Still doing lots of hog hunting lately and found a honey hole ! Big wheat field that was plowed up around the outer edges. Not sure what they are eating where they plowed it but they were on it every night , even the coyotes were thick . I shot two coyotes while hog hunting in one night . We went out there last night and they were not out there yet . we were scanning with thermal and found them coming in from a distance. we decided the wind was perfect and started walking out to intercept them . we got to where we thought they were and never saw them again . All we could figure was they got in the tall wheat and we could not see them . Dang ! that is why they call it hunting !
honey hole is drying up !
- Thread starter West D
- Start date
We can get spoiled pretty quickly expecting to drop porky pig every outing!!!!
I'd be happy with every other outing!
jglass
LSB Member
Here are my hunting statistics. I spent about 100 days in Florida where I hunted mornings well before sun up and a couple of hours after sun down. Some days I hunted just evenings or just mornings and sometimes both. I estimate I hunted 7 days out of 10 or roughly 70 hog hunts. I personally killed 3 hogs. I saw but did not shoot at 4 additional hogs. So, I either saw or killed 1 hog every 10 hunting trips. Some may ask, with hunting success like that why bother hunting at all. Well, I had a great time on each and every hunting trip. The RV resort I stay at is a 3 minute drive to the hog blind. The hog blind has comfortable lawn chairs 8' above the ground. Now, I can sit in the RV, drink beer and watch TV or I can sit out in the hog blind and watch all the critters through my night vision monocular. Keep in mind, hunting the Florida jungle I can only see about 125 feet in most directions so I don't usually see the hogs coming in. When I see them, they are in shooting range.
Now let me tell you about hog hunting the same area in 2016. I would put down 50 pounds of shelled corn at 3:00 PM. Me and a buddy would be in the hog blind before sun down. Before dark my buddy would listen to the jungle, then tell me, "Jim, the hogs are coming, a bunch of hogs, point your shotgun towards the bait pile and keep it there". Within a few minutes we had 20-30 hogs, young hogs around 80 lbs, 25-50s feet from us. My buddy in the blind smoking cigarettes. We selected the hogs we wanted and shot them. The hogs ran off but would return an hour later and we would shoot more. We would light them up with a marine type spot light. The hogs would just keep on eating and allow themselves to be killed. The night I killed my first hog all these hogs came out at around 7:30 PM. My buddy turned on the spot light and I could not see the ground for all the hogs. Some were only 12 feet away, I shoot one with my 12 gage 870 with a slug barrel. True story.
Now, 2017, I'm armed with my new AR-15 thinking with this semi-automatic rifle I'm going to have multiple kills per encounter.
What did I see. Lone boars except one night I saw a pair of boars and killed one of them. What in the heck changed between 2016 and 2017. In 2017 the hogs I saw and killed were in the 150-200 lb range. In 2016 we saw adolescent sized hogs in the 75-80 lb range. My trail camera photographed the same scenario. This could be a case of hunting mature smart hogs and hunting young dumb hogs. Never did figure out where the sows with baby pigs were. I took pictures of them only one time all winter in 2017.
One thing I learned in 2017 is how unpredictable hogs really are. Your game camera may take pictures of hogs at 7:30 PM. The next night we are out there ready for an ambush and the hogs never show up even though we stayed until 11:00 PM. We pack it up and go home. The game camera takes pictures of hogs at 1:00 AM the same night. We hunted from 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM and saw nothing. Went out at 2:00 AM, saw nothing. It is all about being there when the hogs are there, simple as that. My productive hunts were spur of the moment where I hunted alone. I think my buddy out there smoking cigarettes scared off the hogs. I feel in some way the hogs knew we were out there, could have been wind direction.
My strategy for 2018 is to have multiple hunting blinds. I think the hogs figure out we are out there after a few nights. When they do I'll start hunting another blind a 1/2 mile or more away. I'll give the first blind a week or more to cool and allow the hogs to return on there own. Sometimes I think the bait pile itself is a signal us hunters are in the area so they avoid the bait pile altogether. So my plan will be to hunt an area for a couple of days and move on to another area and I'll not leave any bait behind.
I have spent hours watching Youtube videos of dozens of hogs being killed in one night. I would like to know how many consecutive nights can they kill dozens of hogs like that I'll bet not many.
comments??
Now let me tell you about hog hunting the same area in 2016. I would put down 50 pounds of shelled corn at 3:00 PM. Me and a buddy would be in the hog blind before sun down. Before dark my buddy would listen to the jungle, then tell me, "Jim, the hogs are coming, a bunch of hogs, point your shotgun towards the bait pile and keep it there". Within a few minutes we had 20-30 hogs, young hogs around 80 lbs, 25-50s feet from us. My buddy in the blind smoking cigarettes. We selected the hogs we wanted and shot them. The hogs ran off but would return an hour later and we would shoot more. We would light them up with a marine type spot light. The hogs would just keep on eating and allow themselves to be killed. The night I killed my first hog all these hogs came out at around 7:30 PM. My buddy turned on the spot light and I could not see the ground for all the hogs. Some were only 12 feet away, I shoot one with my 12 gage 870 with a slug barrel. True story.
Now, 2017, I'm armed with my new AR-15 thinking with this semi-automatic rifle I'm going to have multiple kills per encounter.
What did I see. Lone boars except one night I saw a pair of boars and killed one of them. What in the heck changed between 2016 and 2017. In 2017 the hogs I saw and killed were in the 150-200 lb range. In 2016 we saw adolescent sized hogs in the 75-80 lb range. My trail camera photographed the same scenario. This could be a case of hunting mature smart hogs and hunting young dumb hogs. Never did figure out where the sows with baby pigs were. I took pictures of them only one time all winter in 2017.
One thing I learned in 2017 is how unpredictable hogs really are. Your game camera may take pictures of hogs at 7:30 PM. The next night we are out there ready for an ambush and the hogs never show up even though we stayed until 11:00 PM. We pack it up and go home. The game camera takes pictures of hogs at 1:00 AM the same night. We hunted from 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM and saw nothing. Went out at 2:00 AM, saw nothing. It is all about being there when the hogs are there, simple as that. My productive hunts were spur of the moment where I hunted alone. I think my buddy out there smoking cigarettes scared off the hogs. I feel in some way the hogs knew we were out there, could have been wind direction.
My strategy for 2018 is to have multiple hunting blinds. I think the hogs figure out we are out there after a few nights. When they do I'll start hunting another blind a 1/2 mile or more away. I'll give the first blind a week or more to cool and allow the hogs to return on there own. Sometimes I think the bait pile itself is a signal us hunters are in the area so they avoid the bait pile altogether. So my plan will be to hunt an area for a couple of days and move on to another area and I'll not leave any bait behind.
I have spent hours watching Youtube videos of dozens of hogs being killed in one night. I would like to know how many consecutive nights can they kill dozens of hogs like that I'll bet not many.
comments??
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RattlesnakeDan
San Antonio Texas
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SUS VENATOR CLUB
LoneStarBoars Supporter
Yep
Maybe not dozens of hogs a night, but with enough properties or enough land, you can get hogs every night. The issue really is one of sampling and access. There is a reason why many operations do frequently get dozens of hogs.
Dont feel bad.. i havent seen one since September 2016.
March 2016 was a good one, killed 55 that month. Now nothing to be seen.
We have resorted to coyote hunting but after killing about 8 of them they are hard to find.
March 2016 was a good one, killed 55 that month. Now nothing to be seen.
We have resorted to coyote hunting but after killing about 8 of them they are hard to find.
437
LSB Active Member
We have not had a hog sighted on 5,500 acres in 6 weeks. Wildfires and water shortages in South FL are not good. Even the deer have left the property and jumped the fence to the state forestry by the river. It's unreal days upon days and piles of corn heaped up under the feeders not even the coons are coming in can't recall the last time I saw it this bad. At the very least the red tail cranes would come clean up the corn left over by the 4 legged crowd, but nada. It's pretty amazing going from a massive hog infestation problem 8 months ago to not being able to find one. The cow hands said it's a struggle to get water for the moo moos.
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RattlesnakeDan
San Antonio Texas
LSB TURKEY BUZZARD PRESERVATION SOCIETY
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LoneStarBoars Supporter
There's nothing new under the sun.
Next year it will be too wet to hunt. lol
Next year it will be too wet to hunt. lol
437
LSB Active Member
Not for me! I'm one of the few crazies who gets excited when it rains....grab my waterproof Hodgman fishing bibs and a Wal Mart hooded rain coat and I'm gone!
honey hole is back ! went last night and hogs were in the uncut wheat this time . they were big enough to see with thermal from the road . They were in there favorite hiding place they thought!! We ran them to the end of wheat and this big boar made the mistake of running to us and my buddy killed him with his 30 AR . estimate weight 275 to 300lbs 
I don't think many animals actually understand about directions of fire or that the distance BOOM is the launching of a projectile that results in what happens around them. All they know is that sometimes they hear a THWACK and there is pain or one of their fellows is down, then they hear a BOOM from some distance away. Maybe they hear the sonic CRACK of a miss and the sonic CRACK happens where they are, then they hear a BOOM. So they flee where the most immediate threat is which is not the distance BOOM.