Wayne D Davis
Senior Member
The yotes and buzzards gotta eat too
MAN WHAT A BO HOG!24 killed or trapped in Polk County on our club since Jan 1. All but 5 or 6 were used as human food. Yotes and buzzards got the rest. We try to find people that want them but most don't want to get out at 10:00 PM to gut and clean a hog.
DANG. THAT'S A VERY LONG POST!I personally was raised that you don't kill anything that you don't intend to eat unless it is a problem such as yotes and etc and the meat is not edible. I've killed countless things and I didn't eat is such as birds with my pellet rifle but last year was the first time I killed something with substantial meat and didn't kill it for the meat. The hog population on our club has steadily increased over the last several years without much hunting of the hogs taken place. Last year was my first year in the club and everyone told me about the problems that were starting to arise out of the hogs such as damage to the food plots that we plant for deer and they stated that the goal for the club was to reduce the number of hogs as much as we could because of their rapid rate of increase in population. During bow season I saw the damage that the hogs were causing first had so the first time I got a chance I went hog hunting and killed several my first day at it. I had family that had a club in the same county that I was hunting in and was sure they would take the meat and if they didn't want it I was told that there were several locals in the area that said they would take any hogs that we killed. So after killing them I started making phone calls and no one had time to mess with the meat or didn't want the meat for what ever reason. I took the meat that I had room for and left the others. While I was making the calls without having any luck finding someone to give the meat to I started thinking how it looked like I was about to just waste some perfectly fine grub and how it was looking like I had done something that I was raised not to do and it was starting to bother me a bit. Then I started rationalizing how I was seeing groups of 2 or 3 average size hogs with 10+ small hogs every time I went to the club and how most of the groups were different groups of hogs and realized that population control is a must and the fact that I was leaving them to rot started bothering me less and less. The fact of the mater is that IMO the wild hog population needs to be controlled or else we will be over ran with hogs especially since no more than 5 years ago the property didn't have any hogs and last year every time someone went to the club 15 to 30 hogs were seen at a time, the food plots stayed rooted up, and the roads stayed rooted up. I know that to the hog hunters the increase in population is a good thing because it gives them more hunting opportunities but for the folks that primarily deer hunt and only want to kill the occasional hog for the grill the hog population has became a problem that needs to be taken care of even if it means doing things that we are not fond of doing such as leaving the meat to rot. I do believe that if it is possible the meat needs to be put to use but until the hog population is under control if some hog meat has to rot then so be it because for the most part the meat will not be wasted because nature doesn‘t waste anything.
I should have made the poll open to multiple answers because I also believe that a farmer has the right to protect his crop even if it means that the animals that destroy it must lay there and rot.
If you disagree with me that is fine and I respect that cause you have the right to your opinion just as I do to mine.
Restoring 12k acres with longleaf and cypress. Sounds interesting. Can you tell us more? Where? Still there?Early 90's we were doing survey work on about 12,000 acre or so ranch that was bought for conservation purposes for a large company. The goal was to restore it back to natural as possible....fill in ditches, replant cypress and long leaf, eradicate non native species.
They said if we saw a hog....any hog just shoot and just let lay. We did and maybe snuck a few 50-80 pounders out for the smoker. Rest just were left and the buzzards and eagles got fat quick.
Between the trapping and shooting there was close to 300-350 pigs killed in one year, next year you could not tell you made a dent. They did not figure on the other pigs who made it through and the others from neighboring properties. After the first year there was a 3 month shut down of killing to them sample the impact, that was when the impact was not as they hoped. They also realized the more you kill the more they breed, pigs for the most part are a social animal except the big ol boars, for them safety is in numbers.
Another year of shooting and leaving them but you learned the hogs got educated on the traps and would come out into a pasture just as it was getting dark.
2 years of that and now will just gut punch them and let them run off and die.