I had a kind of fun revelation yesterday, dirt is better than corn.....well maybe.

We've had a wet spring, and my local hogs have been really hard to kill, high grass and an aversion to dying developed by hard hunting. We put out some corn year around for deer and the hogs come and go to the feeders intermittently but we haven't seen one under one in months, so....

I'm having a barn/camp built near a lake and they have been moving dirt to fill in for the foundation.....a LOT of dirt.....DAMN expensive dirt I might add .....so yesterday evening, I take a load of household garbage over to the ranch to burn and maybe shoot a few beer bottles on the rifle range in prep for upcoming hunt. Normally, I don't leave home without my .300 WM in the truck, but since it was very hot, mid 90s, and late afternoon, going on main ranch road where we haven't seen a hog in months, I left it out....only had NS .22 rifle sighted in at 100 yards and scoped .22 pistol. Burn garbage and its getting kind of late, so I decide to skip the shooting and head back out to the gate. I haven't gone 300 yards and see these pigs crossing road. Damn, no gun, I think....oh well, maybe I can use the .22.....so I jam on the brakes and start scrounging around for the 3 boxes of .22 ammo I just threw in the truck....seems like it takes me 5 minutes but it was probably less than a minute to find one, load a clip and step out....meanwhile the pigs have gone over to a six foot high pile of dirt next to fill site about 50 yards off road and about 100 yds in front of me and are rooting around in it...grass is so high you really can't see them unless they're on the pile of dirt......must have been about 30 of them, 20 piglets or so and the rest sows and young boars.....luckily wind is right and I am able to walk up to a dozer that is parked on site.....pigs have moved to the main construction area now and are rooting around in fill dirt.....one set sees me and takes off into grass.....I am willing to shoot one in the ribs (on the well proved theory that any dead pig is a good pig) with the .22 but know I won't be able to find it.......as luck would have it.....one of the mid size boars (100 pounds plus) is on side of fill dirt and turns and gives me a profile and it's getting pretty dark.....I'm about 50 yards off, .22 is sighted in at 100, using dozer blade as rest, I hold about 3 inches below his ear and squeeze it off....bang flop.....he is still kicking when I get to him....but I put a finisher in his head and that's that.

I think I'm going to doze some fresh dirt every now and then in the areas pigs like, cheaper than corn, cattle will do the same thing, root around in fresh dirt.

I killed one small (25 lbs) pig before with a .22 when he escaped the guys, who were supposed to catch him out of a trap we had (bad form to shoot pigs in your trap, ruins it for quite a while due to blood smell), let him get loose, I had a .22 with one bullet left in it in truck, ran back and grabbed it, pig stopped looking for his buddies at about 40 yards and I shot him in the ribs, he didn't go far.

This is the first one I've shot that had any size, I wouldn't recommend it for a main pig gun but it will work. I was really hoping one would look at me so I could put it between his eyes but I had to take what I could get.

I was trying to give the pig away (we've still got plenty in freezer for next BBQ), was in kind of a rush, but I'll try to post a pic later. Couldn't even give him away (uncleaned) on Sunday night, so I took the back straps and chunked him. Kind of like the old fish story, every one wants some, but they want them cleaned. Hell, not counting for a widow or similar sad story, if I've got to clean them, I might as well keep them.

Gat,

Sounds like you need a slightly larger caliber truck gun

Why do you think the piggies are not coming to the feeders any more?

BTW: Last time I was in Texas I cleaned a hog and a small deer for a lease member who was doing electrical work on the lease that I had been invited to hunt. He had shot them early in the day but didn't have time to clean them up and get the power run to the cleaning shed. Figured he was doing good things for the other members and deserved a good turn.

He gave them to me ... was very happy to put them in the freezer! Nice fella.

mstarling wrote:

quote:

Why do you think the piggies are not coming to the feeders any more?

The area Gatogordo is referring to had a wet Spring, and there's plenty fresh items for them to eat, including wild berries (here, at least, they really hit the dewberries).

In another 3 weeks, you can find hogs concentrating on areas where grapes begin to hit the ground.

Of course, if there's a field of corn or sugar cane nearby, they'll take that over anything else. Hogs are opportunists and will eat anything, including carrion, when they have to. But they are not dumb, either, and will quickly find the best and easiest source of food.

And they won't hesitate to kill fawns, lambs or kid goats, either.

CAT-

Nice shooting on the piggie! Last month, several small pig were in a trap, and their cousins were hanging out and entertaining them (or baking a cake with a file... )

These were 30-40 pounders, and it was the middle of the day, so I didn't take anything but a .22 LR along. They took off when they heard my approach but didn't go far. The WInchester 40 grain Power Point (HP) through the lungs worked just fine.

Bobby:

The powerpoint is my favorite "cheap target/squirrel" .22 round, but in this case I was using some pretty old Rem "golden" hi-speed. I found an ammo can full of it stashed away a while back, and figured I might as well shoot it up since it was getting kind of long in the tooth so we have been breaking bottles and shooting silhouettes with it. Not the most accurate by any means but it sure as hell shoots better than I do offhand so I call it a wash.

Mike:

Besides what Bobby pointed out, that is that there are a lot of alternative food sources right now, the operative word referring to hogs on feeders is "seen". They still come to them, but they have been doing it late at night and have not been consistent enough to stake them out on moonlite nights. I want to point out the obvious, that Texas is a big place, but the reason I bring this up is that deer and hog reactions to feeders are much different up here in the NE than they are down in the SW , say, around San Antonio and beyond. Down there, especially in drought years like we have been having, game really concentrates on feeders using them as a primary food source. Up here, even in the bad years, there are multiple other food sources so, while they come to feeders, they are not "on a string" like they often are farther South.

Ahhh ... I think you got me right on!

The places I've hunted in Texas (South and the Hill Country) really have not had a multiplicity of food sources.

I can imagine that good fresh munchies are more attractive than feeder fodder. Seems to fit the whitetails where I live.

Well, this pic isn't going to win any awards, but it does show the rifle, the hog and the hunter. I tried to edit (crop) it, and it looked better but somehow that version got lose in interspace.

Great story and nice picture !!!
I really enjoy it, good shooting

L