Hunting 2014

[woodworkingboy]

He might be up there a long time if he needs to hit something before returning to the airport. Wonder what Teddy Roosevelt would have thought of that form of hunting? Are there any wolves In Texas to kill the hogs? That seems to work on overpopulated deer.

 

[MasterBlaster]

They need to do that in gliders with silencers on their weapons.

 

[FireFighterZero]

It runs against everything I learned in my helicopter crew member class. Rifle brass into a rotor blade? Seems like it could happen.

I dont think I would use a AR-15 anyway. Even though you cant be "tacticool" with out one. I would think a scatter gun would be better. At least that is how the boys hunt coyotes from the air up here.

Piper Cub or Super Cub being the preferred plane because the doors open the way they do.

Feral hogs need killed which ever way works the best. Wolves are never a good idea.

 

[BlackSmith]

He might be up there a long time if he needs to hit something before returning to the airport. Wonder what Teddy Roosevelt would have thought of that form of hunting? Are there any wolves In Texas to kill the hogs? That seems to work on overpopulated deer.

They did that here with coyotes Jay. I'm no longer in the goat biz. I couldn't work and kill yotes all day both.

 

[Tucker943]

If anyone knew the mass devastation those human introduced hogs do to an Ecosystem your tears would dry right up. We had an outbreak here in PA a few years back. I was logging at the time in an area one herd of feral hogs was staying in. If you saw what they do to eastern woodlands you'd want them eradicated with napalm. If those hogs here weren't slaughtered with a passion, our current generation of standing timber would have been the last. That's no shit either. They multiply at an alarming rate, destroy crops like no other creature, are riddled with disease, are often aggressive, and in a woodland setting rip all understory out by its roots and rifle through the forest floor for seed and nuts. That's not my opinion either. That's 100% fact. The chief habitat manager for PA state lands is a good friend of mine and we spoke at length about this. A misplaced bullet in a feral hogs ass that kills him of gangrene is a lot more humane then watching native wild animals sharing habitat with that hog die of starvation an disease. Feral hogs are a serious threat to any environment outside of a pen and if you value the beauty of nature, I'd suggest shooting as many rounds as you can get off at any feral hog you ever see.

 

[Tucker943]

Maybe it is just me, maybe I don't understand, but those gunners in choppers look absolutely and utterly pathetic. I guess karma will do its job, in time.

While its not my sport of choice, if those choppers stop flying gunners over those fields, you will see devastation in Texas farming as we know it and eventually that will make its way to your cost of living. Ranchers pay for those choppers to do that because without it, those feral hogs will put them in the poor house quickly.

 

[Tucker943]

I feel strongly about this topic because I know what the story is behind it. People love casting stones over the helicopter pig eradications but if they sat down and spoke with a non hunting expert in the USDA, they'd change their tune fast and say "hope they get more of them before its too late". It's not a hunting vs non hunting thing. Picture herds of ratts ravaging your community and land. Would it be ok to try to stomp on and trap as many as possible?

 

[stig]

Why not do it the way it has been done with pests in other countries; put a price on their heads.
Turn in a set of ears and collect your money.
Make the price high enough that hunters can make a living from it and it'll work.
Better than having a bunch of hogs maimed by fat boys in helicopters.

 

[treetx]

"tacticool" I love it. I am going to have to use that one

It is an eradication issue. You can shoot them all day with choppers and there will still be an infestation. It does help control.

I get that for some, the enjoyment of blood lust and killing is their issue. I can't help you there. It is part of the human condition. It is not for everyone. I don't understand it. At times, I do get it. I get more lust for pork loin on the table

 

[treetx]

Why not do it the way it has been done with pests in other countries; put a price on their heads.
Turn in a set of ears and collect your money.
Make the price high enough that hunters can make a living from it and it'll work.
Better than having a bunch of hogs maimed by fat boys in helicopters.

Several counties already do that. It is already the #1 desired game animal in Texas. It is hard for folks to understand the vastness of the land and the complexities that come with managing wildlife in a state that has almost zero public land.

They are also live trapped and sold for meat.

I don't think there is a hunter around that could put as much pork on the ground as a chopper. I know a guy who has over 150,000 acres. They put down 600 pigs in 3 days with one chopper and 2 12 gauges.

 

[GASoline71]

I get that for some, the enjoyment of blood lust and killing is their issue. I can't help you there. It is part of the human condition. It is not for everyone. I don't understand it. At times, I do get it. I get more lust for pork loin on the table

Bloodlust is usually the big issue. I hunt. Love to hunt. Love the taste of almost ALL game meat. But really don't "enjoy" the killing part. I have passed on Mule Deer and Elk that would make a lot of hunters have a wet dream. Reason being... just didn't feel like killing them that day. I still get "buck fever" and enjoy the rush when the opportunity arises to harvest an animal. But... sometimes... I just don't feel like it is the animals time to go. Meh... might be just me.

But on the issue with these hogs, I don't see it as mindless fat boy killing. It's done that way for a reason. I'm glad there are cats that wanna do it, so then I don't have to.

I know it's a weird take on things, but I also know I'm not alone in the way I think.

Gary

 

[stig]

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the eradication of introduced species.
We kill wild mink here whenever we get a chance, and I have killed probably close to a hundred feral cats over the years.
I just don't like turning it into a circus, and to me, that is what those " look how cool and manly I am, blasting hogs from a chopper" videos are.

Gary, a lot of the way I look at hunting stems from growing up in a country where there are way too many would be hunters for the amount of game.
That translates to extremely high prices for renting hunting rights on private and government land, in the moment around 70$ an acre for land with just a decent amount of game.
It also means that there is a massive breeding of gamebirds, that are released 3 weeks prior to hunting season and then blasted by a bunch of camoclad city boys paying $50 per shot bird or per 3 shots fired.
Since hunting rights in private forest here are leased out, I have to deal with those assholes whenever I work in the woods.
They pay such huge amounts of money, that they feel entited to call off logging, if they want to hunt an area.
So I've always had a profound dislike of Danish hunters.

When I lived in Idaho and went hunting there with the natives, I saw a whole nother thing.
People who hunted for meat, not for trophies or because it is the manly thing to do if you are a middle aged overweight office drone from Copenhagen and want to reclaim the last remnant of your lost manhood.
I really enjoyed hunting in Idaho, even if I didn't eat any of it

 

[GASoline71]

I can dig that.

Gary

 

[cory]

Better than having a bunch of hogs maimed by fat boys in helicopters.

Lots of good responses here, including Chris's perspective of "if you love nature, kill hogs" (paraphrasing)

But nevertheless, I think Stig hits the nail on the head

Wolves are never a good idea.

Never say never, Jim.

Several counties already do that. It is already the #1 desired game animal in Texas. It is hard for folks to understand the vastness of the land and the complexities that come with managing wildlife in a state that has almost zero public land.

They are also live trapped and sold for meat.

I don't think there is a hunter around that could put as much pork on the ground as a chopper. I know a guy who has over 150,000 acres. They put down 600 pigs in 3 days with one chopper and 2 12 gauges.

If the meat is prized, I presume the guy retrieved the bodies to use the meat?

 

[MasterBlaster]

I put those feral hogs in the same category as radical muslims / anyone. The need to be eliminated.

 

[Tucker943]

Why not do it the way it has been done with pests in other countries; put a price on their heads.
Turn in a set of ears and collect your money.
Make the price high enough that hunters can make a living from it and it'll work.
Better than having a bunch of hogs maimed by fat boys in helicopters.

I don't get to make that call or live in a state where I would make any sense raising hell about it. The helicopter hog hunts aren't for me. I don't have a desire to hunt just to see something die. In the case of the feral hog, I don't heckle the blood sippers that do enjoy it. Those blood sippers are important here and now.

 

[Tucker943]

Our government likes to wish away feral hogs. Here in PA, hogs escaped a game farm. Things blew up. They bred like white trash, and some isolated populations took off. So our dept of ag looked at our game commission and said get busy handling this. Our game commission looked back at them and said those are farm animals gone wild, you foot the bill on fixing this. So they battled in court. Meanwhile feral hogs spent day and night knocking each other up and spreading. Finally the game commission said hell with it and took the reigns. No limit, no closed season, no weapon restrictions, no license necessary. We pretty much put the fire out quickly. When I worked on state land logging one winter where there were hogs, I kept a 7 mag in the fire extinguisher holder in my skidder

 

[FireFighterZero]

We pay a govt. hunter to "manage" the predator population in our state. He cant hardly afford to fuel his pickup and they charge us to hunt from helicopters. Our eagle and hawk population is out of controll, the coyotes are rampant, and the beloved wolves are moving off the reservation to cause economic loss. They did spend million "training" the wolves to eat buffalo in the park, but the deer and elk were way easier to eat.

Put a bounty on 'em. Worked on wolves once.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Is shooting from planes/copters really an effective way to kill the pigs? Lots of opportunities, but the guy in the vid missed all his shots. That gave more an idea that it is an unproductive activity aside from the thrill, where maybe you might get lucky, than much an effective part of an eradication program. Wasn't there a vid where Ted Nugent did better? It seems like there would be better ways to reduce the pig population, or what comes first, the fun of the shooters in the sky, or reducing the pigs?

 

[FireFighterZero]

We could poison them, but then we run the risk of poisoning the predators.

I would think that more efficient ways could be found, but, it would be hard to turn a profit on something less fun.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I must be naive, I didn't realize that making money is probably the priority. Otherwise, couldn't you herd them into pens or something, maybe people on horseback, like they used to do in cowboy movies with wild horses. Kill the pigs as humanely as possible then distribute the meat. With hunting from above, after a pig is killed does someone go and collect the remains for consumption, or are they left out there to rot? I could see Mr. Coyote out there watching it all and thinking, "Hey, it doesn't get any better than this!".

 

[FireFighterZero]

You are probably not naive, I think I am becoming more pessimistic as this year drags on! My mom told me to either start smoking pot or take some Valum, I bought a motorcycle instead!

I don't know about the herding thing, anytime I was around hogs the were about as hard to herd as a pack of wild cats! Wild hogs are fast as hell too!

I am sure that the boys charge to take up people to shoot hogs, and I too hope that the meat is salvaged. A lot of food banks will not take it though.

I guess they are truly a varmint. I used to shoot ground squirrels for fun as a kid, it was also controlling the numbers. You could eat a gopher if you needed too. Wild hogs are the same thing I guess.

A mysterious disease was introduced to New Zealand to kill the rabbits that the English introduced. It was totally against the law but somehow, the disease spread from Australia and it is doing a pretty good job. The ground squirrels around here get wiped out by disease every twenty years or so. Maybe that would work for pigs.

My Kiwi father in law helped burn down some very expensive trees once. Someone spotted hogs in the forest and the locals burnt it down while waiting outside with guns.


A hog infestation must be awful.

 

[Limbrat]

Jim, I've seen where hogs were poisoned with timic a few years ago and let me say, it is extremely efficient. It also killed everything that ate the decomposing hogs which was a bad deal. I've seen hogs trapped pretty efficiently. You won't get them all but you can put a real dent them. Personally I like to hunt, kill, grind, stuff, smoke and eat them, they make up a good portion of my familiy's meat intake. They can become extremely wary and almost completely nocturnal when they are hunted hard. I can understand ranchers and farmers wanted to rid their property of wild hogs because of the damage they can do, but I'm also for utilizing the meat, though it's probably not very feasible in a large scale eradication program.

 

[FireFighterZero]

I quit hunting because my wife does not like wild game. She LOVES pork though. I could see that working. Well, probably not. She gets attached to pigs.

I would like to see the meat used as well, at least gathered up. Sometimes we swallow the spider to eat the fly and so on. If a bunch of pork is laying around we can un-naturally subsidize the predators, increasing the population until other species feel the burden. Finally the coyotes get mange or a bad winter or the rabbits are all eaten or get a disease........so on.

I dont envy the managers. As a private land owner, I have a way of looking at the problem. Mostly eradication. I still understand why people like to go hunting, and that is why we allow hunting on our entire farm. We are compensated by the state and the state keeps a close eye on things, but we dont turn anyone away. Unless they abuse it of course. I have rights too. And I will not allow my livelihood to be threatened because someone wants more hogs or deer to hunt. We kill everything we see that is a threat to our way of life, and not gentle like either.

 

[Limbrat]

I quit hunting because my wife does not like wild game. She LOVES pork though. I could see that working. Well, probably not. She gets attached to pigs.

I would like to see the meat used as well, at least gathered up. Sometimes we swallow the spider to eat the fly and so on. If a bunch of pork is laying around we can un-naturally subsidize the predators, increasing the population until other species feel the burden. Finally the coyotes get mange or a bad winter or the rabbits are all eaten or get a disease........so on.

I dont envy the managers. As a private land owner, I have a way of looking at the problem. Mostly eradication. I still understand why people like to go hunting, and that is why we allow hunting on our entire farm. We are compensated by the state and the state keeps a close eye on things, but we dont turn anyone away. Unless they abuse it of course. I have rights too. And I will not allow my livelihood to be threatened because someone wants more hogs or deer to hunt. We kill everything we see that is a threat to our way of life, and not gentle like either.

Well said Jim! In Florida, our game commission has designated several species as sacred cows that cannot be touched, kind of like the king's deer in Robin Hood. Bears and foxes are two of them. For no logical reason, they are completely protected. We are over run with bears. I despise bears. I will say like Butch does about islam, "Death to all bears!". They have become such a nuisance that nothing edible is safe outside, and sometimes inside. The state has "watch out for the bears" signs posted on every road. There is no telling what they cost taxpayers in the long run. If it weren't for a little civil disobedience, it wouldn't be safe to go outside. The State of Florida has turned a fine game animal into a garbage eating pest of the highest order. I would like to... "kill 'em all, big or small".

Did I mention the fact that I hate bears?