's neck every time it tugs,I must be wrong cause im sure some "bubba's " already thought of this,, ??