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Hog hunting Help

Weldabeast said:
Anybody know anyone who's gotten sick from handling hog? I don't personally but my hunting partner know 2 peeps that had to be hospitalized..
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Was this consensual swine handling? LOL. No, I have heard they carry diseases, swine brucellosis and possibly parasites. I would use gloves to handle one.
 
Matki15 said:
For those in Louisiana or Mississippi dealing with the “incidental take” laws, look into tss in larger shot sizes. It’s expensive but worth it. I’ve been killing hogs out to 75 yards with my 870 and 3” #2s. Full penetration even on the big hogs. Hate to throw out the “game changer” phrase, but it really has been a game changer for me hunting in February. No more head shots with the 17 or being limited to <20 yard shotgun shots
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Good to know. I had a buddy load up some BB tungsten loads for hogs when we're waterfowl hunting in the swamp. Didn't get a chance to use them, but that's way more range than I'd have anticipated. I'll be happy with taking them at bow range.
 
Weldabeast said:
Anybody know anyone who's gotten sick from handling hog? I don't personally but my hunting partner know 2 peeps that had to be hospitalized..
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I have not - I know a lot of people who trap them here and have not heard of anyone getting sick from hogs either. A few ticks possibly transferred.
We used to catch them with dogs when I lived in FL, and we would carry them back to the truck by either the feet or tossed over a shoulder. Some we would eat (cooked thoroughly on a grill or smoker), but most we would sell to hunting farms. I'm not sure if that is still legal anymore, but we had a ton of fun catching and wrestling them and made a few hundred on a weekend to boot!
 
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Straight up the leg try to cut off the elbow......when and if u do find some piggies aim low and forward......much more so than where we been "taught" to aim if u shooting at a deer

I prefer to hunt and eat deers but hog hunting is much more fun IMO....they travel in big groups, make a bunch of noise, and can't see squat so u can really get up close and personal. 2 seasons ago I slipped in amongst a sounder of 15-20 pigs and managed to shoot 3. I right in there with them for 10 minutes...they kept presenting shots and I kept shooting kill the quiver was empty....as long as u got the wind, they oblivious....I sure wish I had got a shot at the sow leading the pack. She wasn't a couple generations from a domesticated hog....looked like a barnyard pig but with blotchy feral black hair, 7 or 8 foot long, and 300 pounds legit. My biggest is 220 boar and it was half the size of that sow
 
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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.
 

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NMSbowhunter said:
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.
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Their movement patterns can be so random it makes it difficult to be in position for a bow shot. With a rifle it's a completely different game.
 
brydan said:
Their movement patterns can be so random it makes it difficult to be in position for a bow shot. With a rifle it's a completely different game.
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Oh yeah, with a gun it is just walk around and shoot one. If I were hungry, I'd take a gun. With a bow, especially a stick bow, it is a whole different game.

I am realizing that I need to be in hunting mode the moment I leave the truck for hogs. With deer where I hunt you generally need to be a few hundred yards in before you will see any sign of a deer whatsoever and a thousand yards is better. These hogs lately have been close to the road, and even in the ditch of the road. It's no surprise, the roads are on the high ground and the swamp is flooded right now from the rain. It's pushed the pigs up to the high spots. I had two big boars in the ditch a week or two back coming out in the dark. They were ten yards from me before we saw each other.

Pigs are sort of a cross between deer hunting and turkey hunting. You generally move a lot more pig hunting like turkey hunting and pigs are somewhat vocal. You can also generally hear pigs coming in. Deer just seem to appear out of the ground silently most times.
 
thedutchtouch said:
Do you not eat pork at all, or just not wild hogs? I've heard the taste is (understandably) a bit different, particularly with large boars, but wondering why not eat the smaller ones?
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I don’t eat pork at all, anymore. Back when I did eat pork, large, small, sow, boar it didn’t matter they all tasted like crap to me.


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Swampwalker said:
You ever try using like a rabbit or fawn distress call? Bet they'd move in on that!
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I've sure thought about trying it out. I might want to be in a tree the first time I tried it, lol. Also, you might get a beat down from a doe. Somewhere on the forum was a video, it was brutal.
 
NMSbowhunter said:
I've sure thought about trying it out. I might want to be in a tree the first time I tried it, lol. Also, you might get a beat down from a doe. Somewhere on the forum was a video, it was brutal.
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I don’t think a pig would be too much to worry about. I’ve had them walk within a few yards of me while turkey hunting, and they got the hell out of dodge as soon as they got my wind. I imagine they’d come in down wind like any other predator.


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shmelton said:
I don’t think a pig would be too much to worry about. I’ve had them walk within a few yards of me while turkey hunting, and they got the hell out of dodge as soon as they got my wind. I imagine they’d come in down wind like any other predator.


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I think he's concerned about a stressed out doe! :wink:
 
shmelton said:
I don’t think a pig would be too much to worry about. I’ve had them walk within a few yards of me while turkey hunting, and they got the hell out of dodge as soon as they got my wind. I imagine they’d come in down wind like any other predator.


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I was mainly referring to a ticked off doe responding to a fawn in distress. Most of the pigs (40 to 50 pounds) I don't worry about, but the big boars are another story. I've seen and been close to several lately that were easily 150 to 200 pounds, and they did not seem impressed by a human one bit. Here is a picture I got of one several years ago to give you an idea of the size of some of these guys.
 

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NMSbowhunter said:
I was mainly referring to a ticked off doe responding to a fawn in distress. Most of the pigs (40 to 50 pounds) I don't worry about, but the big boars are another story. I've seen and been close to several lately that were easily 150 to 200 pounds, and they did not seem impressed by a human one bit.
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Oof in the woods in here in LA hogs are the most dangerous animal we have by far. Most of the time I have no worries but I’ve been charged a couple times and I had a friend get drug through the woods like a rag doll when a boar hooked his tusk behind his knee, a lot of the dangerous encounters I’ve had with them I can point strictly to the fact we were hunting them with dogs, but I’m always wary of hogs. 150-250# hogs are pretty common around here, we’ve killed em as big at 400+ (rare but it happens). We train our dogs not to go after sows if they can help it, many times we’ve walked up on 6 dead dogs and no hog. And knowing how we train the dogs and how tough they are for a hog to kill one has my full attention.
 
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