Sorry to beat a dead hog, but...

When we first bought our place in southern Brown County, I almost immediately put out trail cams to get a feel for the wildlife population. That first year, 2015, I put out three cams in strategic locations and would estimate that for every 200 photos of deer, there would maybe be 1 of a hog - and notice A hog...almost always lone boars.

Fast forward to 2021 - just over 6 years have elapsed, and tonight I pulled the chips from 2 cams and took a look. I didn't tally exactly, but of 1600 photos over the past few weeks, I estimate 900 are of hogs, and not lone boars, but sounders of 10+ for the most part. I hunt and trap as much as I am able, but there is NO WAY I will ever be able to get a handle on this, and I am just one small property...the numbers are staggering and getting exponentially worse. Until the State steps in with a viable solution, we are in a no win situation.

You are far from alone. The only way I can keep them at bay is to shoot as many as I can, as often as I can. Never let one walk away. And I mean be there every weekend I can be, even if it's just for an evening hunt to shoot one or two. Mixing in a few night sessions too. I know I'm not hurting their numbers any at all, but the constant harassment keeps them discouraged from the property for a short time. If I lay off for two weeks they'll be right back in force.

I've shot so many pigs since deer season that the deer don't really even spook much at the shots. They might startle and run a few yards, but they resume their normal activity within a minute or two.

Our pigs won't even look at a smaller trap. I need to build a pen trap but just haven't gotten it done yet. Hopefully next spring.

I attended the TPWD seminar on pigs at TWA. They're still about 3 years (I'm guessing) away from getting the poison approved. It has to be capsulated, can't get wet; special troughs with heavy lids and magnets so coons can't get it.

I too am learning a lot about defeat when it comes to trapping pigs, but I try to continually make small improvements in what I'm doing. My neighbors are also trying, so that at least helps morale.

I'm going to add a third corral trap by the windmill water eventually. Feeders in them set to a trickle to go off at midnight. The deer love it. I watch the sign and check the cameras, then set the trigger and add stinky bait if pigs seem to be coming by.


It's a guerilla war - harass, harass, harass!

Yes… war!

You are attracting them onto your property by not having panels around your feeder to prevent them from being able to get to the corn. You will still have hogs but they won’t hit the feeders and there should be less.

You got 'em, no need to feed 'em too. Once I put up an 8 panel hog fence I quit being the area focal point for the hogs.

Feed pens around will help for sure

Once we penned in our feeders at a buddies ranch with goat panels, we stopped seeing them on game cameras. The first few weeks they'd come cruise around the outside of the pens trying to find a way in, then they stopped showing up completely.

I'd be willing to bet there is at least one guy in Brown County with a cellular trap who would trap for free. I'm too far, but all the places we cell trap the hog numbers go down each year, but you never will get rid of them completely, they just keep back filling. Running cell traps allows us to show up quick when the hogs are there and catch the entire sounder, then move to the next place wash rinse repeat. We catch and load at night and have yet to ruin a hunt. I shoot the ones too small to sell to the hog buyers. I have yet to have to charge a landowner BUT with the cost of fuel and corn up, things may have to change or we just quit trapping, especially if the buying stations continue to randomly shut down throughout the year when the packing plant gets behind.

Yeah, I need to get the pens built.

What do the packing plants do with the pigs? There’s no program like that here in SC. Most deer processors won’t process pigs here. What do they pay? Just curious.

Feed them out, process them and sell it overseas. Only 1 USDA certified feral hog packing plant in the state right now (used to be two) so they pay us trappers hardly anything with the monopoly they have. I've also heard rumor that any "wild boar" on a menu in high end restaurants here in the US also come from same facility. Texas is missing out on killing two birds with one stone on our feral hog "problem". Loosen the regulations and let more plants open up and the price of hogs would go up and more people would trap. Then you wouldn't have to bother with all these silly poisons and contraceptive bait (what a joke lol!) but I'm sure if there was a money trail to find, some politician's trying to line him and his buddies pockets with the hog poison route...