Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
Millions of wild pigs weighing up to 300 pounds have been tearing up crops, trampling fences and eating just about anything in their path in Texas. But now they had better watch their hairy backs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29287057/from/ET/[/u]

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

I'm not surprised. It's amazing how much damage a big population of hogs can do. Watch for the ads:"Book Your Hunt Now- Thunder From The Sky Ranch". I wonder how hard it is to reload a muzzy in a chopper. :D

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

I don't know semi,but one thing is for sure you wouldn't have to wait for the smoke to clear.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

I was reading an article a while back, and they had pictures of the damage that hogs do to agricultural fields. It also showed woods where the hogs would rub trees, and basically turn the ground to mud. It did not explain what they were after in the woods to congregate like they did. It was shocking, the pictures they had of the aftermath whenhogs wentthrough a field. They basically flattened half of this grain field in the picture.

No wonder the State of Wisconsin put up an alarm flag when some were spotted in Wisconsin.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

The hogs hit acorns hard. I've seen areas under a white oak tree that you could smell from 100 yards away and look like someone took a roto-tiller to it.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

That is exactly what the picture looked like... like some nut with a good roto tiller went in there and dug the place up.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

Maybe if someone uses a shotgun with buckshot would they be able to make an accurate shot. Otherwise, it's way too unstable and shakey in a helicopter to make an accurate shot.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

At $3,000-5,000 per hour for chopper rent that will be an expensive hog hunt. They did this last year in two OK WMAs. The idiots left wounded hogs all over the place. No animal should be made to suffer a lingering death.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

falcon I could not agree more. Granted the hogs might be a problem but they deserve as fast and clean death as possible. I commend you and the way you hunt hogs.I have followed your posts and enjoy them. And I also envy you a little as well. You get to hunt and exciting, challenging, and even dangerous animal, you get excellent eating, test different bullets on live animals, and clean up a population problem or at least try and keep it in control while helping others.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

I hunted in Texas for hogs a while back and the landowner showed me his fields and it is exactly like Cayugad said, all were tore up and crops damaged. He said they are after grubs and that they like earthworms that's why they dig. The thing I hate about the report is they said they just leave them there. I tell you what, them hogs are great eating. Get some cherry wood and smoke them for hours then braise them with butter and your favorite sauce and what a meal.:D

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

WOW!! does that sound good.I have apple wood, and maple that I smoke with. I am sure on my Brinkman Smoker I could do a good job on some of that.. I really have to hunt one of them. My problem is, I live so far away from where you hunt them.. how would you drive home with all that pork and not have it spoil? Coolers and ice?

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

We had a 150 qt cooler in the truck packed with ice. It was a 12 hour drive from St. Louis and we put ice in every stop we made to make sure. The guide did hard freeze the meat for a day so it was frozen solid when we left. Man that was funI really need to do it again.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

i knowguys who charge groups of hogs on 4 wheelers and shoot up as many as they can with buckshot or semi-auto rifles.Lots of those hogs run off to suffer and die. They leave the ones that are killed lay on the ground to rot. Those guys wonder why i will have little to do with them.

Theseare hard economic times and there arefolkswho would appreciate somepork.My wife and i keep one or twomedium size wild hogs each year forour use. The rest are givento folks who will make good use of them.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

An old but serviceable chest type freezer in the back of the truck and a generator. Fire up the generator for 2-3 hours each day andthe porkwill stay frozen.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

Here's my guess on why that proposal is being considered in Texas.

There arehuge ranches isSW and centralTexas. Most of them run cattle and alsocater to deer and turkeyhunters.Hogs, especially in abundance, compete heavily with cattle and deer for food, make water holes almost unusable for livestock, destroy turkey nests,and kill and eat newborn calves and deer. Although hunters are encouraged to take as many hogs as they want, there's no way regular hunting activity will control the hog population. They have two litters of 5 to 15 a year. Believe me, a hog problem is A PROBLEM. Ranchers and farmers in the area around my hunting club shoot every hog they see. They usually have a list of people who want a hog that they can call, but it's not always that there's someone ready and willing to go pick up the hog and clean it - so they let it rot.

I suspect a number of ranch owners got together to get this proposal approved. In effect, they are eliminating a nuisance animal in the most practical and efficient way possible. To them it's probably not much different than a crow shoot on a mid-west farm or busting prairie dogs.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

I have a lot of feral hogs in my area, and I would doubt anyone would actually be selling hellicopter hog hunts. Ranchers will probably hire a company to come in and kill as many as they can as quickly as they can. I am sure I could not hit the broad side of a barn from a helicoptor, but there are guys that can with rifles.

I like the idea, because it is hard to get people to actually shoot enough. Whenever I see a group, the most I have been able to get before they disappear is 2. On my first shot, I always try and line two up in the hopes that I will get 2 with one shot, but haven't yet!

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

What Semisane said.

This is not a hunt - it is about controlling a highly destructive and costly nuisence animal.
And like coyotes and someothers, traditional hunting methods will not get it done and can make it worse.

Steve

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

The hunting of coyotes and hogs never made it worse. Next to hog hunting, coyotehunting is my passion. Killed over 70 of them last year. The northeast states allowed the coyote problem to get out of control. ThePETA types saw them as cuddly wonderful little creatures that justran around looking pretty. Some states still have restrictions or prohibitions on the killing of coyotes.

The problem is that states never take their hog problem seriously until it is much too late. Here in OK the Wildlife folks have not gotten serious about hogs. They will not allow hog hunting with center fire rifles, shotguns or even muzzleloadersin some WMAs. The state of OK will not allow hog trapping in their WMAs. Most ranchers will not allow hog trapping on their places. Then when the hog population gets way out of control they shoot them from helicopters.

i see hog damage on every hog hunting foray. i see hog damage to one of our places where there were 0 hogs a few years ago. The state of OKwill not allow the hunting of hogs at night. In theory a rancher can get a night time hunting permit to kill hogs but most requests are denied.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

Falcon... when has any Department of Natural Resources ever made sense. Wisconsin if very pro active on the hog problem. Some were released/spotted in a country near the Mississippi River in the hills and the DNR wanted them GONE. They even arrested some one over there for transporting them into the state for the purpose of letting them loose. His hopes were of course, they would populate and he could make money on hunts. But they failed so terrible in our deer herd management it is a crime. And yet they defend their actions with numbers, and charts. They need to take a walk in the woods.

What a lot of these so called wildlife experts need to do is sit down with the person that walks around out in the fields and does not sit behind a desk guessing what the animals will do. And actually listen to them, sure investigate their claims, but them take appropriate actions to combat a problem.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

It looks like there have been some wild pigs seem in southern Iowa right along the Missouri border. Last year the Iowa DNR issued a "strong suggestion" that hunters, farmers and landowners shoot wild pigs on sight. Don't even need a hunting license. Only requirement is that if you kill one the DNR wants you to call your local Conservation Officer and report the date/time/location of the kill so they can get a better handle on where the invading pigs are. With all of our crop land growing corn and beans in Iowa, having a wild hog problem like TX and OK have would be a major disaster.

I think that if the DNR wants to get a better handle on the hog population in TX, maybe instead of paying $5000/hr for a helicoper and sharpshooter, why don't they just put a ransom on wild pigs. Say pay out $10/head for the hunter and $10/head for the landowner. No licenses, tags or permits required. Shoot them, take the carcasses to a check station, get paid. How many farmers/ranchers would let hunters come in and shoot the pigs if there was a paycheck for both parties? I'd bet a lot would. I bet you'd even see non-residents pouring in for the opportunity to hot only hunt hogs, but even the chance to have the hunt pay for itself.

$20/hog vs. $5000/hr for one helicopter and sharpshooter. Seems pretty obvious which is the more economical approach to me. $5000/20= 250 hogs. I seriously doubt that a helicoper with a sharpshooter could shoot that many an hour, and it'd take thousands of helicopter/hours to put a dent in the hog population.

Mike

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

driftrider,a bounty on wild hogs is the best idea yet. Just take the ears to a county agent and collect the bounty. Makes a lot of sense.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

The following quote is from CONTROL TECHNIQUES FOR FERAL HOGS by GARY A. LITTAUER, District Supervisor, Texas Animal Damage Control Service.

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

I would think in this time of our economy, this could work very well. Not only could a skilled hunter earn some money, but they could stock the food lockers with excellent pork for those that need it. That to me is a win win situation.

Speaking of bounty... my Dad always tells of being a kid in Minnesota during the depression. He said there was a bounty on pocket gophers, skunks, and other little critters. He said his brothers and him would spend all day out hunting these things because they got a dime bounty. And he also tells about coming home after a skunk hunt (they dug a bunch out of a den) and being told they would live in the barn for a few days.

But as my Dad said, they made money, had something to do, and helped keep the population done. I see no reason why that would not work on hogs..

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

What I think would make it work well too is that if you split the bounty, where the hunter gets $10 and the landowner gets $10 ($20 if you're hunting your own land). That would encourage ranchers and farmers to open their land up to hog hunters. They're businessmen, after all, and if they would gain in the long term by having the destructive critters thinned out, and gain the short term by getting an immediate paycheck, even the ones who are hesitant to allow hunters on their land might reconsider. And $10/hog for the hunters makes taking a few days off to hunt a much more desirable deal because on a good day a single hunter or small group might shoot several piggies, which would easily cover the cost of gas, food and ammo for the day for residents, and at least offset the costs of the hunt for non-residents. Heck, if I were a resident, I'd shoot a few, keep a couple myself and skin and quarter the rest and drop them off at a food bank or church soup kitchen for charity. I'm sure the piggies are good eating, and a 150 lb hog would feed a poor family for a month or better. Everybody wins. But, I fear it'd never happen because it makes too much sense.

Oh, and I'm not a rancher or farmer, but if I were I think I'd be more hesitant to have a couple yahoo's in a chopper buzzing 50ft over my livestock that I would to have 5 guys on the ground. My experience is that cattle don't react much to the sound of gunfire if it's not real close, but I'm guessing that a chopper at low altitude would spook the heck out of them. I know that in some places they use helicopters to herd cattle, so it's bound to stress them out.

Mike

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

HAVE .30-06...
WILL TRAVEL.



Mike

RE: Texas may let hunters shoot pigs from choppers
 

Bounty or not you would think they,the ranchers would let people shoot them for free.Show a saftey card,
sign a contract,whatever.They seen them as money at first,now they are out of control.I know when i
go to south dakota every year if you even cross over on the grass with a truckyou are gonna hear about it.The outfitter says that is what the buffalo eat and that is his money you are running over.IMO if you want them
controlled better, you have to push greed out of the way.Thats what got them their to start with.