Locating hogs.

Ok. Got thermal. Got climber. Got a few thousand acres loaded with hogs and sign galore. Got time. Put some time in. Bubkus. (meanwhile, a pair of 195# hogs were taken this weekend when they about ran over a coupla guys out deer hunting )

How the heck do ya locate these hogs? Been tromping around the club for the last 5 days. I can barely take a step where I ain't treadin' on hog sign. I've made listening posts for hours on end at places where you can hear for over a mile. Crickets.
Baited with corn, pig pipes, molasses, snow cone syrup, stands all hours of the night all over the place, yadda, yadda. Nuthin'.
Cruised with the spotter stuck out the sunroof and the display on the dash running. Nada.
Whot izzit I'm jackin' up ta throw me outta contention? My deodorant? I look hungry? A funky attitude? Holy cow.
Coupla questions:
If I'm seeing lots of deer does that mean I ain't gonna see any hogs most likely?
There's a bumper crop of acorns here this year, but it was my understanding that hogs preferred last year's rotten (fermented?) acorns. Would plentiful acorns cause them to not be overly concerned with bait piles?
And last, but not least, HOW THE HECK DO I LOCATE THESE FRIGGIN HOGS!?!? d:^) Jake..

Well if they are not coming to me I am headed to any wet areas on the lease. We got over 2000 acres of mainly brush and pines so hard to walk up on them unalerted if you are not hunting the plots and feeders.

If you are seeing signs in a certain area hunt that area. Stick a feeder in. They will come.

Trail cams and feeders, and time the feeders to force them where you want them. Idea is to get them into a habit

Walk around without a gun...they will be everywhere.

Hogs can cover lots of ground and can disappear for weeks under the best conditions. They will return at some point.

ZenArchery said:

If you are seeing signs in a certain area hunt that area. Stick a feeder in. They will come.

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Ain't no 'certain area" to it, bubba-la-hoosky! The whole joint is over-run! Does a pig pipe qualify as a feeder? They'll clear'em. But it's anybody's guess as to when. They're on game cameras at feeders others have out. Completely random times. There's enough mast that they don't hafta respond to feeder times, best I can tell.
It almost sounds like I hafta move into the woods sometimes (hmmmm, so it ain't all bad!). One of the guys who's the more experienced of us sez it's pretty much blind luck. And I'm beginning to think he's correct.
Anybody on the deer/pig in the same area at the same time thing? If I'm seeing a pile of deer at a stand, should I move on to the next for that evening at least?
Guys are tellin me that the pigs constantly make lots of noise. Has that been your experience? Are listening posts worth fooling with? I can hear for miles out there in the night.
If I had ta guess, it's just gonna come down to just more time in the woods. While I see sign literally everywhere, they do seem to favor the wet bottoms. And I've been targeting those areas. There's just so many, tho'. And I'm sure the deer dogs keep'em scattered about as well this time of year.
Thanks, fellas! Jake..

yeah dogs are not your friend, they keep the hogs on edge and hiding

"A few thousand acres"....that will sometimes change your focus...may need to concentrate on small areas and explore them. Hogs, like deer and other wild game seem to head to the very center of patches between roads, between natural borders etc... when people show up. Sometimes I google map an area and look at the very center of a spot and go to it. If it is dry ground with no rivers etc...they will travel here and there with little pattern it seems. One day you will be covered up with them and another day they are no where to be seen. You can watch HogZombies and try some calling techniques.

FrankT said:

yeah dogs are not your friend, they keep the hogs on edge and hiding

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Yup. Agreed. But it is what it is. They'll thin down a lot after deer season to mostly rabbit hunters. But they're pretty localized and stick to the new and new-ish cut-overs. So things will get a l'il more back to normal.

RattlesnakeDan- There does seem to be a good bit of that pattern at least with the deer for sure. The best quality animals taken are generally in the thicks and outer edges. 35.091160, -79.876914 These coordinates are to basically the middle of the club. Which is bordered on the North by Little River, the South by Mountain Creek and Grassy Island Rd to the West. The Eastern border is less easy to point out but well within the roads to that side. As you can see, the terrain features are abundant. All the green is planted paper company land. Hough Rd to the North is the NC Wildlife boundary for hunting with dogs. So there's a little peace on that strip between there and Little River.
FWIW, I talked with a neighboring club a coupla days ago and the paper company (Jordan) that owns their land has hired trapper/hunters to help with the pigs on their property. So there must be somethin goin on. Jake..

Sounds like those hogs get a lot of pressure...I'd be hiding too!

RattlesnakeDan said:

Sounds like those hogs get a lot of pressure...I'd be hiding too!

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Yup. It's pretty well used over deer season. There's a few nooks-n-crannies to hide in. But the hell of it is that those decent pigs that were killed last week were killed in some of the busiest areas of the club! Go figure.
Between that, the surrounding dog hunting clubs and the Jordan merc's that's a lot of pressure. Best I can tell nobody is using thermal thus far but yers truly. Mebbe I'll get it figgered out enough to be useful before long. d:^) Jake..

Schneeky. Sounds like we're in a similar boat. I'm on a few thousand acres also that has big sign everywhere and they're being seen and I've shot a couple but dang they're hard to find considering all the signs and resources on the property. Neither deer not hogs have come to the corn the past month or two. And I've been mixing corn with old food, koolaid powder and fruit juice. They won't come to the feeders or the soured stuff.

theblakester said:

Schneeky. Sounds like we're in a similar boat. I'm on a few thousand acres also that has big sign everywhere and they're being seen and I've shot a couple but dang they're hard to find considering all the signs and resources on the property. Neither deer not hogs have come to the corn the past month or two. And I've been mixing corn with old food, koolaid powder and fruit juice. They won't come to the feeders or the soured stuff.

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I've tried a pile of concoctions and they've pretty much ignored them all.
Gonna be headed back out to the club for a few days today or tomorrow. Kinda thinkin I'll lay off the corning a bit till later in the season when the local mast starts to dry up. Now that we've had a few frosts and the skeeters are thinned down to where it's tougher for'em to pick ya up and toss ya outta the stand I'll mebbe see about working more of the wet bottoms at night. Jake..

Persistence will pay off! Good luck!

Also, has anyone had any luck with old pumpkins as bait so far?

I just crushed a few that were just starting to get old and mixed them in with the sweet/sour corn mix in the back of my truck

theblakester said:

Also, has anyone had any luck with old pumpkins as bait so far?

I just crushed a few that were just starting to get old and mixed them in with the sweet/sour corn mix in the back of my truck

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They work in some areas but you can;t just leave them in the back of your truck, pigs can't climb very good.
I used some last year trapping and they worked when I broke them open and mixed with corn too.

Schneeky said:

I've tried a pile of concoctions and they've pretty much ignored them all.
Gonna be headed back out to the club for a few days today or tomorrow. Kinda thinkin I'll lay off the corning a bit till later in the season when the local mast starts to dry up. Now that we've had a few frosts and the skeeters are thinned down to where it's tougher for'em to pick ya up and toss ya outta the stand I'll mebbe see about working more of the wet bottoms at night. Jake..

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Everything I tried did not work. Just go out and find them.

Find the oaks, pecans, mast trees. Hunt those areas. Find the trails between those trees and water. Break down the property to smaller sections and figure out their typical travel routes in the smaller sections. Once you have those nailed down look at the property as a whole and put the pieces together. With lots of mast on the ground they are hard to locate.

what is a MAST?