Hog decoys and game caller

jglass

LSB Member
The wild hog hunting adventures continue. Invited a friend, Ken, out for a night time hog hunt. Told him I'm seeing hogs on my trail camera. Odds are fifty fifty we will see some hogs. We were still walking on a road toward my blind and Ken whispered, "the hogs are already out there I can hear them". I looked through my thermo imaging scope and sure enough hog were on the bait pile. We were not loaded up at that point, the hogs saw us and wondered off. We continued toward the blind and got set up. Ken had a new fangled night vision setup where a night vision lens is mounted to an existing scope and the shooter had a monitor connected to the night vision lens. Well, Ken says the hogs are in the jungle I can hear them. I look through my scope and yes a hog is headed toward the bait pile. I whisper to Ken, then i whisper, "he's in the bait pile". I whisper to Ken, shoot, shoot. He whispers back, I can't find him in my scope. Ken fumbles around, the hog leaves, comes back, leaves again. I tell Ken, "here use my gun". He shoots missed. We didn't see any more hogs that night but we had fun.

Time goes on in Florida, I play golf twice a day and hog hunt almost every night. I have two bait piles and trail camera on each pile. Every night the deer and raccoon devour the bait pile. I'm going broke feeding these animals. Thinking one day my trail cameras have never photographed deer and hogs eating my bait together. I have heard from deer hunters deer won't eat with hogs. I begin thinking, if I had hog decoys would the decoys attract the hogs and repel the deer? I discuss with friends and they all said try it. Off to Home Depot for Plywood and paint. I make to silouet hog decoys and paint them flat black. They seem to work. The deer are staying away and I have a picture of a hog standing next to the decoy. Question is for how long.

Returned from a cruise ship from Haiti and Jamaica and I'm ready to get back into hog hunting. Put down bait the first night. Next day no pictures. Next night I go out hunting thinking I probably won't see anything but go out anyway. I have this electronic game caller called IHunt from Ruger. It play animal sounds from my cell phone.
I do some hog calls, sit and wait, read messages on my cell phone. Around 8:30 I figure may as well go home, I'm cold. I was packing up when I heard this noise coming from behind the blind. I figure it is probably raccoons. I look through my thermo imaging scope and it's a hog crashing through the jungle. Then I see 3 more. It is a sow with 3 75lb youngsters. I wait for the hogs to get into the bait pile. I had a couple of good shots but wait. Next the hogs begin to wonder off. I think nice going idiot you blew your chance. The hogs wondered 75 to 100 yards away but I could still make them out through the scope. I fumble around for my cell phone and do some hog grunt calls. I watched the hogs for 30 minutes. My AR-15 started to feel like it weighed 50 pounds. Finally the hog came back. I new they were close, I could hear them. I set way back in my lawn chair and finally saw 2 of them. They seemed so close I could touch them. Finally I took the shot and the hog dropped to the ground.
Hog number 9 for this year. The hog gets roasted today.

In conclusion, wild hogs are so unpredictable. That group of hogs had know interest in my bait pile, they never got there. They must have responded to the IHunt caller.
Stay tuned I'm in Florida for 3 more weeks
 

Ratdog68

LSB Official Story Teller
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Congrats on a fruitful hunt. At least you didn't kill a decoy.
 

lonepunman

LSB Active Member
LoneStarBoars Supporter
Good story.

Glad to know the one percenters are getting by...
 

der Teufel

Livin' the Dream …
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Interesting bit about the decoys. I too have noticed that hogs and deer do not seem to associate.

Glad you got one!
 
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