2024 Hog Hunting Thread

[NMSbowhunter]

I looked around I did not see an official 2024 hog hunting thread. So, I will humbly propose one. Once deer season ends, we need something to hunt before and after (during!) turkey season. I'm no hog hunting expert and I have to travel farther afield to find hogs than deer, but I do love to hunt them. I hope to learn as much as I can contribute.

If you are actively hunting hogs or want to learn, chime in. The more hunting stories the better! These are entertaining and help us learn new trick and avoid pitfalls.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

This is a repost from the Hog Hunting Help thread, so if you read it over there, you can skip it, lol.

I got a break yesterday morning, so I high tailed it about an hour and a half south to an area that has piggies. I wanted to do a little scouting but mostly wanted to slip around and try to get into some hogs. Well, sure enough, the water level from this recent system had them up on higher grounds and I bet I wasn't 150 yards from the truck when I ran into a very nice boar at about 35 to 40 yards. He heard me since I had pushed through some junk to get into that little draw. He wasn't quite sure what I was and hesitated for about 10 seconds with a big pine in between us. At this point I could see his haunches only. The wind was in my favor, and I hoped I could slip up and close the distance. He had seen and heard enough and eased off. There was a brief opportunity to draw and shoot but at 35 to 40 yards with my longbow it would have been too risky. I quickly backtracked and went around trying to get in front of where I thought he might be going. No dice. I never was able to catch up or he turned north.

I went back around to check out where he had been and there was fresh rooting sign and pig poops in there. It was about 2:30 at this point so I looked the place over a little bit and decided I would just set up and see if anything came in before dark. I went back and grabbed the Packseat and set up with my back to the pine transition amongst a blown down pine top. While at the truck I tried that shot on a dark spot on a rotted log at about 40 yards with a judo tipped arrow. I nailed it.

While sitting in the Packseat about 4:15 enjoying a conversation between a couple of owls, I hear hogs moving. It was hard to tell where the noise was coming from. Eventually I realized they were coming around behind me, just down a little lane in the pines I had come in on. I was set up about 20 yards at most from that lane with my back to it. I stood up just in time to see the last two of what I suspect was 5 or 6 pigs. These were smaller hogs, about 35 to 45 pounders. Man, so close. After that incident I decided to just ease up to the edge of the lane, partly due to the hogs passage but also to the wind switching. I just tucked up into some bushes and stood 5 yards off the lane. Anything going down that path would be an easy 5 to 7 yard shot. Well, a day late and a dollar short, but a fun day none the less.

It's hard switching gears from deer to hogs. They just behave very differently. I've just been one step behind on hogs so far but I'm learning.

​

 

[mschultz373]

cool thread and story. kind of makes me wanna get out to some of the WMAs that have a special hog season after deer season. most of the public land, hogs are 'incidental' year around with the legal implement of the season. meaning .22LR up until end of February... which basically means no hoggies.

couple funny story with hogs, though. a week before our opener last season, i went scouting in the afternoon and kept bumping into sounders as I scouted. the final sounder I stumbled upon didn't even mind my presence at all - i basically walked up to them and they continued to root around me. i made some slight scraping sounds on the ground and they seemed to accept my disguise. three sows were working the ground near me and a nice sized boar came down my opposite side of them and stood broadside to me at 8 yards. he eyed me but stood there. he was probably 130-150lbs and stood mid-thigh high. of course I had my carry pistol but it not being an open season yet, i didn't/couldn't do anything. i filmed him and then yelled to scare them all off.

another time, during season in mid October, i had a two hours to burn while my then-fiance got her hair done for our upcoming wedding. so i scouted an NWR nearby that i never ended up hunting. it's like a pine-savannah that meets a marsh. anyway, i walked a couple points that jutted out into the marsh and on one of them, I heard a loud SPLASH! into the marsh water. AHA! I thought, as I stopped and looked to see what I hoped was a deer swimming away. Instead, I saw an 8' alligator cruise slowly through the waterway with his head above the water. I decided that was enough time on that point...

on another point, I walked a heavily-used trail out into the marsh. it was during the worst part of our drought, so walking into the marsh was no problem. a decent amount of deer scat was in the trails, so I started filming what I was seeing and sort of talking through how I would make sense of this sign so I could send it to a buddy of mine. As I turned to get an angle looking up a trail, the biggest boar I've ever seen in person came out of the marsh grass and was coming down the trail towards me. he must have been like up to my mid-chest high and over 200lbs. no joke! he saw me and grunted, and I was startled myself so I let out a "woah!" and when he heard that, he turned sharply back into the tall marsh grass.

 

[brydan]

I’m in

Not a hog hunting expert by any stretch of the imagination but spent a lot of this season chasing them around. Unfortunately I crashed and burned already on the @redsquirrel no new gear challenge and bought a shotgun today to hunt pigs from the ground. Fun way to scout though.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

I’m in

Not a hog hunting expert by any stretch of the imagination but spent a lot of this season chasing them around. Unfortunately I crashed and burned already on the @redsquirrel no new gear challenge and bought a shotgun today to hunt pigs from the ground. Fun way to scout though.

Cool! Hopefully you can get one (or several) soon. Are you using TSS (tungsten)? I'm after them pretty hard but I'm intentionally hunting them with a bow for fun. I've been very close several times recently.

 

[brydan]

I hunted all season with a bow (2 days with a rifle), deer season ends today so till the end of the month (end of squirrel season) these are really just scouting trips with a chance to shoot pigs. I've been jumping so many scouting hopefully I can tag a couple. No tungsten yet, been reading up on Turkey set-ups to extend the range though.

 

[brydan]

Did another scouting trip a couple days ago, the leaves were so dry and crunchy I didn't even really try to hunt, just put in the miles to learn a new area. .

I have a question for others with more experience hunting pigs. This is the first year I've ever spent any time targeting hogs, in the past they've just been an opportunity target deer hunting. This is all on fairly heavily hunted public land FWIW. Preseason in this area I'd see them out and about, rooting around the on the side of the rode. I ride my mountain bike in the area and see hogs all the time. At the beginning of the season I hunted some areas of very heavy rooting activity and some pigs would still come in. It didn't take long though before the daytime visits to those areas shut off like a light switch.

I suppose it's no different from deer hunting, relaxed behavior preseason and more cagey as the pressure increases. I made a bunch of sits on spots that looked like a tractor drug a field plow through the woods and didn't see jack squat. Zero. Mornings, evenings, often perfect wind direction, I'd even see deer periodically in the area so it's not like my scent control, entry, movement, etc is horrible. I was just surprised at how pig behavior can look so careless at times yet seem to go 100% noctural on those big feeding areas when the pressure starts.

Anybody else see that same behavior in regard to that obvious rooting sign we're all familiar with? Going forward, I'm not wasting time hunting over those areas, I don't care how fresh or how much acreage is torn up, I'm walking past it and looking for the bedding areas. I saw more pigs "randomly" cruising through the woods than I did hunting over all that sign. I say randomly because it seemed like random cruising at the time, now that I've located their bedding areas they were probably headed for cover.

Around the camp I'd always heard "pigs are nomadic", that's why you see them for awhile and as there's some pressure they move off to another area and that's why you don't see them anymore. After what I've seen this year I'm not sure I believe that anymore. They may be more nomadic than deer but I've jumped a ton of them scouting on heavily hunted public in recent weeks and there's a whole pile of them that haven't gone anywhere. They're just hunkered down waiting for the season to end

 

[NMSbowhunter]

Did another scouting trip a couple days ago, the leaves were so dry and crunchy I didn't even really try to hunt, just put in the miles to learn a new area. .

I have a question for others with more experience hunting pigs. This is the first year I've ever spent any time targeting hogs, in the past they've just been an opportunity target deer hunting. This is all on fairly heavily hunted public land FWIW. Preseason in this area I'd see them out and about, rooting around the on the side of the rode. I ride my mountain bike in the area and see hogs all the time. At the beginning of the season I hunted some areas of very heavy rooting activity and some pigs would still come in. It didn't take long though before the daytime visits to those areas shut off like a light switch.

I suppose it's no different from deer hunting, relaxed behavior preseason and more cagey as the pressure increases. I made a bunch of sits on spots that looked like a tractor drug a field plow through the woods and didn't see jack squat. Zero. Mornings, evenings, often perfect wind direction, I'd even see deer periodically in the area so it's not like my scent control, entry, movement, etc is horrible. I was just surprised at how pig behavior can look so careless at times yet seem to go 100% noctural on those big feeding areas when the pressure starts.

Anybody else see that same behavior in regard to that obvious rooting sign we're all familiar with? Going forward, I'm not wasting time hunting over those areas, I don't care how fresh or how much acreage is torn up, I'm walking past it and looking for the bedding areas. I saw more pigs "randomly" cruising through the woods than I did hunting over all that sign. I say randomly because it seemed like random cruising at the time, now that I've located their bedding areas they were probably headed for cover.

Around the camp I'd always heard "pigs are nomadic", that's why you see them for awhile and as there's some pressure they move off to another area and that's why you don't see them anymore. After what I've seen this year I'm not sure I believe that anymore. They may be more nomadic than deer but I've jumped a ton of them scouting on heavily hunted public in recent weeks and there's a whole pile of them that haven't gone anywhere. They're just hunkered down waiting for the season to end

They can go nocturnal fast from what I've seen, due to hunting pressure, and they can tear up an area fast and move on. It's almost like you have to be where they are going, not where they have been since I feel like most places they won't be back to, unlike a deer. Water level seems to determine a lot of what the ones around here do. If the water is down, they are in the big swamps, if it is up, they are in the pine thickets and will feed along the transitions of the swamp and pines. I'm no expert, I'm still learning, but this is what I have observed.

 

[The_Fit_Ness_Monster]

They can go nocturnal fast from what I've seen, due to hunting pressure, and they can tear up an area fast and move on. It's almost like you have to be where they are going, not where they have been since I feel like most places they won't be back to, unlike a deer. Water level seems to determine a lot of what the ones around here do. If the water is down, they are in the big swamps, if it is up, they are in the pine thickets and will feed along the transitions of the swamp and pines. I'm no expert, I'm still learning, but this is what I have observed.

You’re on the right path with the be where they’re going, luckily down here there plenty of hog numbers so if you got hogs coming through they pretty much always will be coming through sometimes in waves like where I am I’ll have no hogs on camera for a month or 2 then all of sudden I have 30-40 on camera every night. But if you bait them you can always get passing groups to come in. We’ve found the best is we rot corn in water through the summers and bury it bucket and all sometimes up to 2-3 feet deep and I’ve come back overnight before and there’s been nothing left but the metal bucket handle. Any females I trap go into my pen and buddy when they go into heat you can sit out with a green light or thermal every night and get a few males. But like I said we along the Mississippi delta have the luxury of hunting them with lax methods bc there’s just so many.

 

[NMSbowhunter]

You’re on the right path with the be where they’re going, luckily down here there plenty of hog numbers so if you got hogs coming through they pretty much always will be coming through sometimes in waves like where I am I’ll have no hogs on camera for a month or 2 then all of sudden I have 30-40 on camera every night. But if you bait them you can always get passing groups to come in. We’ve found the best is we rot corn in water through the summers and bury it bucket and all sometimes up to 2-3 feet deep and I’ve come back overnight before and there’s been nothing left but the metal bucket handle. Any females I trap go into my pen and buddy when they go into heat you can sit out with a green light or thermal every night and get a few males. But like I said we along the Mississippi delta have the luxury of hunting them with lax methods bc there’s just so many.

When I was on that club they were on our land when the water was up. If the conditions were dry, they were a couple of miles to the south. I only later learned that after talking to a guy who owned 160 acres a couple of miles down that creek system. We'd take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it halfway with corn and put any watermelon rinds, cantaloupe rinds, etc. in there and then pour about halfway with water, put the top on the bucket and put it out in the sun in the summer. It would ferment and smell like a brewery. You could pour that out and they would find it fast if they were in the area.

Another tactic we used to keep them around was a hog roll tube. It was a 4 inch pvc pipe with a cap on one end and a screw out drain plug on the other for filling. On the cap end was a steel I bolt and attached to that was a 6 foot or so steel cable with a loop to attach it to a tree. The pipe had 2 3/4 inch holes drilled in it to dribble out corn when it rolled. The most important part of the whole thing was a little chamber at the cap end of the pipe that had some rocks in it. Long after the hogs rolled all the corn out of the tube, they would keep returning to it to roll it because the rocks in that chamber sounded like corn kernels. They would just keep rolling that tube thinking there was still corn in there.

I hunt them on public ground now, so no use of bait whatsoever, so it is cover lots of miles and try to get into them, which is much more fun.

 

[The_Fit_Ness_Monster]

When I was on that club they were on our land when the water was up. If the conditions were dry, they were a couple of miles to the south. I only later learned that after talking to a guy who owned 160 acres a couple of miles down that creek system. We'd take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it halfway with corn and put any watermelon rinds, cantaloupe rinds, etc. in there and then pour about halfway with water, put the top on the bucket and put it out in the sun in the summer. It would ferment and smell like a brewery. You could pour that out and they would find it fast if they were in the area.

Another tactic we used to keep them around was a hog roll tube. It was a 4 inch pvc pipe with a cap on one end and a screw out drain plug on the other for filling. On the cap end was a steel I bolt and attached to that was a 6 foot or so steel cable with a loop to attach it to a tree. The pipe had 2 3/4 inch holes drilled in it to dribble out corn when it rolled. The most important part of the whole thing was a little chamber at the cap end of the pipe that had some rocks in it. Long after the hogs rolled all the corn out of the tube, they would keep returning to it to roll it because the rocks in that chamber sounded like corn kernels. They would just keep rolling that tube thinking there was still corn in there.

I hunt them on public ground now, so no use of bait whatsoever, so it is cover lots of miles and try to get into them, which is much more fun.

Yeahh me and a buddy ran local “business” of ridding hogs from farms using dogs for a while before he passed away, funny thing was his name was Ferral lol I recently got new private hunting opportunities but public now isn’t too bad, Thistlewait here has a good bit, but lately if you just go on the north end of Tensas you WILL kill hogs. Lol we have some family land around Brookhaven,MS and the water dictates whether hogs are on the “island” or not, good thing is it also traps them there some seasons. But I haven’t been there in a few year bc the getting has been god here at home.

 

[brydan]

They can go nocturnal fast from what I've seen, due to hunting pressure, and they can tear up an area fast and move on. It's almost like you have to be where they are going, not where they have been since I feel like most places they won't be back to, unlike a deer. Water level seems to determine a lot of what the ones around here do. If the water is down, they are in the big swamps, if it is up, they are in the pine thickets and will feed along the transitions of the swamp and pines. I'm no expert, I'm still learning, but this is what I have observed.

For sure most of that rooting is a one time thing. This was during the long drought we had, swamps were bone dry and soft ground was at a premium. I kept seeing fresh activity at these huge feeding areas so that's what kept me going back. Early season it worked and saw lots of animals but when it shut off that was it, nothing.

 

[brydan]

Thistlewait here has a good bit

At some point I wouldn't be surprised if it's completley over run with them. With all that cover, hunting by itself isn't going to touch the population.

 

[The_Fit_Ness_Monster]

At some point I wouldn't be surprised if it's completley over run with them. With all that cover, hunting by itself isn't going to touch the population.

Oh I know it, Thistlewait is the only place I’ve arrowed a deer and a hog in the same sit on a couple occasions.

 

[Matki15]

I’ll go ahead and repost this picture from the other thread but add the story as well. On one of the WMAs around central Louisiana for the first time and picked a spot on ONX. I did my usual loops and zigzags through good looking areas and the amount of sign was impressive. Droppings were everywhere and it just smelled like pigs the entire morning. I finally walked up on a group of sows and piglets and tried a longer shot at 70 yards, the wind was swirling so they were starting to spook. The sow I shot at stumbled and separated from the main group but after 20 minutes of searching I only found a small amount of blood at the shot site. I continued on deeper into the woods and after a run in with a coyote decided to call it a day. I had 2 miles to go before getting back to the truck so I started a new loop in that general direction, a little thicker than what I had been hunting but still walkable. Not even 100 yards into this new loop a hog jumped up and ran from a briar patch 20 yards away, by itself. One thing I’ve learned over the years is these animals have small lungs. Decent speed, no endurance. I started sprinting after it keeping it in sight. Every 75-100 yards she would stop and turn to see if I was still behind her but not long enough for me to settle my bead on her. After 300-400 yards she was really winding and stopped a little longer this time. Placed the bead on her shoulder and shot, dropping her instantly

 

[NMSbowhunter]

View attachment 99934I’ll go ahead and repost this picture from the other thread but add the story as well. On one of the WMAs around central Louisiana for the first time and picked a spot on ONX. I did my usual loops and zigzags through good looking areas and the amount of sign was impressive. Droppings were everywhere and it just smelled like pigs the entire morning. I finally walked up on a group of sows and piglets and tried a longer shot at 70 yards, the wind was swirling so they were starting to spook. The sow I shot at stumbled and separated from the main group but after 20 minutes of searching I only found a small amount of blood at the shot site. I continued on deeper into the woods and after a run in with a coyote decided to call it a day. I had 2 miles to go before getting back to the truck so I started a new loop in that general direction, a little thicker than what I had been hunting but still walkable. Not even 100 yards into this new loop a hog jumped up and ran from a briar patch 20 yards away, by itself. One thing I’ve learned over the years is these animals have small lungs. Decent speed, no endurance. I started sprinting after it keeping it in sight. Every 75-100 yards she would stop and turn to see if I was still behind her but not long enough for me to settle my bead on her. After 300-400 yards she was really winding and stopped a little longer this time. Placed the bead on her shoulder and shot, dropping her instantly

Wow! I've never considered running them down. That's very interesting.

 

[The_Fit_Ness_Monster]

Wow! I've never considered running them down. That's very interesting.

Oh yeah it can be done, humans can out endure any other mammal by far, the way our bodies are structured and function is specifically for long distance travel, you could run down a deer easily as far as endurance, it’s the speed where they get you lol

 

[Matki15]

Wow! I've never considered running them down. That's very interesting.

For solo hogs it works great, on groups I’ve found it’s better to do a large loop around them to get in front of the general direction they were headed that way the group stays together, leading to multiple shots. They never run far, they have almost no natural predators besides us, a few black bears and some brave coyotes. They’re not used to anything really going after them once they start running.

 

[brydan]

@Matki15 what’s your ammo/choke setup? I’ve been doing the shotgun deep dive the last few days

 

[Matki15]

@brydan right now I’m using Apex #2 TSS, the 1 1/2 ounce load. Depending on how far I can see in the places I’m hunting I’ll either use my factory modified for closer range shots (out to 50 yards) or a Carlsons sporting clays extra full .690 constriction (out to 75-80 yards)