The Hog Blog

Before I take off for another long weekend of hunting (turkeys and hogs this weekend), I wanted to clean up a few loose ends.   

First of all as promised, here’s a link to the full write-up about my recent Texas hunt. 

Also, the unleaded ammo debate is still going, but it looks like the environmental groups and biologists are starting to rack up some serious evidence to support the lead ban.  Here’s a current article from the San Jose Mercury News. 

I’ve said before and will repeat it, this ban is coming and it’s not a really bad thing.  We know lead is toxic, and we have alternatives (albeit expensive ones).  It’s time for hunters to stop railing against this thing and start pushing the ammo companies to find better, more affordable, lead alternatives.  As more science comes to light on this issue, it’s becoming increasingly clear that if we (hunters) consider ourselves conservationists, then we need to not only accept, but embrace the removal of a deadly toxin from the environment. 

I’ll have more to come on the lead ban as it develops.  CA and VT are running neck and neck, it seems, to get rid of lead ammunition.  We’ll see who comes in first and who loses.

Just saw where the April edition of Field and Stream is carrying an article about hunting hogs in the off-season.  According to the article, most hunters in the lower 48 now live within a day’s drive (often much less) of good, wild hog hunting.  As we’ve seen in some of the articles I’ve posted previously, hogs in the U.S. are showing up in places as diverse as Michigan, Oregon, and Colorado. 

Texas has probably got the largest population of wild/feral hogs in the country.  Depending on what source you refer to, the Lone Star State has between 1.5 million and 4 million (!) wild hogs running loose across the country-side.  Those hogs are starting to make their presence known in the bigger population centers now.  My friend Chris Fullilove, in Houston has seen them right up in his own neighborhood.  According to this article in the Jasper, TX news, Chris isn’t alone. 

Here in CA, wild hogs are making themselves a nuisance in San Jose neighborhoods as well.  Haven’t seen them in the news lately, but my friends who live in the area say they still come in nightly to root through the landscaping and flip over the trash bins.

In Kansas, professional hunters and sharpshooters from the USDA have killed over 25o hogs in a four week period, according to this article in the Witchita Eagle and posted on the Kansas.Com website .  At the same time, the sharpshooters haven’t fared as well in Missouri, where the eradication efforts have apparently focused on public land.  This short piece on the Brownfield Network tells us that the exterminators were unable to kill a single hog over the past week or so. 

There is trouble in paradise too, apparently, as Hawaiian officials are struggling to control the spread of these beasts in the islands.  This article from the Honolulu Advertister tells us that there is a call for more than ten times the current number of traps, and increased hunting to eradicate feral swine from the area.   If all goes well, I’ll be heading over there this fall or early winter to do my part to cut down the hog population on the island of Hawaii.  My friend,”Doc” Cherry has put a hurting on the population, but he can’t do it alone. 

The news keeps pouring in, and while it’s a mixed blessing, I’m doing my best to get out and help control at least a small part of the hog population.  I’ll be gone all this weekend to see if I can stick a few arrows in some of the local animals, and maybe trim the turkey population by one or two as well. 

I went down to Texas to shoot a fat hog

Shot Axis and Blackbuck, but hogs there were none

But it was a great weekend and we all had fun!

Sorry for the doggerel, but I couldn’t help myself. 

 I don’t know many  people who could go down to Texas to hog hunt and come home without a pig, but there ya go!  I sure managed to do it.  I never even saw a live hog, despite seeing good sign and some prime habitat.  Saw turkeys, whitetail deer, and tons of exotics like axis deer, oryx, and blackbuck.  Just no hogs.  I guess they were forewarned that I was coming.

It was one heck of a great weekend of hunting, and a totally new experience for me as well, having never hunted exotics.  Texas-style hunting is a whole different ball game from what I’m used to in CA, but it sure is beautiful country and some great people too!

I did manage to take my two target exotics, an axis doe and a nice blackbuck antelope.  I failed to get any pictures of the doe, but here’s a shot of the blackbuck.

A full article will be upcoming on the Jesse’s Hunting and Outdoors (JHO) Journal soon.  I’ll add a link as soon as the article goes live.

Thanks to all who offered good luck wishes! 

Well, it’s finally time! In a couple of hours, I’ll be heading to the airport and flying down to Houston, TX where I’ll meet up with my little brother and my friend and JHO ProStaffer, Chris Fullilove. We’ll head from Houston out to Uvalde, where we will spend the next three days hunting exotics (Axis, Blackbuck, and Sika deer) as well as hogs! All the hogs we can shoot! We’ll be hunting with Shane Hearn’s Borderbandit Outfitters.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post up from the lodge down there over the weekend. I’ll have my camera, of course, and Chris is an extremely talented photographer as well.

Stay tuned for reports! If I can’t get them online over the weekend, they’ll start on Monday when I return to CA.

After many years of consideration, I decided to become a licensed hunting guide in California.  The primary driver was a mule deer hunt opportunity my friend and I have on some private land up in Northeastern CA.  We have a habitat restoration project and non-profit corporation (Coon Camp Springs) and as part of the project we’ve been able to acquire Private Land Management (PLM) tags to hunt mule deer and antelope.  Since this is a lottery-only area for most hunters, these tags are fairly high demand. 

Last year we decided to sell these tags, in order to raise money for the project.  For the price of the tags, the hunters would have access to the property (7000 acres) for the entire two-week season if necessary.  There would be no facilities, and no guide.  They sold fairly quickly, and the three hunters tagged out by the second day of the season. 

This year, we thought we might be able to raise a bit more if we sell the tags as fully guided and outfitted hunts.  We’ve been working on the camp area, and have built some “cabins”, an outhouse, and even a hot shower!  However, none of us on the Coon Camp Springs board of directors was a licensed guide. 

Not the case any longer!

I’ve included hogs on my list of guided game species, but until I get access to some good property, that’ll probably continue to be just a dream.  But, the thought of hunting for a living… oh man! 

I believe that every law enforcement officer is a hero.  It’s a tough and under-appreciated job, dealing daily with the lowest elements of our society so that you and I don’t have to.  Every morning, these men and women pin a target on their uniforms and go out to face another day that could be their last. 

Friday was that day for Texas Game Warden, Justin Hurst. 

Capital murder charges have been filed against a Wharton County man in connection with the murder of Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden outside of East Bernard. Game Warden Justin Hurst, 34, of El Campo was killed early Saturday morning after a pursuit involving the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), Wharton County Sheriff Deputies and Department of Public Safety troopers. A warrant was expected to be served to James Freeman, 26, reportedly of Lissie.  

Read the entire article and related stories here.

I offer a salute to Warden Hurst, to his survivors, and to all the men and women out there who put their lives on the line each day to uphold the law and keep our society whole.

As is my usual habit, I was scanning the Internet tonight for news involving wild pigs (feral pigs, wild boar, wild hogs, etc.).  There was more from Missouri, a bit about Colorado (wild hogs in elk country?!?), and then this great piece from an Arkansas online news source.  I have a feeling I’ll be logging in regularly to read this guy!  He’s a hoot!

I’ve also been following this really cool bit of genetic tracking in the Pacific islands.  By using the feral/wild hogs on the islands, researchers are starting to find that the early settlers in many of these Pacific Islands may have come from Vietnam instead of China. 

Well, two days and a wake-up before I head down for my first Texas hog and exotics hunt!  It’s making it hard to focus on all the other stuff I should be doing.  In fact, I’d say it’s cut into my productivity to an extreme. 

Anyway, one casualty of my Texas daydreaming is my writing.  But it’s not all a loss.  On my recent trip to the foothills, I had a chance to take a gander at some hunting land.  It’s not too far from my friend, Bryce, but I don’t know if the hogs have shown up there yet.  We’ll have to see.

I’ve been thinking a lot about picking up at least a quarter-section of land (160 acres) for a hunting retreat.  It won’t be as cool as Rex’s place in Mississippi, I’m sure, but I look forward to it just the same. 

More to come, I’m sure.  In the meantime, here’s a look at what I was looking at.

Just saw where Tom at the Black Bear Blog posted up about the Missouri hog problems.  Apparently the state was hoping that hunters would be able to control the spread of wild hogs, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

I’ve been following this and similar stories around the country, and I’m amazed at some of the innovative ideas that wildlife managers have been putting forth.  None has been quite as surprising as the idea of putting electronic tracking beacons on trapped hogs, and then letting them lead hunters to the rest of the herd.  Intriguing, but I don’t know that many sport hunters are going to be interested in that approach.

That’s where the whole idea of using sport hunters to manage the explosive spread of wild hogs falls short.  We (hunters) are not the right tool for this job.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that every state should do as much as it can to provide hunters the opportunity to help with the eradication, or at least the control of these animals.  Hunters have a role and responsibility as stewards of the environment.  Where it’s realistic, letting sport hunters kill a percentage of the population is much more economical than paying professionals to do the same job. 

However, there are a lot of limitations that come with the whole idea of sportsmanship and hunter ethics that are contrary to the goals of an eradication program.  While it may not seem like such a big deal, it’s no mean feat to separate a lifelong hunter from deeply held ethical standards.  I still remember when the state of North Carolina began allowing, and then encouraging the take of does.  After nearly 50 years of shooting bucks only, it was a tough transition for a lot of hunters to make.  I remember how deeply it was drilled into me by both my father and my grandfather to, “make damned sure he’s got horns before you shoot!”

Eradication and population reduction hunting are an even bigger stretch on traditional hunting values.  In order to make a solid impact on the populations, hunters will have to do things we’d not ordinarily choose.  For example, the take of “wet” sows has always been discouraged among sport hunters because killing the sow usually means the death of the piglets as well.  Likewise, to reduce populations hunters need to shoot more small pigs, especially the gilts (young sows that have not yet bred).  Most hunters would be ashamed to show up back at camp with a 30 or 40 lb pig over their backs.  In many cases, eradication also means that hunters will have to shoot more animals than they care to eat. 

Wild hogs are extraordinary animals.  Their fecundity is second only to some rodents.  A mature sow can have up to three litters per year, and they reach sexual maturity at around eight months of age.  This means that you can see two generations breeding in the space of a year.  When a litter of pigs can range from six to 12 babies, this adds up pretty fast.  Hunters can’t keep up, especially when, for most of them, hogs are incidental during other hunting seasons. 

I love any and all opportunities to hunt hogs, but the fact is that sport hunting is not the solution for the explosion of wild hogs across this country.  That’s a job for the professionals. 

As I may have mentioned, I had the opportunity to head up into the Sierra foothills this week and meet a new friend.  Bryce Mann is a dog trainer and hunting guide, and we’d been introduced through the web on Jesse’s Hunting and Outdoors.  Bryce was interested in doing some writing for us at JHO, and I was interested in reports that his neck of the woods was recently being overrun by hogs.  A win-win situation, right?

I cruised up on a most beautiful spring day, and pulled into town in the late afternoon.  It was already a bit late to do much in the way of hog hunting, but we had time to get acquainted and talk a bit about all the things Bryce is involved with.  He’s a very busy man.  In addition to training and hunting, he competes with his gun dogs on several levels, and is in preparation now for a trip to the nationals in Colorado next week.

He also gives an awful lot back to the world of hunting, both through his work with Ducks Unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and with a group that supports handicapped hunters, the Wheelin’ Sportsmen. 

Over the course of our day and half visit, I got to go out and work with Bryce and his dogs a little.  He needed to work with some live birds, and I just happened to have a double-barrel muzzleloading shotgun that hasn’t been fired in a while.  Over some planted birds, I got to see just how impressive his German Short-haired Pointers (GSP) could be.

Unfortunately, shotgunning requires practice.  Blackpowder shotgunning requires a LOT of practice.  Since I haven’t dragged that old gun out of the safe in a few years, I had forgotten just how much follow-through it takes to wingshoot with a smokepole. 

It was great fun for the dogs, though, and I had a ball!  Next time, I think I’ll spend a few hours at the trap range before I show up on a bird hunt with this old gun.