|
Post by the priest on Jun 16, 2009 14:32:42 GMT -5
I had the Discovery channel on last night. They have a program on now that talks about wild hogs and the damage they're doing across the country. They mentioned $50,000,000 worth of damage in Texas last year alone.
The big story was how fast they're spreading for some reason and that they're now in as many as 40 states.
It gave me a little insight on what Mark and Co. are going through.
|
|
|
Post by zeus on Jun 16, 2009 15:58:20 GMT -5
They are VERY destructive to the place I hunt on down on the MS river. You can have a really nice looking field one day and the next day it looks like someone disced it up again from all the rooting during the night. We don't shoot a lot of them but we are killing more than we used to just to try and keep down the population. The guy that actually owns the place really likes them and loves to chase them with the dogs so he doesn't want to kill them out. They are fun to hunt though....
|
|
|
Post by nobearsyet on Jun 16, 2009 17:16:03 GMT -5
They'll destroy anything they can get into, bes tto shoot them on sight
|
|
|
Post by cstokes on Jun 16, 2009 17:58:46 GMT -5
It is in the terms of our lease from the timber company that we kill every hog we see. They are that destructive.
|
|
|
Post by Flatlander on Jun 17, 2009 17:38:43 GMT -5
$50,000,000 in property damage may be conservative ...
I currently have a paltry 50 acres planted in hybrid grain sorghum. It will be a race against the hogs to get any use out of it. Wheat crops planted in the fall won't be as bad, til it heads out in the spring.
You can't kill them out. You can control the population and the extent of damage by shooting all of them that you can. They respond quickly to hunting pressure out here ... they will go away, then come back as nocturnals, then start showing up at dawn and dusk, then be a real nuisance.
They are fun to hunt though. I've lately been assaulting them with a Colt LE6920 .223 with an Eotech 553 mounted up and a Les Baer TRS 45. The 223 is not quite enough gun ... though I did get one string of seven hogs on the ground one evening, that was fun ... so I recently picked up an Armalite A-10 308 and a bunch of 20 round magazines.
Great practice.
|
|
|
Post by paul105 on Jun 17, 2009 18:31:29 GMT -5
Mark,
When you get a chance to wring out your AR10, I'd be interested to know how it shoots. I have an AR10 carbine and I'm having trouble getting it to shoot with reasonable accy (2 - 2 1/2 MOA is what Armalite claims) -- I get about twice that with a scope, Nosler Match Bullets and a free float forend tube. It's a really fun gun to shoot - not at all punishing, but the lack of accuracy has been disappointing. In all fairness, I got discouraged and haven't really given the gun a fair shake.
Paul
|
|
|
Post by Flatlander on Jun 17, 2009 19:21:08 GMT -5
So far, so good. This is the first load I tried in it. Haven't been home but a few days since I got it, and haven't been able to shoot past 50 yards yet.
|
|
|
Post by targetshootr on Jun 17, 2009 20:17:39 GMT -5
I saw a program like that last night. They were saying some of those are Russian boars someone imported and then they bred with native hogs. They seemed to have bad tempers.
|
|
|
Post by Markbo on Jul 4, 2009 9:23:13 GMT -5
Paul I can't help you with your carbine necessarily but I have an AR10(T) that will simply shoot 165-168gr loads ONLY. I have not been able to get any other bullet weight to shoot nearly as good. With a couple of 168gr loads it is a 1"/200yard shooter with me behind the trigger.
|
|
|
Post by nobearsyet on Jul 4, 2009 11:54:18 GMT -5
Best thing I have found for hogs to date has been a 44Mag or a 30-30 withe 300grn. XTPs and any old 170grn. flatnosed respectively, but one of these days I'll make it back to Texas to kill one with a knife
|
|