Interesting Night Hog Trapping With Unplanned Buck Scouting

bigbendmarine

5 year old buck +
Have shared a few hog camera captures in the past but before this year sightings they were somewhat random, though rooting in my fields spoke to numbers increasing each of the past three years.

This summer the random sightings turned into regular sightings after a hampshire (striped sow) gave birth to 8 piglets in one sounder, and then a second sounder showed up as the sow piglets in the first reached sexual maturity and went into heat.

Sounder 1.jpg
Sounder 2.jpg

Feeling a bit panicked about making a dent in the population I setup a corral trap a few weeks ago, but instead of using a rooting stick to trigger the trap I decided to run a line relatively close to my house so that I could manually drop the guillotine door when the majority of a sounder went in. Jerry rig for sure, but I tested it multiple times and it never failed so I decided to give it a try.

Corral Pen.jpg

View of line running from the pen to my boat where I anchored the line.

View To Boat.jpg
 
This picture shows the line release system I went with... tied a ring to my boat's t-top and a hook to the end of the line at the boat so when I wanted to drop the door all I had to do was pull the hook free and let 'er fly.

Hook Release.jpg

In order to get the primary sounder that most often visited acclimated I first put up the pen without a door and left it that way a few days with bait, then put the door in but kept the guillotine up for another few days, and just as I had the first sounder all entering the boars from the second starting mating with the females from the first sounder and that made for the pigs moving all around and only 2 or 3 feeding at a time.

Decided I'd pull the trigger the very first time I got a count of 5 in at one time... and that's exactly what I got Friday night.

Bonus is I got to watch 2 nice bucks come in before I pulled the trigger. Young but nice 9 point accompanied by a bigger bodied 8 point that I think I may put on the shooter list as it's not shabby for a FL buck. Also got to see how they reacted to a black coyote entering the area. They moved but didn't exactly seem panicked about it. Versus writing more about it, here's a video that shares the buck sightings first followed by the actual pig capture moment.


Five down with at least 15 or so more to go!

Evening's Haul.jpg
 
Anybody has opinions on the age of the 2 bucks be interested to hear them. My guess is the 9 point is at most 3. Guessing the bigger bodied 8 point might be 4 or even 5 as think I might have him on camera last year and he was a really ripped big buck then as well (if same buck). Harder for me to feel as confident on age of the 8 point as he never quite gave the views from multiple angles like the 9 point did when he first walked out and approached the other deer.
 
Seeing as I'm about as far north of you as possible (and still in the US) I don't feel qualified to comment on the age of your bucks. But I'm impressed, they are great bucks and in FL none the less.

The hog trapping is pretty cool. Looks like you could have had 6 if you pulled the line a little sooner :emoji_anguished:

I'm sure they are a total PITA - but there is a small part of me that is jealous you guys have them and we don't. (I know, that is a dumb thing to say).

They sure tried their best to get out! It will be interesting to see how soon others visit the "pen of death".

Can you say pulled pork?

-John
 
The hog trapping is pretty cool. Looks like you could have had 6 if you pulled the line a little sooner :emoji_anguished:

I'm sure they are a total PITA - but there is a small part of me that is jealous you guys have them and we don't. (I know, that is a dumb thing to say).

They sure tried their best to get out! It will be interesting to see how soon others visit the "pen of death".

I actually wanted them around to hunt too, until I had them show up and root swimming pool sized spots overnight in each of my fields. Looked like a drunk man with a plow had been busy for days. Two John Deere MX-10' mower repairs later (at least in part due to running into rut areas) has me feeling a bit less loving towards their presence... and all the more determined to harvest as many as I can.

The older hogs who've witnessed trapping are wicked smart / wary. The younger ones not as much. That one that lucked out did so as I moved from the Bushnell night vision monocle/camera to my hook release. That one or one of its siblings actually entered the pen last night but did so alone. Adults almost always act skittish about going in. Got one BIG boar I really want to take out as I can see his tusks shining from 120 yards away. Almost scared what he might do to the pen though. May just fire at him when he's outside the pen. He stayed just inches outside the trapped 5 for over 20 minutes angry about being separated from 4 sows (only one of 5 in pen was boar), staying until I actually drove to the spot to dispatch those captured.
 
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Those look nice roasting size, well done!
 
No clue on Florida ages but they both look like good deer for there.

Can you eat those hogs? I thought I read somewhere guys put out medicated feed for them to worm them before killing and eating them.
 
Can you eat those hogs? I thought I read somewhere guys put out medicated feed for them to worm them before killing and eating them.
Bill, never heard of worming them. General consensus (at least in our neck of the woods) is that mature boars over about 60 pounds only can really be used for smoked sausage due to musky odor they often have. I killed one last year that weighed about 70 pounds and because it didn't smell too musky to me while field dressing it I kept the ribs. They tasted GOOD, but did smell a might bit strong when cooking them - got the wife a bit upset with me for stinking up the house. :emoji_head_bandage:

Having captured and shot these after midnight, just field dressed them, packed them in ice, and then took them to a local meat market first thing in the a.m. All the local meat market / processors take them down our way without any concern.

We do wear gloves when field dressing them and wash-up immediately afterwards to minimize risks of Brucellosis and Leptospirosis. Cases are pretty darn rare and as both are bacterial diseases can be treated if / when diagnosed in a reasonable amount of time. Dogs face slightly bigger risks, especially those used to hunt them and / or allowed to eat uncooked scraps.
 
John-W-WI I believe there is a population of wild hogs in the far southwestern corner of Wisconsin. They cause tremendous amounts of damage to the native landscape. So I would say "watch what you wish for"
Personally, I would NEVER want to see them on my land.
 
John-W-WI I believe there is a population of wild hogs in the far southwestern corner of Wisconsin. They cause tremendous amounts of damage to the native landscape. So I would say "watch what you wish for"
Personally, I would NEVER want to see them on my land.

I agree with you JFK52. I understand they are a menace, just the thought of something else to chase sounds fun.

I guess I'll go south to hunt hogs. Hopefully it's too cold up here for them :emoji_snowflake:

-John
 
John-W-WI, while I increasingly hate their destructive nature I DO agree it's fun having something different around to both 1) chase year round with almost no limitations, and 2) make for great table fare.

Above shared, got another one from the land-locked boat this weekend but this time by long gun versus trap.

With about 15 more hogs still regularly frequenting my place I was hopeful I would quickly trap more but only two piglets were regularly entering after the initial door-drop. I honestly think this had less to do with fear of the trap than an overabundance of fat-filled hickory nuts and a fair crop of acorns drawing their attention away. Reason I suspect this is because the past two weeks every time I opened one of doors at night it sounded like someone snapping bones in half.

In keeping with the USMC "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome." motto, I decided to pair an old Christmas present, a Photon XT scope, with a recently acquired Savage 6.5 Creedmoor AR.

6.5 Creedmoor.jpg

Got the rifle sighted in this past Saturday and that night when I opened my front door I heard the telltale loud crunching sound. Less than 30 yards or so from my corral pen trap a lone boar was chowing down on hickory nuts. Stealthily climbed up in my boat so my shot would angle downward / be no risk to neighbors and also would ensure shot didn't hit my "inside yard" fence between us.

Boar Hog.jpg

Pinned the shoulders and he went down in his tracks. Fair sized boar. Picture shows my 150 pound Great Dane / Mastiff mix checking him out. This one had a bit too much "boar taint" to risk cooking it and angering the Mrs. so after I field dressed and iced it I gave it to a farm hand who works for the neighboring property. Hope to pop a nice sow or two in the coming weeks to help fill the freezer with some good cuts.

20171028_213111.jpg
 
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Nice job on the trapping and shooting. Those things are real nuisance up at my place in MS and would rather not have them at all but I have to admit, it’s a blast sitting at night when the green light on the feeder lights up! They come to the feeder in packs and aren’t bothered by the light whatsoever. We sit with our AR’s and count down our shots so we get the first shot synchronized and then it’s as fast as you can get the other shots fired.


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