Good info.

I might add that released domestic Hogs are breeds. line breeding or inbreeds. A study here says random breeding and they eventually revert back to the original animal or something else very near the original wild animal (kind of like a Dingo). Basically all of the big hairy Wild Boar looking hogs can be the great great grandpigs from released domestic hogs, after generations of running wild and random breeding. Having true Wild Boar in the gene pool just quickens the process.

I've often wondered if you could train a Sow to lead a sounder back to a corral?

Yes!!!!


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Maybe. She might have to fight. i've seen a few sow fights. One was between two big sows in a sounder of six sows. You could hear them fighting as they made the rounds of the feeders.

Those tagged and/or trained to lead the sounder to the trap are called judas pigs.

A local gets paid to harvest them. How feasible is it for an outsider to find a landowner with a hog problem and gain access to shoot them? Trust issues? Liability ?? I get the reluctance to tell every tom, dick, and harry "come onto my property and shoot them".

I ask because hog hunting is on my bucket list. I've been researching it for several years. Seems the only option for me at a reasonable cost is to hunt public land. But, I wonder what a night or two in a local drinking establishment in an area with a high hog population might uncover. Maybe a "come on out!".

I have no desire to pay an outfitter $500+ when I can pay an IL farmer about 50 cents per pound and "hunt" in a 10 by 10 pen.

The whole deal is just difficult for me to wrap my mind around. Southern USA has a hog problem. Hunters are willing to help alleviate the problem. But, landowners/government unwilling to make it possible. Seems like a CRP/WIHA/WIAH.... solution may help.

They have kind of s schizophrenic approach to the whole thing here also. I live right next to a national forest, county administers part of it. The County advertised in the newspaper for help with the Wild Boar problem. County wants you to pay a fee to hunt them. The overseer of this section of forest sends the hunters out to where the Hogs aren't and makes them come back for multiple hunts, each time with a new fee. I told him if he needs help with the Hogs I'm game, but I'm not playing his stupid games. Just tell me which age group of Hogs you want shot and I'll call you when I have my Hog.

My lease has Hogs periodically, a thirty mile drive one way. The lease is a lot less headache than trying to deal with the government.

There are Hogs within a half hour walk from my front door. One government entity says there are way to many of them and they need to be thinned out. Another government entity wants to milk as much cash as possible out of them and they play stupid games. Another government entity pays crop damage.

The farmers bordering the Forest are going nuts, I have no idea how much the county is paying out in crop damage claims. Must be a lot from some of the mess I've seen. Three or four different government agencies or departments working at cross purposes, who never seem to talk to each other.

I print up letters with a photograph, a copy of my personal liability insurance and a couple of references and short note saying what I'd like to hunt. Pop them in some farmers mailbox while I'm out driving around. I also get referrals from farmers on occasion.

A couple of places nobody ever thinks of asking are Golf Courses and Cemeteries.

It is the same with some of the states. They want the hogs killed but they make you buy a license to kill to do so. I don't mind paying for a license, I have hunted in GA and I have been hunting in SC for the last five years. You need non res license in both states to take hogs in in SC it is a small game license you must buy. Last time I looked at a hog, they didn't look like small game to me.

Yeah, it's a sorry mess. i have permission to hunt a few properties in OK and TX. The owner of one section planted 80 acres of wheat. Wheat matured really well. One problem was discovered at harvest time: 8-10 acres had been destroyed by hogs.

Few days ago i got a call from the folks at an organic veggie farm. There were hogs in one of my traps. The couple left when i showed up. Lady can't stand to see animals shot. Shot the sow and her six pigs and hauled them off. i prefer to kill pigs.

In OK a hunting license is not required to kill hogs on private property. The WMAs are another matter. The only legal weapons allowed outside deer season are rimfire rifles and shotguns with small shot. Then the OWDC hires someone to shoot hogs from helicopters.

Maybe Mudderchuck can tell me why CA is not over run with wild hogs. A cousin has a big farm on the coast north of Laguna Seca: There are wild boars but not in quantity. He does hunt them.

I'd say give it awhile, he is likely to be over run. Some of the Lakes not too far north of him had some serious hogs issues, mostly in the State and National forest. They hired trappers.

Santa Cruz mountains had Hog issues for awhile.

I hunt mostly the south, the issue there is water and the drought has dried up a lot of what is available. I hunted Hogs near Santa Barbara, south of Lake Cachuma. Areas of chaparral out their that are really huge. I have no doubt there are still Hogs out there.

It seems to be like Whack a Mole, they get hunted, trapped or run out of one area and pop up someplace else. Been that way since the 70's. It wasn't long ago the central valley had an issue with Hogs carrying disease into there vegetable farms, a lot of people got sick.

personally I think the best option to curb these things is offer a bounty on them
just think about how much damage they do in costs< and then studies done on HOW to thin them and blah blah blah

Start putting a bounty on there heads and I bet a LOT more get killed than any other way
the states that require lic's will MAKE money selling lic's
residents will benefit from less damages, insurance company's too will benefit!

if you follow history, when they put a price tag on animals, they tend to get killed by more than just hunters wanting a meal!
heck a bounty on things has almost put many species on the endangered species list>

I know I'd be a lot more willing to travel to a state to hunt things I could get paid for doing> LOL
food banks I bet could handle SOME of them and still get good use out of the hunts too!

or maybe like with gators, the kills can be SOLD and generate some income that way too!

seems to me like a huge way to make a lot of folks some cash, in an economy that really isn;t the best?

I know a ton of rappers back yrs ago, that trapped due to the MONEY< when the prices dropped, most quit trapping !

Money, it gets folks interested, both good and bad

but hogs are getting to be a HUGE problems costing a LOT of money??
moneys getting spent one way or another, bounty's on there heads kills more!

MY guess would be there are more natural predators in CA that help curb things

cougars?
there populations are booming out there and I bet hogs are a main meal for them!

not many cougars in most places where hogs are a problem! so??

I was thinking the same thing. Except I was thinking about Coyotes picking off the young ones. Best estimate 4-5 thousand Cougars in California, 164,000 square miles.

Unless Hogs have an abundant food supply, good cover, water and they aren't hunted much they aren't likely to settle in one local area. But generally they are Gypsies. The food runs out, they get hunted or they just get antsy and they move on. Not uncommon for them to cover ten miles a night when they are on the move. The ones that get too predictable are the first to die. After around three years old they get way smart. The juveniles not so smart. I watched one old Sow lead the sounder on a zig zag course, out of rifle range of half a dozen shooting towers and high seats, I was amazed.

Near my lease there are other leases in the area and bordering mine. We tip each other off when the Hogs are around. One guy harvest out one or two and they are likely to pop up on the next lease. We also harvest out the adolescent 1-2 year olds, typically you are only going to get one or two chances before they move on, we take the potential breeders 1-2 year olds as a priority. And tend to leave the largest Sows because they are the memory of the sounder and make them somewhat predictable.

I wonder if a newspaper ad and/or social media would help. Hog spotters call XXXXXXXXX. Why not? Everybody and their cousin are posting about lost dogs and Cats.