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Hog Hunts....

St. Gunner

New member
Joined
May 24, 2002
Messages
8
Location
Devine, TX, USA
Moosie you said something the other day about coming on a hunt down here. We've been doing a few over the years, no advertising or anything, just somebody ask and we take em. Before we charged $175 a day per person and a kill fee of .50cents per pound.

The guy who is doing this with me and I have been talking and we want to set-up in such a way, the average joe can afford to go if he wants to. What's happened in the past is you have the two of us guiding one guy apiece. Then the kill fee situation they always want to know what size the hog is. So the idea at present is to set-up a kill fee arrangement that is set in stone and easy to live with. One set number that it costs you when you pull the trigger. The number we have been kicking around is $100. Now would you guys as hunter be willing to pay, $175 per day, plus $100 per hog to hunt, when you know your not going to be stuck in a stand all day, your going to be guided. That means any of a few ways of hunting. Summer it means stalking water holes at mid-day. Fall-Spring it means hunting grain fields and stalking along their edges, or using dogs. It would mean in a normal day you'll get in all the daylight to hunt, minus whatever you take for lunch or breaks.

Then if you so desire, you can hunt into the night with lights and such, or dogs, for an added on price, we thought about $50 till midnight or so.

Now the only money we would pocket would be guide fees, the kill fee goes direct to the landowners. With hunting costing what it does now in South Texas, you can't get by like you could four or five years ago by just asking to go shoot hogs. The landowners want something in return since the dang things are tearing up everything and they are letting more than just a couple yahoos who build fence for them on the place.

Now what we have been kicking around alot is taking out more than one guy at a time per person. It means we have to be a little more careful and watch a few more muzzles, but it means the hunter gets a break, not charge more like some folks do, just let the hunters split the regular daily fee. For two guys $87.50 a pop and if you want three guys, about $58, plus the kill fees. The next question is does everyone have a chance to bag a hog and the answer is yes. On the grain fields this past winter we often shot upwards of 15-20 rds per evening, the hogs would return shortly after the shots. In the Summer months, it's feasible for up to three guys to be able to shoot a hog at a water source. Its up close shooting normally under 20yds. There is lots of water available to hunt, just means a pick-up ride in between water holes.

Now my question is what do you like about this idea and what do you not like. Is it a hunt you'd like to go on? I think if we want to try to make a go of this we need to have input from you guys on what you want. We don't have lodging, but a cheap clean motel just down the road($30 per night) or you can camp for nothing here. We'll probably provide one meal a day, it'll most likely be something on the grill, with lots of beans.

I don't make much money, but this is a price range I feel I could handle on a real limited budget. If I took one buddy along I could spend about $400 and bag two hogs and spend two days.

Kick me some more ideas around on places you see need for improvements.
 
WELL.. the price sounds OK. Whats the driving distances between the ranches and hunting spots. And, Is there places that guys could have a stand over a feeder for night hunting with a bow ?

You also mensioned Hounds.... whats this hunt like ?
 
Moosie,

Most of the driving between ranches isn't to far, maybe 5-10 minutes for most of them. Have one place that is about 45 minutes from the motel and it is covered in hogs. Alot of the country we have to hunt is joined together, so by crossing a fence your on the next place. We walk alot when we just go out, I think we'll leave the choices up to the guys doing the paying as to how they hunt it. We can drive around, but its not that productive. The other thing you can't weigh 400lbs and make the summer hunts over water, it'll kill you. We live in this heat all the time and work outdoors and we can only take so much.

Night hunts with a bow, no problem. We have a vet down here that stalks them after dark with his bow, guy is nuts.

The dogs is more fun than anything, you never know what is going to happen. You might run 5 minutes, you might run 5hrs depends on the hogs. We do alot of hunting in daylight with the dogs in the spring and hang out on the crossings and shoot em as they run from the dogs. What we have in mind for this is a hog being bayed and you coming in and dispatching it with a knife, alot safer on the dogs. You have a catchdog he has the hog caught and one of us yahoos has the hog by the back legs. Its a real adventure for someone who hasn't done it.

We're in the process of setting up a few feeders around some water sources. At present we simply feed them when we have time, it keeps the hogs close, you just don't have them on a timer like with a feeder.
 
HUmmmmm Sounds like a blast...... I've wanted to get out hog hunting but missed the opertunity to go to Choppers. I would have really liked to go :(

NOW I need to plan on something else. The only thing is, Bringing ANY meat back from Txas would kind of suck on a plane.. And I ain't driving 26 hours to get there :D

I would like to stab a hog after it's chased by dogs... thats sounds COOL !!! HOW big of Cajones does a man have to have ? I'd like to lay mine out and see ..... :eek: :eek:
 
Moosie,

Ya the meat situation isn't very good driving that far. I've always wondered about freezing it, packing it in ice and shipping it UPS. I don't know what it would cost, maybe $25 or $30. I don't know if you could even ship it overnight. The best option would be to leave it here at the market, have it processed then ship it overnight. Maybe eat up some of the lesser cuts before you leave.<grins>

Moosie the dog deal is a blast, total blast. I ended up selling my dogs out a few years back to a guy from Sacremento, he drove down and bought em all. The guy I hunt with has some though.

You need to make it a HuntTalk adventure, We'll work something out on pricing on the whole deal, I might just forgo my guide fee part and then everyone can split it up with the other guides or something along those lines. We'll work it out if you guys want to later.

Any meat someone doesn't want, we have a meat market that processes for free and donates to an orphanage.
 
The meat processors around Ingram, charge like $1/lb to ship fresh meat which might not be the best thing to do. My friend KC, just tried to take a cooler, carry on size, back on a United flight. I haven't heard if he made it, that's an option. We froze it and put a little ice on top in case it started smelling a little. The dry sausage is a more economical way to ship it, it doesn't have to be on ice for that, its just the weight of the meat after you get it processed, people here could ship it. Or eat it, or donate it like St.Gunner said. Barbequed hog ribs are darn good. Its actually safer, like St.Gunner said to stab hogs that dogs have a hold of. If you shoot, the dogs let go because it hurts their ears, and that's the dangerous part, a loose hog nearby that's pissed because the dogs chased it and caught it and maybe it got shot.

That's a good hog area and the access you guys have is great. How many places or really how many hogs do you think could be gotten in a two day/night hunt? That would determine how big of a group could go with reasonable chance of success. What's the best time of year to get the most hogs there?
 
Tom,

We hunt alot just in the afternoons, on occasion we get skunked, normally high winds contribute to it. But if we go out and really hunt, we can between me and the guy I work with shoot a bunch, we normally quit early and go home. I'll tell you in the last four times we hunted, I killed 5 one afternoon in 2hrs(30-175lbs dressed), killed two another afternoon both right at 100lbs. The third hunt got skunked, fourth killed 3 in about 3hrs. That's pretty normal for us, best times favorite times I don't know. I'm real partial to August, its hotter than hell, but you know where they are and you have a good chance of killing a big hog. They are laying up in water someplace. My personal record for hogs in a day was set back when I was 17yrs old helping eradicate some hogs in a South Texas ranch, killed 69 in one day, almost all with buckshot off the tailgate of a truck when they came to a feeder being set off. Around this area, the most I killed in one outing was 9, with a semi-auto .308 and all of em where running shots.

I'd say on average if you took 12-18 guys afield, roughly 15 would have a standing shot under 50yds and everyone would see hogs. I shoot alot, I buy boxes of .280 five at time. My guess is your average joe is going to blow most shots over 75yds and if its running you can count on a cripple. I've seen guys botch 20yd shots at hogs laying in a tank, once watched a guy cripple a 220lbs boar with a 12 gauge slug at 4yds after a 75yd stalk on our bellies. Who knows what will happen. With the variety of country we have to hunt, if you want to sit a stand and have a shot at a 100lb hog, i'd say you have a 100% shot at it. If you want to kill a 200lb boar or better, your gonna have to work at it and the chances might be around 50%, sit a stand, maybe 25%. You won't find many 300lb monsters you read about in stories, they exist but those hogs are so smart they are few and far between. In the last 6yrs I probably have killed from 60-143 hogs in a one year period. The 143 came with dogs almost totally. In that time I killed one hog that weighed an honest 312lbs guts and all, lots of 240's and bunches of 200's, but you start talking 275 and up and they are hard to come by, I don't care what all the guys without a scale say they weigh. The big ones weighed, 286 live, 286 dressed, 278lbs dressed, and 311 lbs live. In six years, these aren't canned hunts, these hogs rarely even see feed cept during deer season. I've seen one hog I would say went over 400lbs and he was in a brushpile in Cotulla Texas one summer day and after he soaked up a three rds from a .357 mag with 158gr sp, he proceeded to gut one Dogo I had, and cut every dog cept one on the ground. 380+ staples that afternoon. It was the biggest hog I have ever seen and we never bagged him.

What I can provide is a fun hunt, with lots of game sighted, a chance to hunt alot of different places instead of just one place, a chance to hunt a bunch of different ways, and a chance to hunt wild hogs, not some pen raised crap they turn out a few days before you show. They won't have the hair worn off their butts from being on concrete floors.

Tom on a two day hunt with 15 guys i'd expect everyone to bag a hog and a couple to bag two or more. Your crackshots are going to do better, if you can hit a hog in the vitals as it barrels across a 20' sendero, your going to kill more than the guy who ought to be shooting no farther than over a table. If you can connect at 200yds your going to have a better chance than a guy who can only shoot 20yds.

We took the kid with MD awhile back, Jack had a couple restrictions, he had to shoot under 50yds, had to sit in a varmit seat, and had to have a standing shot. It took him four times as long as you or I to get lined up to shoot. The first night out he missed some pigs, second afternoon bagged an 80lb sow out of a group. In those two hunts I would have killed at least four.

I'd say if you didn't see hogs a couple things happened, you made to much noise, the wind blew so hard they layed up, you didn't want to hunt to hard, or you are just bad luck. :D

right now total land access is going to be close to 15,000acres between all the places.
 
You have good access. 5,3,0,2 is an average of 2.5 hogs per hunting trip of a few hours each it sounds like. Scaling up to taking 15 people and being successful is the hard part. You're talking multiple truckloads of hunters with 15 and only you and your buddy know where all the places are even. Are there blinds or you set people at corned spots or what? Maybe a smaller group would be better? 15,000 acres is plenty and there are plenty of hogs down there. The logistics for 15 hunters seems hard to me though. I would vote for the $0.50/lb instead of $100/hog. Plus, if one goes over the standard 300 lb scale, just call it 300 lbs. Just some of my thoughts. I know there's lots of hogs down there and you guys have good access, it sounds like. :cool:
 
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