I read a past post about them trapping hogs and was just curious as to why they would do this? I just moved out of Florida this year to Tn. Spent alot of time in Green Swamp and its one of the toughest places I have ever hunted. I hunted a ton last year and saw no pigs and 4 deer all doe. Ifeel your guys pain on the number of sightings. Last year there was pig sign and tracks everywhere I went. Ialways figured 3 or 4 pigs cando anawfullot of rooting in just one night, let alone the whole season.A little tip onthe mosquitos,use a themacell and treat your clothes with Permanone,(its a orderless clothing treatment that last 4 weeks and several washes) I used both of those for years in FLorida and never had a problem with the skeeters. Good luck guyslet me know how you all make out
Scott

FWC contracted trappers because they consider wild hawgs as a nuisance animal. wild hawgs are not a "native" animal therefore you can hunt them year 'round on private land and there is little to no restrictions on taking them. they also do alot of damage to private and public land. for example, 15 hawgs will flat tear up 50 acres in one night. what i mean by "tearing up" acreage is that they root it up so bad that cattle and or horses can break their legs if they step in the rooting wrong. they also tear up unpaved roads, people's yards and gardens, etc. they mass produce like no tomorrow, if you take 1 pregnant female hawg and she has a litter of 10, within a very short time she will be able to breed again and the litter she just had can reproduce at the age of 6 months old or so. RebelHog can probally give you the exact figures, mine are just ball park but you can see how they take over.

i am like you though, i don't see why the state pays someone else to get rid of the hawgs when they can allow hunters to hunt them in GS year 'round. they could design a permit system to allow so many hunters in per weekend and it wouldn't cost them a dime. i believe the state is trying to erraticate(sp?) all wild hawgs in the state though.

They'll never eradicate them, lol.....i would love to see them allow us to hunt them all year....the only thing i can think of that would be negativeis the cost of the check station operators all year....they'd never go for that......i'm sure they have better reasons....i would love to see an open season for them for sure......

since wild hawgs are not a "desirable" game animal, they would not need a check station operator. all they do anyway is weigh the hawgs, they don't take any other scientific data from them. the check station could be a "honor" system where we could write down the approximate weight, sex and number of hawgs harvested. all the state would have to do is make sure the local game wardens, who are already on the payroll, do extra patrols in the area to make sure no one is poaching deer.

Extra patrol.....sounds good in theory but in reality, its not that easy. Not enough officers to go around doing that. I like the honor system but that 1% out there that wont obey it...they are the ones that ruin it for the rest by poaching sad! Hogs are competition for everything in the woods as it is very appearant by all the bulldozing you see in the G.Swamp.