There have been alot of sightings of ferral pigs this year in a area I hunted years ago. The WA. fish and game Dept. says the pigs have been here a long time but the last few mild winters have helped the population increase alot. The pigs havent been listed as game animals so the game dept. said they can bee hunted year round without a licence. The area that the sightings are comeing from is about 15 square miles between 2 river drainages. The terrain vairies from thick swamps to tall steep ridges with second and third growth fir trees and a few clear cuts. Where should I start looking? What do ferral pigs eat? Do pigs feed all day or do they feed more in the morrnings or evenings?
Thanks Jamie

Jamie,
I know nothing about hunting in your country but pigs are pigs....
I reccomend you to go and do some scouting.
Here when is hot I look for them near the water, in the thick stuff, when it gets cold and rainy I look for high and dry spots.
Good Luck
LG

feral hogs will eat just about anything - they are omnivores just like you and me. that said, in TX they prefer acorns in the fall. they also root for tubers, bulbs, and presumably insects (like grub worms). in TX, they seem to be mostly nocturnal (particularly where hunted hard), so your best bet spotting them out and about will be early in the morning or late in the evening.

troy

Troy,

CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!!

Man...the quality of the trophies is wonderful and the taxidermy is beautiful, really, thanks for sharing them with us.
Very,very, nice.
LG

In my younger days, I did my best "pig Hunting" at the local watering hole about a half hour before closing time.

I'm going pig hunting Saterday for the first
time, I've been checking around and nobody around here knows anything about wild pigs. I'm not suprised becuse this is a new hunting opertunity in western WA. The guy at the game dept. that I talked to today gave me some ideas on locations to look but even WA fish and game dosnt know much about pigs. The game dept. is concerned that the pigs will cause alot of damage to the habitat and
wants them all killed. Are pigs that hard on the enviroment?

Jamie,

Another answer to your question from Texas, but hopefully it will help. During the day, particularly on warm sunny days, the pigs will be in the heaviest cover they can find. They may be resting or feeding, but will generally stay in the cover. The best way to hunt them there is to slowly still hunt the swamps and the areas with thicker tree cover. Go slow and stop often to listen. Pigs are pretty noisy when they feed - a lot of rustling in the ground cover and grunting and vocalizations among the group. I find that they are not particularly wary when caught feeding and if you keep the wind in your favor and are quiet, you can get very close to them. If you hear them, the best thing to do is to sit down and determine exactly where they are and which direction they are traveling. They may come straight to you.

While scouting the area, look for disturbances to the ground cover under trees and around water. Often, the leaves or other material will look like it has been plowed by a drunk farmer, with aimless little furrows going everywhere. Also, look for wallows where they have rolled in the mud. Their tracks look somewhat like those of deer, but with rounded toes. Also look for dew claw impressions behind the footprint. These are most easily seen in soft soil or mud. Larger animals will leave bigger tracks with rounded toes, almost resembling the tracks of a calf.

On cooler, overcast and misty days, you may find them grazing in meadows and other open areas, but generally never far from cover. As tcencore260 said, hogs are omniverous, but generally subsist on nuts, bugs, crops, etc. They will eat carrion with pleasure - in fact, when we shoot hogs, we generally leave them after opening their bellies, and within a day or so the other hogs will have completely carried off all remnants. They'll quickly finish a pile of deer guts.

Pigs are very smart and will adapt their feeding and other patterns to hunting pressure. They also breed like crazy. A Texas A&M biologist has written that a feral sow can be a grandmother within 12 months of her own birth. The joke down here is that they're the only animal around that can drop a litter of 8 and 10 will survive.

I'm not sure of how much damage they really do to raw land, but they are hell on crops and fences. They are very aggressive feeders and I'm sure they have a negative impact on ground nesting birds. As I said, they are very prolific and if they get established in an area, you just about can't get rid of them. On the plus side, they are great to hunt and the little ones are good to eat. We shoot every one we see and often have organized hunts with friends to shoot them off feeders to thin their numbers. My favorite method of hunting them is with dogs at night in the summertime. When the dogs bay them up, we approach them on foot and kill them with knives.

Good luck on your hunt!