First Pig Hunt; Feed me your tips

[BackSpasm]

This week I will be doing a short bow hunt for wild hogs for the first time ever.

I am going to be hunting some low country near a medium sized river that is know to hold good pig numbers. My plan is to get the wind in my face and just walk the bank until I run into pigs or sign. Any tips or advice? I have shot multiple deer from the ground with my bow and plenty of small game too so I know I have the ability to stick one if I can just find them and things go right for me

 

[Tree ninja]

Go slow they hear much better than they see. I use the Primos hog grunter and the primos hog squaller calls. Find you a spot with some cover and get to calling, they will come in fast ready to fight so be arrowed up and ready. Call for about 30 seconds then listen for a minute or two then repeat. It works for me when I find a recent trail or track. Let us know how it went

 

[Weldabeast]

Shoot low and forward if u find em. They can't see good so as long as u got the wind u can get real close. They generally pretty noisy so stop often and listen. Shoot low and forward

 

[Weldabeast]

For serious....they are way tougher than deer. If u shoot them like a deer behind the "crease" u may have a difficult/unsuccessful recovery. I shot 3 this last season off the ground under 15yds and they were all "textbook" whitetail arrow hit locations, all pass thru, and didn't recover any.....at this angle a decent boars shield.will be covering almost all the vitals so make ur broadheads as sharp as u can. They don't stop moving so u need to be ready...they really only stop moving to sleep, go potty, or eating

 

[Tree ninja]

Yeah they are on the move constantly that’s why I use the call. Once you grunt they will stop and stay still for while trying to locate that grunt.

 

[Nutterbuster]

This week I will be doing a short bow hunt for wild hogs for the first time ever.

I am going to be hunting some low country near a medium sized river that is know to hold good pig numbers. My plan is to get the wind in my face and just walk the bank until I run into pigs or sign. Any tips or advice? I have shot multiple deer from the ground with my bow and plenty of small game too so I know I have the ability to stick one if I can just find them and things go right for me

You've got an excellent plan. I'd just add to aim further forward than you think, and to nock up another arrow after you release. You rarely don't get additional shots at a sounder of pigs with a bow. I've shot 4 without ever moving my feet.

 

[BigB]

Not to beat a dead horse but as the others have said aim forward and low. As a deer hunter it’s almost hard to shoot that far forward. Your plan otherwise sounds great.

 

[BackSpasm]

This is all good advice! What about times of the day? Are there times not to miss? Should I be focusing in different morning or evening areas

 

[Tree ninja]

for me it depends on the weather, I’m in south southeast texas and it gets HOT at times. On those days I only go first thing in the morning. By 9 I’m already back at the truck I hate the heat.

 

[Nutterbuster]

This is all good advice! What about times of the day? Are there times not to miss? Should I be focusing in different morning or evening areas

Generally, and I mean generally...pigs feed at night and loaf in the day. I'd start in the morning working the edges of food/cover, and then transition to the edges of the thickest, nastiest stuff you can find. If there are pigs around and it's swampy you'll see their trails going in/out of their bedrooms. If it's a well worn trail and you can get up in there with them, do that in the afternoon. Then, in the evening, if you haven't had luck, I'd post up somewhere for the last hour wherever a days worth of walking has led you to believe there may be hogs going from bedding to food.

They're kinda like deer. Except deer leave some sign. Hogs leave loads of it. And if it's good sign there are hogs within ear/eye range. Walk leisurely and moderately quietly with the wind in your face until you see pigs or offensively obvious sign. Like mud rubs that are still wet and **** that still smells and steams. If it's less than perfectly fresh, follow it back to thick brush.

Hogs are obvious. People mess up by finding yesterday's sign and trying to hunt it. Stalk until you see pigs.

 

[BackSpasm]

Generally, and I mean generally...pigs feed at night and loaf in the day. I'd start in the morning working the edges of food/cover, and then transition to the edges of the thickest, nastiest stuff you can find. If there are pigs around and it's swampy you'll see their trails going in/out of their bedrooms. If it's a well worn trail and you can get up in there with them, do that in the afternoon. Then, in the evening, if you haven't had luck, I'd post up somewhere for the last hour wherever a days worth of walking has led you to believe there may be hogs going from bedding to food.

They're kinda like deer. Except deer leave some sign. Hogs leave loads of it. And if it's good sign there are hogs within ear/eye range. Walk leisurely and moderately quietly with the wind in your face until you see pigs or offensively obvious sign. Like mud rubs that are still wet and **** that still smells and steams. If it's less than perfectly fresh, follow it back to thick brush.

Hogs are obvious. People mess up by finding yesterday's sign and trying to hunt it. Stalk until you see pigs.

I appreciate you taking the time to help. I will report back on how it goes this weekend! This feels like really solid advice

 

[OSUTodd]

I have never specifically hunted them, but offer this experience from last week. My wife and I were looking for sheds two weeks ago, and we heard hogs on the other side of the creek. never got a look at them.
Last week, we were looking in the area where we heard the hogs, not trying to be quiet at all, talking from time to time. We were maybe 40 yards apart, on the edges of a patch of thick thorny crap that was between us. After we had passed by, two adult hogs and at least two little ones erupted and went out the back door behind us.
We had approached from upwind, and were making noise, so they definitely knew we were there. But they chose to sit tight in the thick stuff until we had passed by.

 

[BackSpasm]

Put on 10 miles today. By mid afternoon narrowed in on an area with lots of rooting both old and what appeared to be very fresh and cross crossing tracks both old and new. Found some relatively fresh poop. Got a strong whiff of pigs on the wind once. Never saw or heard a pig today though. Mostly encouraging that they are around but mildly discouraging to not lay eyes on one in 12 hours of being in there. My eyes are definitely opened to swamp hunting and my respect for you Deep South boys is ever increasing. Once you get up in those palmettos, everything is featureless, dense, and the same in all directions. I see the importance of a back up compass now more than I ever have before and I’m glad I have one. The plan tomorrow is to work from the freshest sign we found up the river one way and if it gets cold then back track and go up the creek the other way. Would love to lay my eyes on even a piglet cause it looks from the sign like they are all over in there. Didn’t find anything today that screamed “they are here right now” nothing steaming fresh like Nutter suggested I look for

 

[BackSpasm]

Found so much sign today in so many places including very fresh sign. Ran into some guys carrying a pig they shot with their bow as it ran by them turkey hunting. Still no living pigs spotted this trip by me or my buddy. Tomorrow is our last day… fingers crossed we get lucky

 

[Weldabeast]

Good luck out there....we're rooting for u

U continued to just walk the river today?

 

[BackSpasm]

Well here is the post-hunt analysis.

The pig sign was staggering. I was hunting what I thought was thick enough, and would have been excellent for deer (bumped several), but on the last day I found the real impenetrable thickets that they were filtering out of. Once I located them, the puzzle all came together. I was spending all my time chasing them and hunting night sign, even though it was fresh night sign, I was following them towards these beds in the morning behind them looking at all the damage they had done in the dark and not cutting them off in pine thickets on the hills. I was chasing them down the wrong way in the evenings too. I looked over so many many tracks and trails and finally ended up literally crawling into the fortress on the last day and found steaming fresh sign and tracks, beds, and poop everywhere. So many lessons learned for sure. I feel so much more equipped to tackle pigs in the future, but definitely needed to do some learning.

 

[Tree ninja]

Good right up