Kids can be stupid. I vividly recall spending lazy summer days loafing around my cousins’ farm a few miles from the small rural town where I grew up. Like most pre-teens, we were in a constant state of boredom and looking for any excuse to break the monotony. We’d go horseback riding (my favorite), explore the surround fields and forests, skip stones on the pond, play cowboys and Native Americans … and we’d tease my uncle’s hogs. Yep, those 300-pound, ill-tempered porkers fenced in next to the barn.
“Hey, check this out!” one of my cousins exclaimed as he slid off the top rung of the wooden gate and dropped into a pen that housed a huge female hog and her litter of a dozen young. While another cousin distracted the anxious sow, cousin No. 1 sprinted over and grabbed one of her piglets by a hind leg. The two-fold result was predictable. The piglet let out a God-awful scream and momma hog responded with murderous intent — attempting to run down the fleeing intruder. The laughing youngster dropped the piglet and leapt over the fence just in time to avoid a mauling. I learned two things that day: My cousins are crazy, and hogs response aggressively to the distress screams of their young. More on that in a minute.
Pursuing wild hogs is gaining popularity among hunting circles. Because of the proliferation and wide-spread dispersal of these feral animals, access to them has never been better. Many landowners open otherwise closed doors to those hunters willing to help rid them of these destructive vermin. In most states they’re regarded as pests and season parameters and bag limits are nonexistent. Hunting them can be challenging and fun — and properly cared for in the field they make excellent table fare.
By some counts wild hogs, the progeny of those that early American settlers introduced as a free roaming source of protein as far back as the 1600s, are now estimated at more than 6 million and rapidly expanding — inhabiting at least 35 states (and counting). According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these eating machines cause an estimated $1.5 billion in damages each year (most of it to agricultural crops). Wild hogs eat a wide variety of foods — and leave a lot of damage in their wake, often destroying entire agricultural fields or food plots. They also disrupt native vegetation and make it easier for invasive plants to take root. Hogs devour food set out for livestock and occasionally eat the livestock as well, especially lambs, kids and calves. They are also known to prey on wildlife such as deer and quail and will eat earthworms, insects, fish, rodents, bird eggs, lizards, snakes, frogs and carrion. Guess that’s where the expression “eats like a hog” got its roots.
In 2014, Congress appropriated $20 million to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to implement a collaborative, national feral swine management program in states where there is a recognized feral swine population. The goal is to protect agricultural and natural resources, property, animal health and human health and safety by reducing feral hog populations in the United States. In states where feral swine are emerging or populations are low, APHIS cooperates with federal, state, tribal and local entities to implement strategies to eliminate them. The goal is to stabilize and eventually reduce the range and size of feral swine populations in the United States and territories in accordance with management objectives of states, territories and tribes.
This is obviously an ambitious undertaking. And the jury is still out on how effectively these burgeoning populations can be controlled (or eliminated). A female wild hog can begin reproducing at the tender age of 6 months and give birth to an average of 1.5 litters per year. Those litters often number close to a dozen young of which half will likely (on average) be sows. It doesn’t take a math whizz to see the implications. But hunters can do their part to help keep numbers in check on the local level — albeit on a much smaller scale — and that’s where the fun starts.
Chances are good that hunters who live south of the Mason Dixon Line can locate hogs just a short drive from their homes. In Texas alone hogs are estimated to number in the millions and the Lone Star State has become a Mecca for hunters targeting wild hogs. Other top destination states include Florida, Georgia, California and Missouri. But hogs can be found throughout the South and West and in some Midwestern and Northern states as well.
Opportunities exist on public lands, but the best hog hunting is often found on private holdings, where access is often just a request away. In some cases, a small trespass fee will open the door to hog heaven. Also, many outfitters are willing to tag them on as a bonus animal at little or no charge should hunters tag out early on a deer or turkey hunt.
There are several ways wild hogs can be hunted, the two most common being the use of bait and spot-and-stalk. These are the methods I most commonly deploy, but with a twist. As my cousins and I learned, hogs — both sows and boars — respond to the distress cries of their young. They also respond to other auditory cues, such as the distress cries of prey species and even the sounds of avian scavengers. Hunters armed with the proper mouth calls, or better yet, an e-caller loaded with a variety of sounds, can capitalize on this tendency.
