TX Hog Hunt

I called about a few hunts in Florida for population control. They still wanted like 500$ a night and if you are lucky you can get one or two to keep at the end of the night. But mostly just chop some meat off and go. I was like it’s not like I am coming there and it’s a guided hunt to get a big pig. It’s just kill ‘em all
 
falconew said:
I called about a few hunts in Florida for population control. They still wanted like 500$ a night and if you are lucky you can get one or two to keep at the end of the night. But mostly just chop some meat off and go. I was like it’s not like I am coming there and it’s a guided hunt to get a big pig. It’s just kill ‘em all
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$500 for ground hunting? Eff that noise
 
These pilots are awesome guys. I pointed a mountain out and asked if that’s the one we were near yesterday. He says “yup, I’ll fly over it on the way back doing about 120 as long as y’all won’t be pussies about it”.
 
Derek8404 said:
These pilots are awesome guys. I pointed a mountain out and asked if that’s the one we were near yesterday. He says “yup, I’ll fly over it on the way back doing about 120 as long as y’all won’t be pussies about it”.
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My old boss is in the army reserve and a few of his guys were helicopter pilots. When they got out the went to Texas and started doing the flying. The wanted him to come out but at the time he was busy running the plant. He’s gone now starting up his own business.
 
falconew said:
My old boss is in the army reserve and a few of his guys were helicopter pilots. When they got out the went to Texas and started doing the flying. The wanted him to come out but at the time he was busy running the plant. He’s gone now starting up his own business.
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There’s big money in that line of work.
 
Derek8404 said:
Thank you sir. Anytime I start to even remotely feel bad about these kills, I think about that story yiu are mentioning where the lady in Houston was eaten alive by these things. Anyone who is against this type of population control has zero understanding about how it works. You are absolutely not going to control the pop with still hunting or “spear hunting”

The ranch were at, the owner won the “Texas Land Owner Stewar award couple years ago. This man knows a thing or two about land management. He’s the inventor of specific type of deer feed that had done wonders for the population and Texas A&M biologist call him for advise.


But who knows, we could all be wrong and “shameful hunters” and have know idea what we’re doing. If only we could get @TriggerMan opinion on it. I’m sure the ranch would benefit………
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I feel bad about these kills and hunts like this. Not really for the killing part, just the wasting the meat part. If there was a fairly efficient way to get to them it would feed alot of people. I've eaten a bunch of it and it is good stuff. You nailed 300 hogs, thats alot of bacon. I'd like to try it once, see how good you are at running targets, out of a chopper.
 
phideux said:
I feel bad about these kills and hunts like this. Not really for the killing part, just the wasting the meat part. If there was a fairly efficient way to get to them it would feed alot of people. I've eaten a bunch of it and it is good stuff. You nailed 300 hogs, thats alot of bacon. I'd like to try it once, see how good you are at running targets, out of a chopper.
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Well, this type of thing might not be for you then, because you’re not going to be able to recover them. A pilot is not gonna land and let you put a bloody hog inside the helo. There isn’t any room inside for one even if they would let you. The amount of ground you have to cover to do this would make picking them up impossible too. We’re flying on over 100K acres.
 
phideux said:
I feel bad about these kills and hunts like this. Not really for the killing part, just the wasting the meat part. If there was a fairly efficient way to get to them it would feed alot of people. I've eaten a bunch of it and it is good stuff. You nailed 300 hogs, thats alot of bacon. I'd like to try it once, see how good you are at running targets, out of a chopper.
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There are some outfits that do attempt to collect some of the meat for distribution, mainly to soup kitchen type places. It tends to happen in smaller areas of operation. Derek is roaming on 100k acres, that's an area of 156 square miles. That much land and not knowing where the hogs are going to be would make economical collection tough. But I do see your point.
 
First time I’ve ever seen this happen. One of the guys in our group is using a rental gun from the helo company. He came back and said the gun was jamming so I broke it down to take a look and the bolt lug had broke off and was wedged up tight under the gas key.

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Just when you think that you’ve seen everything that can happen with a rifle, something new pops up.
 
Not to hijack...
The hogs were recovered and processed by Hogs for Cause in this trip in a different part of TX. Pigman with Ted Nugent.



 
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I used to feel bad about people doing this sort of thing. Then I saw the absolute devastation these feral hogs cause first hand in Texas.

It is had to comprehend just how devastating they are unless you see it. And they breed like rabbits.

The only way to have any chance at controlling them is through eradication programs.

The sad part is if you leave one female and one male alive you’ll have the same problem in a year or two. Absolutely nuts.

Really enjoyed the thread and the videos man. Thanks for posting.

I’m jealous.

How do you shoot the babies? Easy. You just don’t lead them as much. Lol.
 
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BBD280 said:
View attachment 441288

Some things just need killing.
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They're dramatically increasing in numbers in our area while destroying expensive fencing and property damage like you wouldn't believe. A number of other problems they're creating I won't go into here.
 
Thanks

For the military service

For the vids & insight.

Cost / benefit to transport a few hundred pounds of hogs for the sake of feeding a few must be quite narrow if not extremely negative. Most likely harvest programs in urban areas would work. Hey, brainstorm - great after school program for kids! Shoot hogs, stock soup kitchen. Learn field dressing skills, meal prep, etc.
 
Brangus said:
They're dramatically increasing in numbers in our area while destroying expensive fencing and property damage like you wouldn't believe. A number of other problems they're creating I won't go into here.
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They're gonna keep moving north until the whole county is covered. There's no stopping them.
 
BBD280 said:
They're gonna keep moving north until the whole county is covered. There's no stopping them.
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Not at all, but at least we’ve folks like @Derek8404, his brother and other folks that’ll go out and put a dent in the population.

Folks need to go look at the maps on the USDA website and see for themselves how fast the herd is spreading.

Farmers feed America…enough farmland/crops get destroyed and guess who don’t eat? America don’t eat.

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Let the herd get further outta control and start pushing their way into the midwest…talk about food shortages.
 
Chdamn said:
I used to feel bad about people doing this sort of thing. Then I saw the absolute devastation these feral hogs cause first hand in Texas.

It is had to comprehend just how devastating they are unless you see it. And they breed like rabbits.

The only way to have any chance at controlling them is through eradication programs.

The sad part is if you leave one female and one male alive you’ll have the same problem in a year or two. Absolutely nuts.

Really enjoyed the thread and the videos man. Thanks for posting.

I’m jealous.

How do you shoot the babies? Easy. You just don’t lead them as much. Lol.
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Absolutely man, you really can’t comprehend what it takes and what goes into an operation to control these things until you see it first hand; it is unreal.

Hahaha, we smoked a shit ton of babies. The pilot was telling us that he normally doesn’t put people on the babies because they’re so hard to hit and people just waste their rounds, but he put us on every time as not a single piglet survived. A .30 cal does some serious damage to a tiny pig.
 
The problem use to be land owners wanted to charge people to hunt feral pigs … they thought the money at the time was more important than trying to curb the pig bomb. Now the problem has reached the point where hunting with a firearm or bow is not really able to fight the explosion in the population. Now it has escalated to where pen trapping is needed … multiple pen traps in many cases … to start fighting back and have any real chance at retaking the land. Then you do need the hunters to go in a get the older smarter ferals who have learned about traps and not falling into them.

The strange thing is the lack of vehicular damage from ferals running across roads and highways. With the estimated feral population compared to the deer population ferals should be a major traffic collision risk but it seems the ferals are smarter than other animals and actually know to keep of the roads and highways.
 
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I should have a ton more footage over the next few days as we download our cameras and get it together. This is a flight back to the ranch after we were done and the pilot gave us a entertaining ride

 
Sounds like y’all had awesome pilots.
 
Geezer said:
Great videos, @Derek8404 , thanks for sharing them. Lot of folks don't realize that Texas has a lot of terrain like you show. It's not all cities and ranches.
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TX is enormous and has just about every different type of terrain and landscape you could think of.
 
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@Derek8404 Are you guys flying with the same pilot every day?
Or do you switch up among the pilots available.
 
ronn47 said:
@Derek8404 Are you guys flying with the same pilot every day?
Or do you switch up among the pilots available.
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Yeah same guy each round. We were jiving with him real well, and after a few rounds they learn your shooting style/ability and know how to put you on the pigs better.
 
Chriselalto said:
Had a friend in college who was an EMT, he said some of the Life Flight pilots he knew were Vietnam helo vets. He said watching them come in empty was nuts and he mentioned the first time he saw one guy come in, he thought it was an emergency landing.
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Had a friend at church that was an EMT on a helo (whatever their proper term is)…and had a Vietnam vet for a pilot. Almost died one day when they were in the foothills/mountains and flew into some fog. Guy had a serious flashback and the friend wasn’t sure they’d ever make it back safely. 😳
 
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