I was able to check my camera the other day down on Pig Road over on the River tract, and boy had the hogs been hitting that feeder like crazy. In 10 days, I had over 1000 pictures. A lot of the hogs were just nice size eaters stopping by the corn dispensing contraption to try and fatten up, but there were some real monsters on there too. Unfortunately, the hogs were having a great time rubbing on the tree that the trailcam was attached to, and they managed to spin the thing around the tree several times. This resulted in some neat shots of the pigs approaching the feeder instead of under it, but it also meant that lots of the images had bushes in the way since I did not clear all around the tree…

I haven’t figured out if the hogs don’t like the camera watching them, so they moved it. Or if they read lowcountryhunting.com and were tired of always seeing themselves portrayed eating, so they adjusted the camera to get a different perspective of themselves   However while I contemplate this important, pressing issue, enjoy some hog pics. And with the great, cool weather we are having right now, you might want to consider hitting the woods to stock up on some pork while the bugs are on vacation.

Jeff

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Cypress Creek Hogs

Hog hunting can be a ton of fun, and it is a great way to accumulate some stand time when deer season is out. However after killing many, many hogs and helping to put a lot of others on them as well, I have found that there are generally 5 BIG reasons that some hunters will not take one home this Spring.

1. Smoking in the stand! It doesn’t help if you smoke anytime and have that smell on your clothes (much less any other smell) when you hit the woods. However it is MUCH worse to actually smoke in the stand. I believe that smoke smell just floats all through the woods and sticks to everything. And when a hog has such a great nose, you can bet that he will pick it up pretty easily and not come in to your stand.

2. Not taking the first GOOD shot. It is nice when a hog comes in to feed and stands (fairly) still for  an easy shot. However sometimes that hog will catch a scent he doesn’t like and run off or a big boar could be just cruising by looking for sows.  So always be ready to shoot, and then take the best shot you have at the very FIRST opportunity.

3. Missing. A hog can be a tough animal to hit when he is scurrying around eating, much less doing the fast trot that they do everywhere they go. So like I said in #2, take your first BEST shot. And that means standing still for most people in most conditions.

4. Hunting sign, and not hogs. Hogs travel a lot to find food, and much of that travel is at night. So just because you see tons of sign like rooting and scat doesn’t meant that spot is the best place to set up to kill one. You need to follow the trails that lead from their feeding areas back to their bedding areas to see exactly how far they are traveling to get there. If it is too far, then you need to get closer to where they actually live to have any chance of catching them out in daylight hours.

5. Hunting pressure. Hogs like to feed in the dark to begin with, so that already makes it hard to catch them out during shooting hours. However if you pressure them too much, they will either leave the area or totally confine their movements to after dark. So make sure and pick good stands that are easy to get to and get out of so that you don’t constantly bump them on your hunts. Also skipping several days between sits helps to keep them from feeling the pressure as well.

I know there are lots of reasons/excuses for not killing a hog, however these are the biggest 5 that I see on a regular basis. I hope that the next time a lowcountryhunting reader hits the woods in search of a hog, that being aware of these will assist them in bringing home the bacon that they were looking for!

Jeff

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Shane with his hogs

About two weeks ago, I wrote a post on how to trap hogs in 10 easy steps. That post came about after a couple of emails from lowcountryhunting readers who were looking to knock down the hog population on their hunting leases after deer season ended.

One of them was Shane from Columbia who has a lease over in Bamberg County. Well, he just sent me an email letting me know that my “steps” had helped him catch several hogs along with some pictures of his success… Just take a look at those fat corn thieves!

And I know a lot of hunters and trappers don’t care about scent control, but I will let Shane’s comment speak for itself, “Thanks again for all of the advice, it really did help us, especially the advice on the scent control. After killing the first round of 3, they avoided the trap a full two weeks before we caught a second sow.”

I also wanted to share with you another hog hunting success story from over on the Savannah River near Jackson, SC. Dr. Havird, a frequent guest at Cypress Creek, was hunting with his friend Clayton Hodges on Monday when they knocked down a 225 pounder with “deuce’s” help. I will let Dr. Havird’s short email straight from the woods via his phone tell the story…

dog trailed and bayed. hog charged dog who decided a good time to leave neighborhood. dog ran back to us wide open with pig coming fast. Clayton made one 60 yd head shot on dead running pig with open sights lever action winchester 32 special.  dog then returned for payback to pig.

Thanks guys for keeping us updated on your successes. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am jacked up and ready to hog hunt!

Jeff

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With deer season now over, many hunters are looking for other excuses to get outdoors in the lowcountry.

Well, if your deer lease/property has hogs, one of the best reasons to get outside is to trap some of them. You will not only be helping to save your deer’s foodplots, but your wallet as well! Just check out the price of pork the next time you are in the grocery. And these two reasons don’t touch the best one – to eat them!

Bo and I with our trapped hog

I recently wrote a couple of lengthy emails in an effort to help some readers try to remove their feral swine, so I thought I would share my helpful hints here for everyone in 10 easy steps.

4. Spray Yourself Down: Before you set your trap, make sure and spray your boots and hands with NO Odor from Atsko. This will keep you from contaminating your set up with human odor or other things like gas, soap, etc. I know lots of trappers don’t worry about it, but I believe that by keeping your spot from being contaminated, you will be able to trap in that spot for longer before the hogs get too spooked to go in.

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Cypress Creek Hogs

It’s time to hog hunt!

Since deer season is over, greatly reducing the pressure on all of the forest’s animals, and winter has killed all of the natural foods in the woods, hunting for hogs during this time of year can be your best bet to take home some bacon! Some hunters choose to hunt them while others choose to trap them, but either way, late winter is often a great time to be in the woods in pursuit of feral swine.

I know we have been working hard over at Cypress Creek to get all of our properties ready for the guests we have booked starting next week, and the trailcam shows that  we have plenty of pigs waiting for them. Just check out the herd that showed up around 8pm the other day at just one of our stands. (sorry the time is off by two hours due to my incompetance

And due to the number of emails that I have received about hunting hogs, we are obviously not the only ones getting ready for them.  One hunter, Shane from Columbia, is looking to trap some of the hogs on his deer lease, and he sent me a great trailcam shot of a nice boar that he says is showing up every night along with about 5 others over on his Bamberg County lease… just check that mean sucker out!

Bamber County Boar

So, after putting together a bunch of info for others on hunting/trapping wild hogs, please make sure and check back because I am going to put all of it into one big post on how to best do both. However for now you can check the “hog trapping” category for quite a bit of hunting and trapping information.

And if any readers have any hog hunting trailcam pictures, kill shots, stories or all three, please email them on over to me… I would love to see them, and I am sure everyone else would to!

Jeff

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Local hunters looking for a cheap wild hog hunt over the holidays might want to consider a GA neighborhood near Savannah.

TheCoastalSource.com is reporting that the feral hogs have moved into a Southside community and are now tearing up all of the lawns. The news is also reporting that the neighborhood association has hired a trapper to try and remove them, but that the homeowners have taken to shooting them with archery equipment to speed up the process of getting rid of them.

So if you are looking to add some wild pork to your freezer over the holidays, you might want to check around this neighborhood to see if you can’t be of some assistance.

Now I just hope that they move in to MY neighborhood

Jeff

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The Hog Killing Machine

I have checked with both of our boys about what they would like for Christmas, and they have decided that they would like to go on a hog hunt.

Specifically, they would like to drive the Hoginator and make a stack of dead hogs like in the picture. I have volunteered to chaperon the trip!

Hog Hunting Texas Style

Anybody else up for some serious hog killing?

Have a great Tuesday! And if you have a minute, please check out The Skinning Shed at www.cypresscreekhunting.com/blog to see some of the nice bucks we have been killing at Cypress Creek Hunting Lodge late in the season.

Jeff

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We were talking about hog hunting the other night at the Lightsey Hunting Club for Ladies cookout when my friend Will told the story about how I once called in a giant boar with my snoring…

Well, it’s true! And interestingly enough, last night while I was cleaning out a box that held things from our move, I found a picture of that hog from my August 2001 hunt.

I had been up hunting for the entire opening week of deer season and had killed a spike for some meat to take home. However I thought I would hunt one more morning before going back to Florida, so I hit one of my favorite stands on our Garnett tract – the second barrel.

There I spent the morning looking at nothing since daylight, so I was about to go when I decided that I was just too tired to get on the road and kicked back in my stand for a quick catnap to recharge. I had been asleep about 45 minutes when the next thing I know, I am snoring so loudly that I can hear it in my sleep, causing me to jolt awake. And when the fog of slumber cleared my eyes, I noticed that a huge hog was standing about 60 yards in front of my stand just staring right up at me with a very puzzled look on his face. We had never seen a hog on this property before, so it took me a minute to even realize what it was. However I quickly tightened up, eased the gun to my shoulder and sent a round at his shoulder. He flinched, spun around and ran off. Then another smaller pig ran out in to the road, and I sent a round at him as well.

I then sat there for about 30 minutes to make sure he was down while also contemplating my new hog hunting technique of snoring them in, then eased up to the spot where I last saw him. When I got there, I could hear more hogs back in the bush, so I slowly walked in to the swampy area where I found a giant white hog standing next to my hog. I tried to shoot him too, however he ran off before I could get a shot at him. But that was OK since I had found my hog with no problem…

But as I got close, I saw his eyes move! I jerked the gun up to shoot him again, but it was too late. He was already up and running just as I shot, causing me to hit him in the ham. So knowing that he was still very much alive, I backed out of the swamp and went to meet two other of my friends that were up hunting to see if they couldn’t come and help me find the hog I had called in with my snoring. Sure enough, they were at my grand mothers packing up, so I grabbed the master hog hunter of the two and headed back to where I had lost him.

Once there, we spread out and searched the entire area where he had ran in to. However after 45 minutes, we still had not located him. I was just about to give up when I heard my friend Shane yell that he had found him… I was ecstatic over my huge boar with good cutters! And he weighed over 250 pounds, so it took us a while to get him out to the road where it took everything we had to get him loaded up and back to my grandmothers. There we took quite a few good close up pictures of his teeth, but this shot of him filling the back of the truck is the only one I have found so far.

To this day, snoring in a hog is still one of the strangest, craziest hunts I have ever had… except for the SWAT team almost killing me during a hog hunting/camping trip. But that is another story for another day!

Jeff

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I killed this 350 pound boar in January of this year on Cubbedge Hill. My trailcam had caught him two days in a row coming to the corn just before dark, so I figured that I had better get on him before he changed his pattern!

Sure enough, he came up and out of the bay right as I was ready to get down from my stand. Luckily I could still see him pretty good on the white, sandy road, and the 30-06 failsafe went right through his thick shield and out the other side… You won’t find that if you are using ballistic tips!

Anyway, I was able to hunt further away from the water because it was cold enough for the hogs to be roaming around. However right now, when it is 100 degrees out, you will not find them doing that. Hogs need to use water and mud to regulate their internal temperature, so they pretty much stick to the thickest, darkest cover they can find and then only move a short distance late in the day to their wallowing spots. So if you have some ground that holds hogs during the summer, make sure and hunt them where they will be – near the water.

I even pour my corn right along the edge of their mud holes, because I find that they love to eat and wallow at the same time. This also serves an important second purpose, which is to widen their watering spots. Because often during the summer, it gets so dry that many of their best spots eventually dry up. However by letting them do what they do best – root – you can get them to actually make your hunting spot better by widening it up so that it holds more water for longer periods of time. I have even had them turn ordinary pot holes in to perfect swimming pools that they were able to use all summer with this method!

So get off of the pine flats where you can find pigs during the colder months of the year and get down deep in to the swamps if you want to kill some of our feral friends during the summer months.

Jeff

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I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend! I know we did… while we didn’t do much, we enjoyed having a quiet few days around the house and in the yard.

My wife and two boys finally came back from California last week, so we just spent time together and didn’t go anywhere. However since my wife had a been traveling so much lately, she didn’t mind at all. And the boys acted like their kiddie pool was just as good as the beach. Plus, when we were done outside, we could come inside for some big buck and predator hunting videos! Always a great way to spend some family time together.

With life back to normal around here, I am hoping to get back to some hog hunting/trapping very soon. And I know that others have the same exact idea since that is about all that you can shoot during the summer. For those that are either just starting out or that are looking to increase their success rate hunting or trapping, I am going to lay out a few of my techniques that should make a big difference.

Obviously the first step is locating and securing access to an area that has a good hog population. If you don’t do this, you are already getting off on the wrong foot. Don’t get me wrong, you can pull some over from the neighbors or kill one here or there while deer hunting. But that isn’t the same as having a good native population to exploit.

Once you have the access, you need to key in on how the hogs use the property. Most likely you will see hog tracks all over the area, however they will only be using some of those areas at night. So don’t be fooled in to setting up an area that will be tough to hunt. Look for the thickest cover you have that is close to the water they need so much. That will most likely be the best spot to hunt. If you are trapping, that will also be the best spot, because while you can also trap in those areas they use only at night, you will catch more hogs where they live all of the time than where they feed sometimes.

Once you have your area picked out, start loading it up with corn, and my special ingredient Hog Wild. I know that everyone has heard of using sour corn, brown sugar and cool aid, diesel, etc. These all work, but not as well as the Hog Wild. They also all have their own drawbacks such as weight for the sour corn and pollution for the diesel.

As for how to load up the area, it just depends on if you are hunting or trapping. If you are hunting, spread out your corn in a 30 foot circle. This makes it easy for a big pack of hogs to all use the area at the same time without some running others off. If you are trapping, do the same (we will change it up later). Then spread the Hog Wild all around your circle of corn. It will probably take the whole bag to really cover the area and really stink the place up. And that is the key. The hogs will find the corn eventually, but why not get them on it within just a few days. That way you can start hunting/trapping asap.

The hog wild’s yummy stench will flow in the wind currents all over your hunting property, and if you have any hogs at all around, they should be coming in pretty good within a week. At first, just a few hogs will arrive, so you can probably wait a few days before restocking your corn/hog wild pile. However every night they will bring more of their buddies with them. And before long, you will have to restock your area every other day. When you have to do that, you are ready to hunt or trap.

Tomorrow I will finish this post on how to maximize your hog hunting/trapping, so make sure and stop back by. This week I will also be finishing up my series of posts on managing your property for big bucks, and this time I will be keying in on how to kill those big bucks that you have grown. Once those are up, I have two special posts coming. One will be on “why I hunt”. Arthur over at SimplyOutdoors.net wrote a great piece on why he does a while back and challenged others to do the same, so now it is my turn. Then as soon as I get the pictures to go with it, frequent contributor Gillian (that is her great hog picture at the top of this post) has a wonderful story about her husband and his tracking dog!

I look forward to sharing all of this with you!

Jeff

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