I have 400 acres to hunt on. The owner made it quite clear that I was to bring no one else. Just me period.
In the 4 years I have been there the deer & turkey population as steadily decreased. I have ALWAYS ate what I harvested.

Question:
Do you believe it is alright to shoot a hog & leave it for the buzzards & coyotes.

Choices:
No.
Yes
Depends

 

I won't vote until you tell us whether leaving the hogs for the buzzards and coyotes is a condition of your being granted permission.

George

several of the places i hunt on are overrun with feral hogs, that do way more damage than worth... if i want the meat, i take the hog, if not i move it to the "burrying ground"... a dump area for offal, hides, trash, etc...if somebody i know wants a hog, i'll normally call them, and offer... here lately, i've been the 1 doing the asking...

quote:

Originally posted by GeorgeS:
I won't vote until you tell us whether leaving the hogs for the buzzards and coyotes is a condition of your being granted permission.

George

No that's not a condition.
First off I've only hunted the place about 4x. I rent a building on it and do maintaince there occasionaly.
4 years ago when I started going there there were 2 nice flocks of turkeys of 30-40 birds. Also I would see plenty of deer. This has steadily declined.
I never hunted it because I usally hunt in TN. Being a "meat hunter" and single I filled my freezer hunting up there.
This year food plots were planted in Tn. and rule is 6 point or better.
Timing wasn't right for Tn hunting this year so I decided to hunt Fl. (I always looked @ the place in Fl as "moneyin the bank")
Well after 1 week of hunting the 400 acres in Fl (only about a 1/4 of it) .I have only seen doe's (6)& no turkeys.
However every evening @ dusk on the way out I would see 20-40 hogs.
I beleive the hogs need to be "worked on"

I don't want or need the meat. No one I have talked to wants it. The one's that do want the meat want it cut & freezer wrapped.
I am not going thru the trouble of gutting ,skinning,etc to give it away.

Last nite I popped a 150 pounder and started an ofal pile. There are bears around & plenty of coyotes.

Assuming the adjoining properties have lots of hogs, you are not going to hurt the population no matter how many you kill. But it would be fun trying.

The State of Tennessee hires "professional" hunters to kill feral hogs in the mountain areas due to their destruction of woodlands and being feral. These hogs are to be left where shot and the bear population has increased, so some good has happened. I have not read where the coyotes have been impacted + or - .

quote:

Originally posted by SIR MAUSER:
Assuming the adjoining properties have lots of hogs, you are not going to hurt the population no matter how many you kill. But it would be fun trying.

I was thinking of doing my own ammo test.
The one last nite was shot broadside with .270.
140 gr Hornady SST . Hog dropped in its tracks.
Range about 125 yrds. Penetrated left shoulder. No exit

If its ok with the landowner, have at it. I just think its a waste to leave that meat. It wouldn't be hard to skin down the spine and take the backstraps. I wish I had access to wild pigs.

I went pig hunting in Texas last year and loved the meat. I brought 100 lbs of Texas pork and Missouri Venison home on the plane with me. The pork is the best pork my wife ever cooked.

I've done it twice-once with a boar that had its lower jaw shot away 5 wks prior by another shooter on our lease, and last summer, with a sow that had a huge, infected, pus-running wound on a ham.

All the rest go to my freezer, or a friend's, or to our custodian at church.

Last time I hunted hogs in Texas I got lots more than I could use, and more than my hunting buddies could use either. We took all the sows out of the woods, and gave them to some local folks, who had them butchered and process in no time, as a team effort. We kept the smaller pigs, from piglets to 120 lbs or so, and shared the meat among five guys. I wasn't the only one successful, so we had plenty of hogs to deal with.

We got two big boars, and my friends just took a good look at them, pictures, and estimated the weight, and such, but apparantly it was pre-concluded that big old bores stayed where they fell. I couldn't load them or butcher them by myself, so I figured it was appropriate to just not give any opinion at all, since I was the visitor and guest. After all, if the locals won't eat them, I think it's best that I don't waste my time and effort either. However, I considered the big one I got a real trophy, but I'm not going to spend the money to have a taxidermsit do something with it.

KB

Ottomatic,
Have you never seen the Clint Eastwood movie with the immortal line" Buzzards gotta eat, same as the worms"?
Evidently according to Clint, a man's gotta know his limitations. When I was a boy, at our farm in east Texas we'd sometimescatch as many as 30 at a time in a pen. My personal best when it comes to shooting is 15 hogs in two evenings outings. That's a lot of skinning for an old guy. I have portions of 6 in the freezer that I've taken since the first week of November, this season.
Most of the ranchers where I've hunted want every hog you see shot. Some, if they find out you saw hogs and didn't shoot, will march you straight to the gate.
When you step on a cockroach, what do you do with it. Much the same here.
Here, hogs are vermin, (although tasty vermin)and they can be taken 24/7/365 by "any legal means.
We trap, snare and shoot 'em. At six months they can reproduce and can have at least two litters of up to 13 piglets per year. Once they reach a hundred lbs or so they have no predators that threaten them except man and autos.
for your viewing pleasure, here are a few pix from my archives.
Best
GWB

Some good hogs there. A lot of variety as well.

Good stuff.

.

A couple of the black ones have some really great cutters. Nice pictures, Thanks.

pretty good porkers........
GWB

To the OP ...

Given a large number, damage being done, and a population that is not declining ... I personally would not feel guilty. I would try to find homes for the meat after filling my own freezer and anyone else who wanted meat, but after that they'd get the charnel house treatment!

Only way to save the deer and turkey population.

quote:

Most of the ranchers where I've hunted want every hog you see shot. Some, if they find out you saw hogs and didn't shoot, will march you straight to the gate.

Exactly.

We have a ditch for them. Always thought about putting a game camera up just to see what goes on with the carcasses. Really depends on where they fall. Some areas might require them to be moved so they aren't a problem for equipment.

LWD

We do it all the time, can't eat or give away all we kill. Dog chased boars can be awfull rangy. Never tried to eat a boar until lately. They seem to be good if taken cleanly w/o what goes on a dog hunt.

The rule around here is kill them by whatever means necessary and use what you can.

Some places there are programs where you can drop off game animals at registered buchter shops and donate it to homeless shelters and soup kitchens, the shelters or govt pay the cutting and wrapping fees and you can have the peace of mind knowing the animal wasent wasted, this would be ideal but I dont know if this programme is in place in the US or not. They usually require the animal to be field dreesed but not skinned and brought to the butcher shop within a certain time period. That being said if they were on my property and I couldent get rid of or eat the meat myself I would probably still down them. More humane than snaring or poisening imo.

I wish I had your oppertunity, you are one lucky hunter. Happy hunting.

I would shoot the pigs as well but maybe bury them rather than leaving them for the hawks. The fact of leaving the meat out is a easy meal for the buzzards and will attract more buzzards and coyotes which could be the reason that the turkeys are missing as well as your deer. The hogs will also feed on the dead bodies which in turn can attract more hogs to the area rsulting in the population being more dense due to the fact that food is easily gathered.

quote:

Originally posted by wwjmbd:
Some places there are programs where you can drop off game animals at registered buchter shops and donate it to homeless shelters and soup kitchens, the shelters or govt pay the cutting and wrapping fees and you can have the peace of mind knowing the animal wasent wasted, this would be ideal but I dont know if this programme is in place in the US or not. They usually require the animal to be field dreesed but not skinned and brought to the butcher shop within a certain time period. That being said if they were on my property and I couldent get rid of or eat the meat myself I would probably still down them. More humane than snaring or poisening imo.

I wish I had your oppertunity, you are one lucky hunter. Happy hunting.

This is what I was thinking of too.

Yes this is also done in the U.S. it just depends on if there is one nearby.

dead or scared,,, a hunter that dosent try to kill a pig is a hunter looking for another lease,,,, just a south texas landowners rule khh

thanks for replies. It was bothering me that the meat went to waste. However after talking to a few people in the area: one place 1/2 mile away 108 hogs were trapped live this year, 167 last year. General consenses is shoot wether you eat them or not. They really are destroying the game and habitat. One land owner said up until a few years ago there were plenty of quail. They have been descimated, (I've only seen 2 (quail not coveys) this year.
As far as wastimg the meat , if ther was an agenvy that would take them I would be happy to go that route but there's not.
So it looks like I'll have to do my part and shoot as many as I can although I do find it somewhat distasteful.
The hogs are over-running this country and need to be stopped.
The ass kicker of this is that there are actually people that are trapping them and moving them into new areas. So they can hunt them with their dogs.

BTW While bear hunting this year I declined shooting a 300lb black bear sow who was treed with her 100lb cub. (they were both legal bears) It was my choice as to shoot or let her go as I was "designated shooter" I took a picture and said "bang"
We pulled the dogs off and let them go to give another chase.

Funny to watch these threads!
People that live in an area with a Hog problem just want to get rid of them by any means.
People that live in areas without hogs want to treat them like a deer or an elk!

I guess its all about perspective, same thing could be said for wolves or other animals that are a problem in one part of the country and rarely seen in another.

As a landowner and rancher I will not re-new a season lease if the hunter is not shooting pigs on sight. I reward those that take large numbers of pigs with year round access to the land. The pig damage to my fields, crops, fences, waterlines and livestock is thousands of dollars a year.

As the saying goes... coyotes and buzzards got to eat too....

Most of the ranchers where I've hunted want every hog you see shot. Some, if they find out you saw hogs and didn't shoot, will march you straight to the gate.[/quote]

I have the privilege of being able to hunt on a friends family properties, where even close family members aren't allowed to hunt. One of the main rules is see a hog put it down or risk not coming back. Up until this year I have always done my part in earnest. This year however we held off of them on the one place, mainly due to working more over at the other. We hit it this past week however and took over 20 of them in two days of simply walking around, or setting out along side the pasture. We had them from about 10 pounds up to over 270 pounds when I left Thursday evening and had only been there for two days.

quote:

Some places there are programs where you can drop off game animals at registered buchter shops and donate it to homeless shelters and soup kitchens,

Here pork has to be inspected and cannot be donated unless accompanied by the proper paperwork. I spoke to quite a few folks about this several years ago trying to find a viable option to simply leaving them lay. We take as many as we have coolers for and give them to whom ever we can that wants them. Our main problem is having a coolers and ice on hand every time we get one. It is simply not a viable option for us.

I'd bet pretty good money that at least 90% of the people who voted "no" aren't from Texas and 100% of them aren't Texas farmers or ranchers. '

We kill every pig we see on sight and try to keep about one pigs worth of meat in the freezer because there is always going to be another one available when that supply gets low. After that one pig freezer limit, I try to give them away, but if no one wants one (amazing how many people want one but they want them cleaned and cut up and delivered, which we will do occasionally, and always for someone like a widow or elderly who don't have the ability to do it for themselves, but we've got other things to do than clean pigs for other people all the time) then we chunk them, sometimes taking the backstrap, sometimes not.

People should think of them as large rats, competing with deer for food, and out breeding just about anything else of size in the wild.

Kill all you can, eat 'em or leave 'em, all the same to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
I'd bet pretty good money that at least 90% of the people who voted "no" aren't from Texas and 100% of them aren't Texas farmers or ranchers. '

We kill every pig we see on sight and try to keep about one pigs worth of meat in the freezer because there is always going to be another one available when that supply gets low. After that one pig freezer limit, I try to give them away, but if no one wants one (amazing how many people want one but they want them cleaned and cut up and delivered, which we will do occasionally, and always for someone like a widow or elderly who don't have the ability to do it for themselves, but we've got other things to do than clean pigs for other people all the time) then we chunk them, sometimes taking the backstrap, sometimes not.

People should think of them as large rats, competing with deer for food, and out breeding just about anything else of size in the wild.

Kill all you can, eat 'em or leave 'em, all the same to me.

Texans aren't the only ones who feel that way about wild hogs.......

Just like rats, Gato, except they taste much better (don't ask me how I know ).

Come on Whitworth, 'ol buddy,
How do you know, how do you know?

Enquiring minds want to know?

GWB

quote:

Here pork has to be inspected and cannot be donated unless accompanied by the proper paperwork.

I know that is true of game animals, but was unaware of that regarding hogs, since they are not a game animal. Is this in the TX game laws pamphlet that comes out every year?

I do remember up until about ten years ago a lot of places wouldn't process wild pork if they were a commercial meat market because the meat had to be processed separately. But that law was repealed...

I remember an account where a southern soldier stated that rats tasted like squirrel. Course as Grant had Vicksburg locked up at the time he was probabley a bit hungry.

Use them for bait and get some more pigs or coyotes.

Aren't there any rendering plants near all these pigs. You can make some good money if you can fill a 40 yard dumpster. This of how you can impact the world and impress the UN at the same time. How about it:

The New, Green, Politically Correct Ranch will allow this Protected Class of Citizens(shooters, trappers, fishers, gatherers)to practice the centuries old act of gathering carcasses to process for glycerine, glycol, toothpaste, etc...

Of course prices will vary and you gotta hope the market doesn't drop when you have your gun club trying to fill the ten 40yard roll-offs you have for pig clean up weekend. But this is one market where you can't raise/lower the price by 300% after 2:00pm on a Friday, so act accordingly.

You pig state guys are so lucky. NJ doesn't know the words vermin or depredation check. If we want to gather for rendering, roadkill is the only bulk way. But then you have to be quick, cause everyone wants NJ roadkill!

We killed this one yesterday, but it was not left, we were able to give it away. One less pig making machine.

quote:

Originally posted by Minkman:
Aren't there any rendering plants near all these pigs.......

With diesel over $3.00 a gal and myself owning 3 diesels, to bad they can't be turned into diesel fuel. PIG POWER

side note; Years ago with "anemic' cartridges and lackluster firearms we were able to eradicate all the elk east of the Missisippi, shoot the pasengber pigon into oblivion, descimate the black bear and panther,and put a hurting on every other viable game animal.
But with all the semi autos, excellent optics and super short whiz bang magnums we can't get rid of the feral pig.
I guess we are just lazy

Otto,

Guess we are lazy, components are too much, or geographically displaced. When we have the time & money, we're still too far away. Right now I have nothing to do, haven't for two years. However, I'm not of the mind to fly anywhere and driving is too much pain to endure $ and physically.

What was that survival show where they used decomposing pigs for fuel?

In West Virginia some years ago the DNR attempted to "stock" pigs for hunters, but never really developed into a viable huntable population. Also the terrain is so steep and rough in the Southern portion of the State it makes for a difficult hunt.
I read about the number of young that are produced, but with such large growing population what in the world are they eating all the time to support this growth in popoulation?? We don't have large open country, fields, food plots, etc. as those in the Southern states/area and perhaps this is the reason they never took hold here. Is it difficult to get permission to hunt where these hogs are so plentiful and any suggestions as to where to look for such a hunt?? I am off until May of this year and "have gun, will travel."

I got to say, I am jealous of you guys down south! What I would give to be less than an hour from prime hog hunting! I would be using a different rifle every day! I would do more than my part drop every hog I saw, the biggest problem I would have is having to go to work!

doubledown,
it's definitely a tuff job,
but somebody's gotta do it.
some more from the archives............
GWB

BIG smile and shaking my head.