Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: Dharma on October 21, 2014, 09:20:40 pm
-
Hey you guys in wild pig country! Your services are needed!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-wild-pigs-ravaging-the-u-s-be-stopped/
-
They should have open season on pigs for primitive archers on all government land. No stands, no camo. Just walking into the woods with bow and arrows. All spot and stalk hunting. You kill it, you carry it out. Pigs are everywhere down here but I don't have the connections with private land. I wish there was some kind of course that one could take to get this allowed. This is my dream :)
-
I don't know what other states games regs are, but they should just do what they do here with jackrabbits. Big bag limits. But, instead, make it an unlimited bag and even organize some Hunters For The Hungry derbies. This is food. Ought to be a way they could open this up for more hunting and help some needy folks out in the process instead of wasting all that meat.
-
I watched a video a few weeks ago of guys in Texas hunting hogs from choppers with assault rifles and shotguns. It was a massacre and sorta fun to watch. They filled a walk in cooler with meat that was going to a food bank. Seems like they were donating 3000# or more of meat.
NC just changed its laws so you can hunt hogs now during any hunting season with an appropriate weapon for that hunt. I think bows fit in any hunt season.
-
I saw an article where Georgia is introducing a program that pairs farmers and hunters up to coordinate hunts on private land. I didn't see any restrictions on weapon types.
-
Man, someone needs to make some prosciutto! Better yet, Serrano ham. Serrano ham made from pigs that eat acorns is top dollar. Dang near worth its weight in gold.
-
In Alabama it open season all year long with any weapon but our private land borders a Wildlife Refuge that only allows small game hunting. No pigs. There are plenty of thickets and Ag fields on the refuge. We put as much pressure as we can but they have a sanctuary with built in food source so we can only do so much. We also border a management area along a river bottom with lots of swamp and thickets that is primitive weapons only (bows and muzzle loaders of any kind) and small game but the seasons are limited. They are here to stay.
-
I agree that wild pigs in many areas should have relaxed permits on hunting seasons and more tags. Here in CA where wild pigs have caused problems ecological and for agriculture, there is no season and no bag limit for wild hogs. I take advantage of that and appreciate it. I love me some wild pig sausage. But the wild hogs mostly stick to private land here (often opposite for deer).
Now a small rant. Skip if you don't wanna hear it.
I have a problem though with how a lot of folks treat these "nuisance animals." Just because their large populations cause ecological and management issues doesn't mean we should treat them, individually, differently than other animals we hunt. Hunting from choppers, using semi autos, poison etc... to me this stuff is nuts, unethical, and idiotic. And to defend that in the name of management is a poor excuse for ecological rape. Sure, have longer season, relaxed bag limits and encourage more hunting. But encourage ethical hunting and a good sense of the ecosystem. The lives of those pigs, are not less deserving of our respectful treatment because their populations are greater (which is largely in response to human management decisions anyway).
Its the same way with hatchery steelhead up here. You catch a wild fish, we handle it with kid gloves, either keep it in the water and release quickly, or humanely kill it ASAP. But if its a hatchery fish some folks think its fine to toss it up on the gravel bar and let it expire, or worse cut out the roe and leave the fish to die slowly. Bad stuff.
Ok done now,
Gabe
-
You need to talk to the Government about being Ethical, also. Down here on Federal land they poisoned them for years. There is some Federal Mngt Areas I hunt that you will not see a hog. Also,some of our Management Areas have special seasons for Dog Hunting only.
And I'll be the first to admit that if I shoot a big, Boar hog and nobody else wants it, It's not going home with me. You couldn't pay me to eat one, but I'll keep sows all day. And some of the Sod Farms and Ranches I get a chance to hunt on, you better not let the landowner know that you let a pig walk without shooting it whether you want it to eat or not. I've watched the Ranch hands ride around over thousands of acres shooting packs of hogs to where it sounded like a small war going on. And they left them all.
-
I'm not trying to judge anybody Eddie, guess it just gets in my craw sometimes. Actually I shot a big old boar three years ago, must have weighed 250 (maybe that's not big, but it was for me). Anyway, he made great sausage, and great carnitas... But I dropped him with a 3030 before he new what happened, and I was careful to cut out the glands etc... That said, I've tasted some less than appetizing ones as well :)
Gabe
-
Yea, Gabe, I didn't take it like you were judging people. I've asked about donating the pigs killed on those slaughters and the ranchers told me they don't have the time to clean them or storage space and most of the soup kitchens or charities didn't want to skin them either. Guess they aren't that hungry.
I've tried sausage, soaking in water and vinegar, you name it, but my wife and kids can always tell it's boar meat.
-
I wonder if the zoo would even take it?
-
I think there is a difference in hatchery fish and hogs. This year hogs cost my dad several thousand dollars in damages to his corn crop. I try my best to find someone to keep all the hogs I shoot but not having someone to take one won't stop me from killing it. We kill everyone we can. This year we spent every available afternoon walking the corn fields and ran dogs when we could to try and put enough pressure to keep the hogs away. As a hunter I see what you mean by ethical treatment and management but when it comes to providing for your family the rules are different. If your house gets a mouse you put out a trap. We used to get the BB gun sometimes to make it a sport. When your house becomes infested the rules change and you put out poison, fumigate, buy 100 cats....etc. We differ in opinion and I'm ok with that but that is how it is looked at here.
-
Up here in Michigan, pigs are a shoot on site kinda critter. Open anytime, anywhere as far as I understand. As long as you have any valid hunting license. I just can't seem to find them, I wouldn't mind shooting one, two, or maybe a bunch of them. ;)
Tattoo Dave
-
I'd like to see the shoot on site here too. Unfortunetly, and I can see why, it's against the law to shoot from a vehicle, even if they are in the ditch 15' away. Most of your kills are like that down here or stop and throw a dog out on it and hope you get it to the truck without the Sheriff, Game Officer, or landowner getting there first. If you are caught, it's a Felony. That's why I get more with my Jeep ;D.
-
I guess when it comes to hogs, killing or destroying them depends
on where you are at, how long the hogs have been there, how big there populations are, what damage they are doing and where they will spread to.
It seems like there is a no win situation going on in the south at present.
If something isn't done these creatures will occupy the entire nation.
I have been hunting the Mobile and Tensaw River deltas for a couple years.
I have seen the problems folks face down there. Also in Florida and Georgia.
Like Kudzu, Snakeheads, Hydrilla, Russian Olive, Pythons, Australian Pine,
stink bugs, killer bees and many other invasive species, action was slow to
none at all and the problems usually get worse. Thank God the pig is palatable.
Those boars would make good dog and buzzard food. The exception IMO about eat what you kill. I don't eat my mice either. Watch out piggies!
Zuma
-
The Florida game commission, leaves a lot of room for improvement. They aren't exactly first on the list of good wildlife managers, and protecting habitat. They have done some stupid things, like putting defoliant , on thick vegetation, in an area down here, called "Brown's Farm". I walked through that area, not long after they had applied the defoliant and later on that day, I had one wicked headache, and just felt lousy, and I didn't feel up to par, for a week or more. I talked to a guy a year or more later, and told him about it, and he said his friend had walked through it also, and was still having problems. I asked a wildlife officer, why didn't they just burn it, and he said everyone always has a better way to do things. He said that they tried to burn it, but it didn't burn well. I said, why not try it in the summer, when the vegetation is drier, and mostly dead, instead of when everything is green, and living, and wet! He just repeated, the everyone has a better idea line. I saw the futility, and just walked away. They definitely need to open pig hunting every where here, or shoot on sight, here. You can hunt them year round, but some areas down here they are considered game animals, but in most of the state they are non game animals. I do love me some wild pig. But like Eddie said, the boars, are just too rank. A Friend of mine used to work for the Div. of Forestry, now called Florida Forest Service, and he had a Friend on one of the ranches, who would catch a wild boar, and cut it, and pen it up and feed it for a month or more, and then butcher it, and it was some mighty fine eating. Think of what they are poisoning the pigs with. Look at ingredients on ham, and bacon products. Sodium Nitrate, and Sodium Nitrite, Sodium Erythrobate, etc. :o :P None of it is a good idea to eat. I buy uncured bacon only. Anyway, the panty wringers, will decry any mass slaughter of the wild pigs, and government will continue to spend mass amounts of money on bad ideas, and limit access to hunters who would gladly pay a small fee to kill all the hogs they can. But alas, it has always been thus. :(
Wayne
-
Its a question of numbers folks....1 sow 3 litters a year...5 to 10 piggies a litter...come to texas and look at the devastation just 20 hogs can do to a property that isnt even farmland...in texas we got a saying...KAP stands for kill all pigs....all the hunting for em here...aint puttin a dent in em.
-
out here in calif you used to be able to buy a book of tags, can't remember how many tags , for next to nothing, then the powers that be figured out hog hunting was getting to be a big deal, so now it's over $20 a tag, I guess when there's money for the state to make it don't matter if they tear up property
-
Buddy of mine is a chopper pilot, and that's his business, guiding hunts from air in his helicopter. It's mass slaughter in many case, but the pigs just keep showing up in ever greater numbers.
-
BOO YA
Catch a piggy by the toe.
How long has that sayin been around.
Choppers makin Bacon.
Better than killin folks.
Zuma
-
Buddy of mine is a chopper pilot, and that's his business, guiding hunts from air in his helicopter. It's mass slaughter in many case, but the pigs just keep showing up in ever greater numbers.
not legal out west here, one of the game laws I actually agree with
-
I'd like to do it as the pilot with the gun button in my hand. Have a ground crew picking them up. ;D
-
Just mount a 50cal in the jeep like on the rat patrol
-
If yall decide to go hunting these varmints keep in mind that occasionally youll run across one in excess of 200#....so be careful and carry a big enough sidearm...they are omnivorous ..means they eat everything...including you!! A small can do massive amounts of damage to you...be careful cause i know we dont all have helicopters....lol
-
I think I've had more exciting, up close moments with the ones in the 125-150# range with sharp cutters that haven't been worn down yet. Crawling on your belly in thick palmettos blood trailing one can go bad real quick. I just had one of my closets encounters at our last hunt at the Alexacarri Plantation. I thought I had knocked one down real good with a .300 WM, but only broke the front shoulders. When I got there and started to role it over it stood up on it's hind legs and almost bit me in the face and chest. Quick reflexes and almost crapping my pants is the only thing that saved my butt from some nasty ER time.
-
Dang, Eddie, carry a stick next time. Give it a few good pokes. ;) Oh, boy, that could have been more than a nasty trip to the E.R.!!!! :o That could have been a closed casket type nasty encounter! :o Glad you still have your "Ninja" reflexes! ;) Yepher, even the medium ones can be real nasty, let alone the Snuffy Smith, 250 lb. body builder types! I know from experience, they can take an awful lot of body damage, and keep on coming, or going! And some of the hogs in and around Perry, Florida, are huge! After my encounter with a sow, about 110 lb.s or so, which after having been shot through the heart, liver, and part of the lungs, with a 158 grain, semi jacketed hollow point, .357 magnum round, she took off like I had shot in the air! I fired another two shots, at her as she was running, and one round hit her in the right front leg, shed the jacket, and penetrated, and almost passed through the left front leg, and it wasn't till she ran towards my Buddy, that he put her down with a couple loads of 000, that she died. I now carry a .44 magnum! I once had a .454 Casull, but sold it. A day later, a young guy in a short bed Ford, pulled up to camp to see if we wanted to buy a hog. Must have thought we were tourist, I guess. It was a HUGE :o nasty Boar hog, that would have made a nice wall mount. It looked like a body builder. It sloped down from the huge shoulders, to a very slim waist, and very large and very muscular hams. The front shoulders looked like the normal hams in the store, except you could see each individual muscle. It was the "Arnie" of the pig world. It looked like the pig in the Snuffy Smith cartoons in the Sunday paper. We told him thanks, but no thanks! The day I shot the sow, some Friends of the group I was hunting with, had an encounter with a BIG hog, and the dogs cornered it on a small hammock in the swamp, and he said you could hear his jaws snaping, like someone was smacking two boards together! He said the dogs came back to him, and left the hog alone. He said he left with the dogs. I said, why didn't you go shoot it, you've got the 12 gauge 3"inch magnum with triple ought? He said if the dogs leave he leaves! After seeing what a 110lb. sow can take, I can understand his leaving, if the dogs leave. I know people down here who hunt at night with a light, and dogs, and a sharp knife, No thanks, just might run into Snuffy's nemesis. :o ;) I think Eddies got the right idea, with a jeep with a brush guard! ;)
Wayne
-
I watched a show on TV last night about another "Hogzilla" in Eastern NC. This thing was killing and eating deer, calves and reeking havoc on the farmland. The hunter in the story hunted this "HOG" for over 2 years with lots of scouting, plotting on online mapping and feet on the ground. He hunter(rifle) only at night an had baited(legal) with corn in areas where he had trail cam sightings. He started with a green light for night shooting but the hog detected it. He then went to red lights, again detected. Finally he went out with an assault rifle, .308 with night vision and took the hog in one shot.
The only scales they had maxed at 500# and he maxed them out. Estimated to have been 600#. All of the meat was prepped for consumption and eaten.