Hunting hogs with small game guns

[Deimos]

Hello guys, I'm new here, and I'm having a problem with feral hogs at my dad's farm.
I have some tools to do the job, but the problem is that I never hunted hogs before.
I have an standart .22LR firearm, an .22 PCP air rifle and a 200 lbs crossbow.
My dad told me that any of these will kill a hog, and I belive that he could do it, he is a grat hunter. But I'm not, until today I only hunted small game .
I did killed a very large domestic pig with my PCP last week, but killing and hunting are NOT the same thing.
Did any of you guys ever hunted hogs with small game equipment?

[crashdive123]

Personally, I wouldn't use a 22 for hog hunting. Can you? Sure.....depending on hunting regulations. Should you? Probably not. Walking up to, and dispatching a domestic hog is one thing. Hunting is quite another. Your crossbow might be a better option.

[Deimos]

There is no need to worry about hunting relugations here. Hogs are considered an invasive species and can be hunted freely here at Brazil, as long as you are in a private land and give a thumbs up to the governement to let them know that you will be hunting at that specific plot of land.
My biggest concern is about quick and humane kills and my personal safety during the hunt. I know that some people can kill hogs even with an springer Air rifle, but I'm not playing games here. If my airgun or my firearm can't give me a clean kill, I will use my crossbow.
I hoped I didn't needed It, because it's cumbersome and hard to load.
Thanks for your advice.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Depends a lot on the hog too. They come in all shapes and sizes. If your purpose is simply to kill the hog the blaze away with whatever you've got. If you get some hits the hog will likely die someday and someplace that you don't have to deal with them. Hogs, in most cases, are destructive vermin.

However, when nice and fat on mast, they are quite tasty.

If you are trying to accomplish both the eradication (won't happen) and the table fare aspects then I would suggest getting a firearm using a round suitable for the job. There are many that will fill this role nicely. A 22 lr doesn't normally fit into the hog hunting category, but, if it's what you've got, then practice, practice, practice and pick and place your shots. At 30 - 50 yards, there's a one inch circle right behind a hog's ear that will stop it long enough for you to run up and ding them a few more times... I wouldn't wait too long though...

Also, I don't know about your Brazilian hogs, but ours have rather sharp tusks and they can use them with amazing efficiency if you start dragging them around when they aren't dead. Most Hog "Attacks" here occur when the hog is trying to get away from the human and the human happens to be standing in the exit.

If you choose to use your crossbow, get a good supply of bolts because you aren't getting a bunch of them back.


Good luck and good hunting. Post pictures of your success.

Alan

[kyratshooter]

Yea, let us know how that .22 thing works out.

I have both a PCP in .22 and a rifle or two in .22LR and I am not shooting a hog and pi$$ing him off with either of them.

I know hogs are "killed" with .22 shorts on the farm all the time but my experience and observation is that those hogs are simply knocked out by the blunt force and the "kill" happens when the jugular vein is severed almost immediately after the hog hits the ground.

I did have the privilege of shooting and sticking one once and having it jump out of the scalding troth and run all over the farm for another few minutes.

I do not know what Brazils firearms laws are but I believe shotguns are available and that is what I would be looking for, along with some heavy buckshot.

That's just me though. Wild hogs and wild women scare the crap out of me.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

I was all set up for butchering one day and pithed a big sow with a 45 a little low on the forehead. Before it calmed down she had torn up every bit of setup I had. The fire was all over the place, the rendering pot was upside down, my table, knives etc were scattered...

I've killed quite a few hogs with all sorts of things, knives, pipes, arrows, guns.... the bigger the gun the greater the success generally. I've had them drop on the spot and then other times they run 500 yards with no heart and lungs. Bigger doesn't alway do it either. I shot a 150#er one morning with a 35 Whelen using 250 gr Hornady Interlocks. Evidently it hit nothing of substance, went right on through and the hog ran off. Took me an hour to find it back in some pretty thick brush. Finding and dragging out are two different things...

The the hog numbers started to rise and the quail, turkey and anything else that lived on the ground started to fall off... we started a "Put a hole in any hog you see" program and numbers dropped off, to a lesser extent by attrition and to a greater extent by the hogs getting wise to the territory. It got to the point where if they heard a truck they lit a shuck... They soon became the neighbor's problems...

Alan

[Deimos]

We can have shotguns and rifles here, we just can't open carry them. But I don't have the budget to buy one this year (a firearm have the same price as an old used car here), and I need to help my father with this hog problem this season, before we start planting corn. I do want to drive them away but like I said I wont just shoot and see if they will die. They have some sharp tusks after all.
I think that I will use my crossbow for the big ones and the .22LR for the smaller ones. I will continue to use my Air rifle on small game only, because recharging the air with my manual pump is boring and I don't like to do pointless things. I will try to make some sausages to see if hog meat really taste like pork. My dad swears It does.
Thanks for the tips everyone.
Edit: I forgot to mention but my dad does have a shotgun and plenty of ammo, but he asked me to bring my own weapons since he only have the shotgun and an old Tauros Revolver.

[kyratshooter]

Deimos you need to look into some of the You tube videos concerning hog elimination here in the US. We have some professional hog hunters that go into areas with portable traps and eliminate the entire population on a farm in 2-3 nights by mass trapping.

It might be easier/cheaper for you to build a static trap, bait it, and kill the pigs with your .22 at arms distance rather than chase them around. Some very successful box traps are made from fence wire and angle iron bolted together.

There are also simple traps using T posts and fence wire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0BLwsq2gos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbFPZFxxde0

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Static traps work great. There are always those that are trap wise and spoil the fun. Our practice or shooting at them regardless of arm, ammo, or range, seems to build a healthy fear of man and will keep them out until the corn puts on. Then they don't care. Dogs are another option, but of course that requires a whole new set of issues and some more/different problems.

What you are doing is not hunting, you are doing nothing different than if you were spraying your crop with pesticides to kill weeds or insects that would harm the crop. You are removing these destructive animals by whatever means at hand. Shoot them with that 22, teach them to run when they hear you coming, protect your crop. There'll be fewer of them when the corn is ripe and they really get serious. You owe those hogs nothing. You can bet that If you found yourself injured and unable to defend yourself out in the brush, you would not like what they would do to you...

Alan

[Deimos]

Static traps work great. There are always those that are trap wise and spoil the fun. Our practice or shooting at them regardless of arm, ammo, or range, seems to build a healthy fear of man and will keep them out until the corn puts on. Then they don't care. Dogs are another option, but of course that requires a whole new set of issues and some more/different problems.

What you are doing is not hunting, you are doing nothing different than if you were spraying your crop with pesticides to kill weeds or insects that would harm the crop. You are removing these destructive animals by whatever means at hand. Shoot them with that 22, teach them to run when they hear you coming, protect your crop. There'll be fewer of them when the corn is ripe and they really get serious. You owe those hogs nothing. You can bet that If you found yourself injured and unable to defend yourself out in the brush, you would not like what they would do to you...

Alan

I talked with my father about traps, and we will go that route along with some shooting action when the oportunity presents itself.
Soon I will be asking you guys about sausage recipes.

[crashdive123]

Good luck. Hope it all works out for you.

[Deimos]

Good luck. Hope it all works out for you.

Well, it's too soon to call it a success but my dad installed several traps yesterday, and guess what? His neigbour got all worked up and will install some too. He is even planing to go hunting hogs with us and will sell me for a bargain's price an very old but still reliable and legal rifle in .44 caliber if neyther my .22LR or my crossbow do the trick.

[Batch]

I've seen slugs deflected by the shields on hogs. I have personally had a zombie hog come back to life after I shot it with a 12 guage slug at 75 yards and a .44 magnum at 5 yards. The .44 ricocheted off her head. It's all about the angles on the shield and skull.

[VnVet]

Here, the only feral hog hunters who use a .22 trap them and shoot them with a .22.

A few months ago, a hog hunter knocked on our door to ask permission to head up the road. He was driving a 4WD truck with a 6 dog hauler in the bed.
His chase dog pursued a hog up a mountain and down into the valley then up the mountain we live on. We could hear the hog start squealing when the dogs got a hold of it and it got quiet. My bet would be he used a knife or a spear.

Here, if one is on their own property, no license is required. A license is required even on deer lease land.

[kyratshooter]

When I was a kid I saw a picture in one of the monthly wildlife magazines of "way back then". Sports afield, Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, I don't remember which.

It was a picture of a hunter up a tree no bigger than your arm, holding on for dear life, with a wild boar at the base of the tree intent on eating him.

The pig had a broadhead arrow sticking out the top of its head! It was still going strong and the bow probably used to create this incident was lying on the ground under the tree.

Can you imagine going hunting and having that happen, then you yell for help. Rescue comes and the first thing they do after they stop laughing is start taking pictures!

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Back when I had less sense than money (which was in precious short supply), I had a bunch of sows and two boars. One was about a 550# Duroc and the other 400#ish Hampshire/Yorkshire cross... The Duroc would let me ride him. I refused to go in the pen with the other one. He had tusks that stuck straight out to the side and the Duroc had the scars on his shield to prove he could use them. Of course I had to keep them separate. I had a deeper respect (fear) of the H/Y cross than any wild hog I've ever crawled through the brush to drag out. Hunting with dogs is another thing all together. You still have to be careful (not to cut yourself), and you have to be able to run to get to the fight before he kills the dogs...

Alan

[Deimos]

Hello, everyone.
Yesterday I managed to kill a hog with my crossbow. I didn't take any photos because it wasn't pretty, he died by loss of blood. As I only have experience with small game like birds and rodents, and only used my crossbow for archery purposes, never for hunting, let alone an animal this big, it was pretty hard for me, but I think that the next time it will be easier. I don't even know why my stomach got weird, this never happens when I kill farm animals.
I recovered my bolt but the "el cheapo" boadhead that I was using is long gone now. That's not a problem, I have lots of them and even some quality ones.
I won't take the meat home with me, that meat looks kinda low on fat compared to pork, and I'm not a great cook, I would only mess it up. But my dad already invited me for a barbecue this weekend.
About the traps, my dad only got a piglet yet, and it already found it's way to my dad's freezer

[crashdive123]

Remember that you are ridding the area of vermin. Process and eat it when you can, but never feel bad about getting rid of destructive vermin.

[VnVet]

crashdive123 said it well!

https://wildlife-damage-management.e...of-feral-hogs/
As they don't sweat they need water to stay cool in hot weather. They will destroy a brook to create a wallow. They also prey on young animals and turkey poults.
Killing them is a good thing to do for the environment.

Feral hog is gamey tasting. Most hunters prefer the females or a male that their dogs chased or so they say. I've heard it is better when smoked; however, I haven't been hungry enough to smoke one. I shoot them and call DNR who hauls them away to be processed and given to local food banks.

[kyratshooter]

I think that part of that "gamey taste" of wild hogs is due to most of them being shot through with adrenaline when they are killed.

We always tried to be as careful as possible to not get the hogs on the farm excited during killing time. We tried to keep them calm during the loading and killing process.

I remember one that refused to get up the ramp into the truck and we had to get it really upset and squealing mad before it would load. We had 8 hogs in that batch and I know we lost two hams and two shoulders that never preserved properly. The meat had all been cooled, salted and smoked at the same time.

FIL reminded us that we had that one bad hog to load and figured that was the one that spoiled.

It's hard to kill a wild pig without getting it charged up.

As for a pretty kill, just remember that with a crossbow, regular bow, spear or knife you are killing by hemorrhage. They bleed to death. They do not die until they run out of blood to carry oxygen to their brain. That is the way it works and it takes a while. It is not like TV where everything just drops dead on the spot.

Back in the old days when people "tracked game" they were not usually tracking it to find and kill it, they were tracking wounded animals that were bleeding to death and trying to escape after they had been shot with gun, bow or spear. I have seen game shot with arrows run for a mile or more after a "good shot" to the heart or lungs.

Prey animals usually run away from the source of their pain, predators often to run toward it. They want to take it out, not escape it. Where hogs fall on that prey/predator behavior scale I am not sure.

While Native Americans were sometimes buried with necklaces of grizzly claws and teeth around their necks the ancient Europeans were buried with necklaces of wild boar tusks!