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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This morning I want to highlight Gohagan’s Guide Service. It is run by Marion Gohagan, and he offers deer, hog and turkey hunting out of his lodge located just down the road in Scotia.

Not only has Marion lived here in the lowcountry his whole life, he is a master deer and hog hunter himself, so he really knows how to put you on game. Some hunters may know him from when he managed Bostick Plantation, while others may have read about him in Boar Hunter Magazine or seen him on ESPN when they did a special show on hog hunting with dogs.

I was fortunate enough to be invited out a few years ago for a truly exciting stand hunt for hogs, and that is my nice meat hog I harvested in the picture with me. I saw tons of pigs with a couple of real monsters. However I left those for his clients and took home a tender young one.

Marion offers hunts by the day or week on his 1650 acres, and you can find lots of information about those hunts as well as the prices for them on his website http://www.gohagansguideservice.com. This year he is also offering a handful of premium memberships. So give him a call if you are looking for a great place to hunt with everything taken care of for you. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Jeff

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We got her!

The giant sow that we have been seeing all week on the trailcam was patiently waiting for Bo and I yesterday when we went to check the trap out on the Jericho tract. That is her in the picture on the last post, and she weighed in at 250 pounds. Of course that was before Bo and I took the skinning knives to her.

Bo has been having so much fun going with me to check the trap everyday, and he has been very interested in how they look, feel and SMELL when I get them out. Most importantly he has not been squimish about me shooting them. So I thought that he was ready to see how meat/food is made…

“We’re going to skin the HOG?!” he asked excitedly when we got to the skinning rack.

“Yes son, that is how we turn the hog in to meat” I replied.

“Cool!!!” he exclaimed

Then we hoisted him up, and I went to work. Bo really thought pulling her hide off was neat, but wasn’t so sure when I opened the pig up and dropped the guts out.

“That’s GROSS, dada” he said loudly as the blood poured from her neck. “You now have boogs on your hand.”

What he meant was blood, but who could blame him for thinking that; Moments earlier it had been pouring out of her nose - therefore it must be boogs.

I finished up the cleaning, and it was time to wash the carcass down. Bo enthusiastically brought me the hose and helped me spray her down so that she was ready to be hung in the cooler. We then cleaned up and hurried home for dinner.

When we got there, he ran inside to tell mama about the hog we killed, “We got a big, MEAN hog in the trap, and we made her in to meat!”

He then blurted out, “And that big, mean hog went peepee and poopoo when dada shot her. But that is what happens when you die!”.

Amy almost fell off the couch with that comment. However after I told her how the hog’s bowels completely emptied themselves out while I was getting her out of the trap, she understood. Three year olds are already fascinated with the whole bathroom process, so to see the giant hog take a 2 foot long poop along with a gallon pee really made a lasting impression… He has now told the story at least 100 times, and that only happened yesterday!

That makes 3 sows this week in the trap that will not be filling our woods with their nasty, tick-infested offspring. I am truly ready for spring and turkey season, but I hate that I have to pull the trap now that I have them really coming in… I could really do some damage to the herd if I just had a few more weeks, and how I would love to get the cool looking boar pictured above. However you can’t have any corn down during turkey season, unless you want a visit from the game wardens - and they are really strict on it.

Oh well, I did manage to get a few of the worst offenders. And I will be ready on May 2 when I can put it back out. So hog trapping will be on hold until then, but hunting those big, ugly red-headed birds should make for some interesting reading, so don’t think for one minute that you shouldn’t check back EVERYDAY. And just because we can’t actually trap them doesn’t meant that I can’t do a few more posts on hog trapping and how to best catch them. So look for those posts too.

I am now headed out to work on getting that radiator in our Corolla. We managed to get the new tires on our van, but a lack of time has thrown off my original schedule. See you tomorrow!

Jeff

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