I’ve shot my share of wild hogs over the years, mostly in Texas and Florida. I knew this invasive species was a general nuisance that rooted up crops and competed with deer for food sources. But it wasn’t until I went down to South Georgia and talked with the locals and hunted pigs for a few days on TV that I realized what a serious problem expanding populations of hogs are in many parts of the country.
“Somebody rides through this property every day, looking for and trying to eradicate hogs,” says landowner Robbie Barkley. “Hogs are in our feed patches, in the yard…they’re everywhere.”
“People who don’t have hogs in their area don’t realize how destructive they are,” says Georgia hunter Jay Chambless. “It’s a 24/7 effort 365 days a year just to try to control them a little bit.”
I hunted and filmed and talked to the locals for 3 days, and then came home and researched feral hogs for a week as I wrote the script for the episode “Hog Wild,” which will first air on the Sportsman Channel on Wednesday August 22 at 7:30 PM Eastern Time. Here’s some of what you’ll see and hear on the show, written in random fashion.
In the 1500s, explorers like Hernando de Soto brought hogs to America as a food source. In the 1900s, wealthy landowners introduced the Eurasian wild boar into parts of the U.S. for sport hunting. Today’s feral swine are a combination of escaped domestic pigs, Eurasian boar, and hybrids of the two. This invasive species has greatly expanded its range and numbers, into the millions, over the last 35 years.
I’ve shot most of my hogs from deer stands and on stalks, or with dogs. But I’d never hunted them at night with thermal technology. Aaron Adkins (above) of Trijicon Electro Optics is here to show us the ropes. I am now addicted to thermal hunting!
For pig firepower, we used and tested and DPMS GII .308 Hunter rifles, and they were both a pleasure and a blast to shoot (super accurate, no recoil). Aaron topped one of the AR rifles with a thermal Trijicon REAP-IR, and I topped the other with a 2.5-10X Accupower scope for last-light shots at hogs. We shot Remington HTP .308 168-grain ammo.
According to the U.S Dept. Of Agriculture, feral swine cause more than $1.5 billion in damage each year to property, crops and livestock. To a local farmer, hogs are not just a nuisance, but a threat to his livelihood.
In 2014, in response to the increasing damage and disease threats posed by expanding populations of hogs, Congress appropriated $20 million to the US Department of Agriculture for the creation of a national feral swine damage management program. Control efforts range from trapping and euthanizing hogs to aerial gunning where legal and practical. Everyday hunters like you and me can play a key role in the ongoing efforts.
Feral hogs breed year-round; a sow can have 2 litters of 4 to 8 piglets a year (some say as many as 12 piglets).
A feral hog can run 30 mph.
We ended up killing a few pigs and having a blast at night with the Trijicon thermals. Again “Hog Wild” airs August 22 at 7:30 PM on Sportsman, set your DVR.
