doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Pig hunts in Texas?

Lots of them on our ranch outside of Lubbock but they're sort of a hit and miss proposition. Days can go by without seeing them and then all of a suddenlink a whole herd shows up. Suggest central Texas for something more reliable.

I hope to hunt pigs soon with a friend that has hog dogs. I have a lease South of Clarendon. Last year my landlord brought in a helicopter with gunner to try to slow them down. 800 hogs off of 165,000 acres in three days are the stats I heard. (I only have the hunting leased on a tiny portion).

The serious hog hunters down here don't shoot our piney woods rooters; they employ catch dogs along with hounds to grab the hog by the back end or by the snout and hold them. The hunter jumps into the fray and ties the hog's jaws then the legs, sort of hogtied.

The hog is carried off to a pen and fed corn and kitchen scraps for long enough to be judged fit to eat. Then the hog is killed and butchered like any domestic animal...Geo

I killed a wild hog once when he walked up to me on a game trail I was sitting in. Big old boar, probably 250 lbs. or more. I hung him in a tree in my back yard skinned him with GREAT effort (you have to strip skin the big ones because they have an inch thick layer of gristle between the skin and the shoulder meat)and cut him up like a deer. I had all the meat made into ground sausage. I'd defrost a pound or so at a time and make patties for frying. The stuff would not make its own grease so I had to melt butter in the pan before I could cook. Probably because of the butter it was actually pretty good...Geo

George you've got to add domestic pork fat to get good sausage.

Here's one I stuck in a Mississippi swamp.



Truth is you've not really hunted till you kill something with a knife.

Feral hogs are a nuisance. Fortunately the feral hogs in my neck of the woods aren't descedent from European wild hogs which are bird dog killers and more aggressive than we have around here. Despite that, I had an unpleasant encounter woodcocking last winter when a sow bluff charged my dog and me.
I had put my gun down to leash my Britt and get the heck out of dodge. Abby had bayed the hog in a dense cane brake and for once, she came when I whistled. The sow was probably with piglets. I was on one knee leashing her when the hog charged and I got up and ran, hollering, towards the hog reflexively. The hog spun on her heels at 5 yards and skedaddled. I called it a day after that. When we hunt certain areas, she now wears a kevlar cut vest designed for baying hog dogs
We shared a lease on ricefields with a hog outfitter. We hunted ducks and he brought sports in to hunt "wild" hogs. I recall one hunt when we came out of the fields and spoke with his assistant who had his truck backed up to the dike with a large "kennel" crate in the back of the truck. He had just released a hog into the marsh ahead of the "sports" and the dogs. "Put and take" pork.

You can't kill all the hogs out by hunting, day or night. Night hunting them here is legal as long as you abide by the DNR rules. Running them with dogs and catching them does more to run the hogs out of an area than all the hunting could ever do. We tie their legs but not their jaws. After turning the dogs out a couple times in a 500 acre cypress swamp we hunt, the time the hogs hear those dogs now they light out for parts unknown. I've known of them to run several miles before stopping. The endurance of a 150# pig has to be seen to be believed. They are NOT game animals. They are giant vermin that ruin the landscape with their rooting.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/05/26/...-than-hogzilla/

You don't call this kind a pig. It's a full blown hog. These can hurt you and your dogs bad.

SRH

Some chopper hunting like Mike said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx66ys4JG5o

To be truthful, all I was hoping for was a nice break from winter, walking some different country with a rifle. If we happen to get some shooting, I really don't want anything too-big. The plan was to fill some coolers with backstraps and hams and let my father-in-law take them back north with him to fill his freezer. If these animals are indeed invasive pests, why does Texas require a $40 permit to hunt them?

This thread probably belongs in the 'Misfires' section.

Suggest that you contact Texas Parks & Wildlife and ask them for their recommendations and to put you in touch with a game warden in the county or counties you wish to hunt. They will know who is working as an outfitter or guiding hog hunts in their jusidictions. Another approach is contacting the Chamber of Commerce in those counties for the same services. Most property here is private & leased and to come down for a short hunt you will do much better with a guide for what you have in mind.

FWIW, I've found that feral hogs taste very good [better than a lot of the commercially grown stock] when properly field dressed and cared for. I think shoats are the best, but sows eat well enough too. I do not think you can ever completely cook the 'taste' out of a feral boar, though you might mask it in sausage. Most all feral hogs are lean compared to domestic stock.

Go here for a war & peace treatise on their hunting and habits:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=449721