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When did the pigs show up? #7809292 04/17/20 04:42 PM
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GusWayne Offline OP
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I remember hunting in the 80’s and 90’s and there were no pigs here in north Texas

Around 2000 I recall having a few sightings and a few would get killed.

They’re everywhere now!

When did y’all first start seeing them?

Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7809303 04/17/20 04:46 PM
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I've wondered about this as well.

We hunted for many years in far west Coleman County and I do not remember seeing hogs until 2010ish. Then we were covered.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7809369 04/17/20 05:33 PM
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Here is a good summary article with distribution maps. In the 80s, there weren't any in notable quantities in central north Texas, but were in northeast Texas. By 2004, they were in about 80% of the state, parts of the panhandle and west Texas being the exceptions.

http://www.arkansas.gov/abof/pdfs/ABRF_hogs_jrushing.pdf


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7809566 04/17/20 08:16 PM
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Mid 80's is when got on first lease for the 24-7-365 hog hunting....
Had 1,100 acres... Didnt have any were we lived, & none of the other leases
that was on had hogs...
The OSBWMA wss a lease, it had hogs... The year it went to public hunting,
seen several big (herds) no correct term, several over 300#'ers..
Wasn't till the early ta mid 90's that hogs started showing up down by the creek
south of the house at food plot & corn feeders..
Just my 2cents & the later years, after the AK's & then the AR's, it got a little tougher hunting.
But could always find some in the tough out of reach areas...
bang miss me hog hunts....
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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7809617 04/17/20 08:57 PM
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There was a few in the mid to late 80's in our area, by late 90's pretty well covered the county.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7809961 04/18/20 01:49 AM
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There have always been hogs in Deep East Texas....but until the early 80's they were "Pineywoods Rooters' and we didn't see maybe 2-3 a year.

Then came the 'Hog-Doggers' and they started catching and releasing them all over the place. By the 90's most of East Texas and ALL of Deep East Texas had large, established numbers. If that wasn't bad enough....hunters (but not usually Land Owners) started liking the idea of having something other than Deer to hunt...and it all took off from there.

But also....the 'look' of the Feral Hogs we have here (Deep East Texas) is quite different than the Pineywoods Rooters that used to be here and their temperament is different. The hogs we have now RUN at the first sign of danger (good survival technique)....with the 'rooters' it was about a 50/50 proposition as to who was going to give way.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7810093 04/18/20 04:32 AM
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When I was younger I hunted and fished with an old timer who talked about hunting hogs with dogs in Shackelford county back in the 40's. I was raised in southern Throckmorton county in the 60's and there were few if any around. I heard there were a few along the Clear Fork River but I never encounter any and I was up and down that river from Fort Griffin to South Bend all the time. In 1995 I got a place in southwest Young County and there were plenty of hogs....enough to trap and sell. I got my place southeast of Breckenridge in 1980 and it was the mid 2000's before I started seeing an occasional hog. About five years ago they started showing up more and more getting thicker every year. I would now classify them as an infestation. A couple months ago I counted 35 in one sounder.

Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7810103 04/18/20 04:46 AM
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I have a book that interviews old timers that lived in the big thicket area from about 1890 to 1920. They speak of rounding up wild hogs in the thicket with dogs. My mother’s family grew up in Walker county in the 1920s and 1930s, and told of occasional farmers who would keep hogs in the woods. By contrast, my father grew up in Navarro county during the same time, and he said they never saw any wild pigs whatsoever all the time he was growing up. So it seems there were a few in spots, but not the infestation we have now. I first heard of people hunting them in the 1990s in south texas. I got my place in Walker county in 1989, and didn’t see hardly any signs of hogs until after 2010.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: flintknapper] #7810514 04/18/20 06:06 PM
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Originally Posted by flintknapper
There have always been hogs in Deep East Texas....but until the early 80's they were "Pineywoods Rooters' and we didn't see maybe 2-3 a year.

Then came the 'Hog-Doggers' and they started catching and releasing them all over the place. By the 90's most of East Texas and ALL of Deep East Texas had large, established numbers. If that wasn't bad enough....hunters (but not usually Land Owners) started liking the idea of having something other than Deer to hunt...and it all took off from there.

But also....the 'look' of the Feral Hogs we have here (Deep East Texas) is quite different than the Pineywoods Rooters that used to be here and their temperament is different. The hogs we have now RUN at the first sign of danger (good survival technique)....with the 'rooters' it was about a 50/50 proposition as to who was going to give way.




cheers not sure what area you call "Deep East Texas" ...
Hog doggers were kinda a spin off of coon hunters...
The leases i was on, pretty much sitting in box stand over foodplots & feeders...
My first stand was climb tree tie string ta hoist rifle... acorns, browes, trails, droppings, scrapes, rubs...
First box stand, built at house, in sections. Found area with good sign, tree that could hold "treefort" & put it up
First lease, the 24-7-365 hog hunts, 1,100acres, 1deer, squirrels, for $200.00 year round. Was the only lease had that had hogs...
& it was a Family outing... We did the tent camping whin kids in diapers, got a small camper ta put on leases for camping...
Lot of land owners complain about the hogs, have gotten permission ta hunt hogs from several...
They apreciate it...
Deer leases were going ta highest bidders... Twas a blessing whin a WMA opened up just down the road...
Have seen hunters looking for hog hunts, thar be Big Buck$ in it...
Seen people from out of state looking for hog hunts... Also seen land owners complain about hogs, yet, will put down hunters saying "They cause more dammage than hogs" ... eeks333 WOW...
rofl gat a laugh out of the 50/50 proposition... They called me the muyloco caveman in the 80's at work...
slinger night hunt pistal on hip, flash light off, wondering about the woods...
Smith county twas 1 deer county for years, was told: No doe tags, not enough deer... bs use all D fancy grammer ya wants... Whin it became 4 deer county, did me thing.. Deer season , took me bow in hand & took a stand down at OSBWMA... & took advantage of the hog hunts...

What once was price of food stamps, has become a Richmans sport...
pappy
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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7810565 04/18/20 07:10 PM
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I've been wondering the woods of Freestone Co. all my life and recall seeing hogs show up around 2003. At first I loved it. I could hunt whenever and however I wanted. I wish we could go back, I hate em.

Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7810631 04/18/20 08:20 PM
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Shot my first pig in 1988 burnet county the previous guys on this lease said they started showing up about 3 years before that


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: HS2] #7810691 04/18/20 09:48 PM
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Originally Posted by HS2
I have a book that interviews old timers that lived in the big thicket area from about 1890 to 1920. They speak of rounding up wild hogs in the thicket with dogs. My mother’s family grew up in Walker county in the 1920s and 1930s, and told of occasional farmers who would keep hogs in the woods. By contrast, my father grew up in Navarro county during the same time, and he said they never saw any wild pigs whatsoever all the time he was growing up. So it seems there were a few in spots, but not the infestation we have now. I first heard of people hunting them in the 1990s in south texas. I got my place in Walker county in 1989, and didn’t see hardly any signs of hogs until after 2010.


My pop raised hogs outside of Cooper in the 30s and 40s. They would turn them out in the morning and he would whistle them up at the end of the day. Some days, he came back with all their hogs. Some days he was missing some. Some days he had extra. Every so often, they would return pigs to the neighbors and vice versa when they got somebody else's.

Free ranging hogs has been a common practice at least since Jamestown. Jamestown was overrun by feral hogs and built a stockade around the settlement to help protect against them. https://books.google.com/books?id=r...=jamestown%20hogs%20palisade&f=false

My point here is that there is no doubt there have been feral hogs anywhere people have raised hogs. Like you said, they were around at the turn of the last century. They may not have been as numerous then as now, however.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: 1860.colt] #7810701 04/18/20 10:04 PM
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Originally Posted by colt.45
Originally Posted by flintknapper
There have always been hogs in Deep East Texas....but until the early 80's they were "Pineywoods Rooters' and we didn't see maybe 2-3 a year.

Then came the 'Hog-Doggers' and they started catching and releasing them all over the place. By the 90's most of East Texas and ALL of Deep East Texas had large, established numbers. If that wasn't bad enough....hunters (but not usually Land Owners) started liking the idea of having something other than Deer to hunt...and it all took off from there.

But also....the 'look' of the Feral Hogs we have here (Deep East Texas) is quite different than the Pineywoods Rooters that used to be here and their temperament is different. The hogs we have now RUN at the first sign of danger (good survival technique)....with the 'rooters' it was about a 50/50 proposition as to who was going to give way.




cheers not sure what area you call "Deep East Texas" ...
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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7810836 04/18/20 11:31 PM
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Hunted in McMullen county in the 70"s and we had a few back then.



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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7811240 04/19/20 12:36 PM
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When I was 18, my dad was cutting a hay field. He cut up a litter of piglets. Only a couple of days old. The sow and 3 bored went and hid in a cane patch. Dad called a buddy that work for the county and told him about. He thought it would be cool to have them around luckily Buddy of sounder mine showed up with his son's we surrounded the cane Dad ran through it with a tractor we mowed them down we did not have hogs for 10 or 15 years we do know Found out the neighbor had them in a pen and they got out.

Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: flintknapper] #7811438 04/19/20 03:28 PM
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cheers
Hunted around Jefferson several leases, confused2 not sure which county that in...
Never seen much hog sign...
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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7811547 04/19/20 05:20 PM
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Around 2005, I was deer hunting and a boar came out of the woods about 30 yards to my right. Shot and killed the boar. No more sightings that year. Next year during bow season, about 20 came out of the same spot. I knew we had a problem then.

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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7811603 04/19/20 06:08 PM
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I shot my first hog in 1965 in Angelina county. Never saw another one until I gave up on E. Texas around 1976. Hunted Llano county for around 10 years beginning in '78 and never saw a hog. We began seeing a few here in Lee county around 2000 and now most of the county is infested. Saw 26 on our tank dam yesterday.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7811731 04/19/20 08:17 PM
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I have lived on my ranch in South Wise Co for 35 years. I have seen exactly 1 hog. It showed up at a feeder while I was bow hunting 2 years ago. It shocked me. I killed it then and there and have never seen another since. 3 miles away they are thick as flies on the trinity river bottoms.

Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7811840 04/19/20 09:32 PM
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We hunted our lease outside of Gatesville starting in 1987. Never saw a hog until 2000, after that our rancher said to kill every hog we saw. They were tearing the heck out of his pastures.

Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7812104 04/20/20 12:30 AM
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scratch just my 2cents
Hogs been running & scaverging around the rivers, like Trinity, OSB, the one over by WOWMA since the 70's at least.
Thick hard ta access areas... Unit #'er120 was also good hog hunting...
Smith county the flooding if OSB river pushed hogs out up creeks... Lived 9-11miles as crow flies from river... It wasnt untill the late 90's started seeing any sign of hogs around creeks...

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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: HS2] #7812119 04/20/20 12:39 AM
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Originally Posted by HS2
I have a book that interviews old timers that lived in the big thicket area from about 1890 to 1920. They speak of rounding up wild hogs in the thicket with dogs. My mother’s family grew up in Walker county in the 1920s and 1930s, and told of occasional farmers who would keep hogs in the woods. By contrast, my father grew up in Navarro county during the same time, and he said they never saw any wild pigs whatsoever all the time he was growing up. So it seems there were a few in spots, but not the infestation we have now. I first heard of people hunting them in the 1990s in south texas. I got my place in Walker county in 1989, and didn’t see hardly any signs of hogs until after 2010.

I grew up in Walker County, and even in the 80s and 90s the hogs were thick, especially out in the SHNF between Phelps and New Waverly, and along the Trinity River. It is nothing these days to see 1000s of hogs at a time in the Trinity River Bottoms around Riverside.

Several farmers in that area still raise hogs the old fashioned way as mentioned, in the woods. A buddy of mine in high school had a job working on a ranch between Phelps and New Waverly on Four Notch Rd. The rancher would go once a month to the Mrs. Baird's Bakery in Houston and get a 12 foot horse trailer full of expired/moldy/out of date baked goods and that is what my buddy fed to the hogs. Once the hogs heard that trailer door open, they came running out of the woods to eat and drink.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: LeonCarr] #7812234 04/20/20 02:24 AM
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Originally Posted by LeonCarr
Originally Posted by HS2
I have a book that interviews old timers that lived in the big thicket area from about 1890 to 1920. They speak of rounding up wild hogs in the thicket with dogs. My mother’s family grew up in Walker county in the 1920s and 1930s, and told of occasional farmers who would keep hogs in the woods. By contrast, my father grew up in Navarro county during the same time, and he said they never saw any wild pigs whatsoever all the time he was growing up. So it seems there were a few in spots, but not the infestation we have now. I first heard of people hunting them in the 1990s in south texas. I got my place in Walker county in 1989, and didn’t see hardly any signs of hogs until after 2010.

I grew up in Walker County, and even in the 80s and 90s the hogs were thick, especially out in the SHNF between Phelps and New Waverly, and along the Trinity River. It is nothing these days to see 1000s of hogs at a time in the Trinity River Bottoms around Riverside.

Several farmers in that area still raise hogs the old fashioned way as mentioned, in the woods. A buddy of mine in high school had a job working on a ranch between Phelps and New Waverly on Four Notch Rd. The rancher would go once a month to the Mrs. Baird's Bakery in Houston and get a 12 foot horse trailer full of expired/moldy/out of date baked goods and that is what my buddy fed to the hogs. Once the hogs heard that trailer door open, they came running out of the woods to eat and drink.

Just my .02,
LeonCarr


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7812259 04/20/20 02:51 AM
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I think people have been killing pigs in Hutchins since before I was born. As far as I know they were introduced to Texas in the 1500's by the Spaniards.

By this point they are pretty wel naturalised and they aint going nowhere. All those places where they solved the pig problems by making hunting illegal? I am pretty sure those people were trapping pigs in Texas for put and shoot deals, lol.


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Re: When did the pigs show up? [Re: GusWayne] #7813114 04/20/20 09:37 PM
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we hunted a lease in kendall county for about 20 years and never saw a hog from about 1990 thru the early 2000's. then in the early 2000's the land owner said they had seen a feral hog. we didn't think much of it. The following year we were covered up with them. saw them almost every hunt. went a few years of hard trapping and killed the number back pretty hard. We got off the lease to focus on our own place in 2010 or 2011, i can't remember. We still have family who hunt there. they'll catch a hog in a trap or on a night game cam pic now and again but i don't think anyone hardly sees them. The landowner very successfully caught tons of them in snares.


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