If you keep up with the blog or the SC Hog Removal page you know we’ve been getting calls from local farmers with hog problems. We’ve been staying after these hogs as it seems they can reproduce nearly as fast as we can get them off a farmer’s property. It’s a full-time job to keep them at bay and we are having fun with it.

Big & J Hog Attractants
We have been using the Big & J hog attractants “Hogs Hammer It” and “Pigs Dig It” in combination with corn and I can tell you that the hogs do like it! When they come in they stay until all the corn is gone and leave the place looking like a tractor had plowed through it. Here again leading up to this hunt we’d put out the corn and attractants and hoped things would line up.

Labor Day Weekend
I had to hang around for a day or so this Labor Day weekend and so why not see if the hogs were moving I thought. It was also the first day of deer hunting season in my game zone so I went deer hunting before dark, got some food afterwards and then headed out for hogs.

As it was a holiday weekend some of my hunting partners were unable to go, but at the same time some of my friends were back at home for the holiday. I was able to talk Garth Knight into going hunting with me. I let him know the hogs had been acting oddly lately as far as their feeding schedule so I was not sure what would happen.

A Short Hog Hunt!
Garth and I set up overlooking a field that was not far from a swamp. We’d been getting hogs on camera at all hours of the night. Sometimes they would be solo and sometimes they’d be about 15 of them so I didn’t know what to expect. We got there and got setup around 9:15 or so. I was telling Garth about all the lessons we’d learned with night vision technologies, guns, and the way the hogs had been acting lately.

Every few minutes I checked the bottom of the field looking for heat signatures. We’d been there about 45 minutes when I was telling Garth about how the scope can live-stream hunts to the phone. I got up to turn the Wi-Fi on and as I looked through the scope I saw some bright spots coming through the woods. I told him they were on the way! So we finished streaming the video to the phone and just watched as the hogs approached.

I wanted to give the hogs a few minutes to ensure there were no more coming because sometimes there would be large groups trailing the hogs. So we watched the hogs eating the corn for a few minutes. Nothing seemed to be coming behind these hogs so I decided it was time to take action. I asked Garth if he wanted to shoot and he said he’d hold off this time. It took me a little bit to pick out which hog was bigger and I flipped into black hot mode once to see if that would help. Finally, I was able to figure out the hog on the left was the bigger hog and I told Garth to get ready.

A few seconds later, thanks to the Anderson Rifles AM-10 308 Hunter + Pulsar Trail XP 50, the bigger hog was on the ground! Not bad for the first day of deer hunting season right 😉

We had quite the eventful weekend last weekend. If you read the “Big & J Hogs Hammer It and Pigs Dig It Helps Get Rid of Nuisance South Carolina Hogs” blog that posted on Monday then you are aware of the local farmer who had reached out to us to assist with his hog problem. Although we expected multiple hogs to come out on the first hunt we only ended up seeing one.

So we returned for another hunt a day or so later…

The hogs had stayed away for a day, but on day 2 they wiped out all the remaining corn that was saturated with Big & J Hog attractant. The farmer notified us of what the hogs had done overnight and so we knew we needed to be back down at the farm sooner than later.

After replenishing the corn, I went down to the farm on a solo hunt as my hunting partners were unable to come on this specific night. The farmer sat with me and we watched the corn pile for a while and were ready to handle business. However, nothing moved just after dark. We sat and strategized what we would do when certain hogs arrived, but nothing was moving. The farmer had to pack it in for the night so I remained on the gun watching the field.

Shortly after the farmer left 3 deer came out and grazed through the field. I watched them for a while in the scope. Then 2 more deer entered the field. Interestingly, the deer did not eat the corn that had the Big & J hog attractant on it (which is a good sign to me!). Eventually the deer exited the field into some nearby woods.

From Reading a Devotional to Shooting a Hog
I was reading a devotional on the bible app and I would stop every couple of minutes and scan the field. I’ve hunted hogs enough to know that the hunt can change in an instant because these hogs don’t hesitate too much when they come into a field and they move more quickly than you might expect. I read and scanned, read and scanned, and towards the end of the devotional I noticed a blob of heat on the corn! While I was reading, a group of hogs, 1 female and several piglets, had gotten out into the middle of the field.

I knew it was game time.

I got in the gun and watched this group for a few minutes. I scanned the edges looking to see if any more were nearby or entering the field. I didn’t see any sign of other hogs coming in so I continued to watch. I knew I was going to shoot the big one, but it was just a waiting game.

I don’t like to shoot in the middle of a white blob of heat because it’s hard to tell exactly what you’re aiming at and sometimes the piglets are taller than you think. Translation: I didn’t want to get a piglet and miss the big one so I waited on the right opportunity to present itself. I needed the big hog to separate herself far enough so that I could get a silhouette of her body and know where I was aiming.

While I watched them feed something funny happened. One of the piglets went behind the female and the larger female cut the piglet a flip! She kicked the piglet and it somersaulted backwards and when it landed it just got right back up and kept rooting. It was pretty funny. I couldn’t believe what I’d witnessed.

A few seconds later the large female advanced forward aggressively and this singled herself out. It was just the sight I was waiting for. I flipped the safety off and squeezed the trigger really slow. The Anderson Arms AM-10 308 that I have has a long trigger pull and in hopes of not flinching on my shot I always try to ensure the gun surprises me when it goes off. I hope for the smooth trigger pull. I put the cross hairs on this hogs shoulder and squeezed off.

The boom echoed through the field and down to the creek.

The large hog instantly fell and within a second the piglets scurried out of the field. Since the large hog was on the ground, my job shooting was essentially done. I waited a while and started loading up the truck.

Loading a Hog By Yourself Ain’t Easy
I took the shot at about 11:58 and with my hunting partners not around it was me… and well me… that had to load the hog up. When I got down to the hog I realized she was bigger than I thought. Getting her in the truck wouldn’t be as easy as it normally is when you have help.

Ultimately, I ended up dragging the hog to the side of the field and then walking up the bumper to the tailgate with one of the hog’s legs in my hand. When I got in the bed of the truck the weight of the hog was very heavy to hold on to so I had to essentially lay down on my stomach and grab the other leg with my other hand. With both legs in hand I then had to figure a way to stand up. It reminded me of a dead lift that we used to do in high school and college football except this was more awkward and off balance. If you would have seen me you would have laughed, but once I got my feet under me I was able to pull the hog in the truck using the tailgate as a lever. I hope that’s the last time I have to load a big hog up by myself!

And since there was no one there to take a pic of me and the hog I had to take a hog selfie!

It was a great hunt and yet another nuisance hog is in the freezer at the processor!

Do You Have Hog Problems?
If you have hog problems we’re happy to help. Learn more about how we are helping land owners and farmers with their hog problems on the SC Hog Removal page.

Another South Carolina Farmer With Nuisance Hog Problems
We’ve recently been in communications with another local farmer who’s crop were being demolished by hogs. On this specific farmer’s land, the hogs showing up and rooting his crop fields was a new occurrence. Frustrated and not exactly sure of how to solve this problem the farmer asked us how quickly we could help him out. Within a day we had game cameras set up and were getting recon on the hog’s pattern on this specific property.

Big & J Hog Products Help the Hunt
In this setup the area where the hogs were showing up was narrow in nature. The field makes kind of a point where the hogs have easy access and had been rooting. This meant we most likely wouldn’t get multiple shots and would need to get the hogs to the middle of this area of the field.

To coax the hogs into the middle of the field we used something that would be memorable for them, Big & J’s new Hog attractant products. We spread both Hogs-Hamer-It and Pigs-Dig-It on top of corn in the middle of this point in the field. And it didn’t take long before we had them coming in and loving what Big & J’s products had to offer!

Only One Hog Came Through
Due to the amount of damage we’d been seeing on this property we anticipated seeing several hogs, but on this hunt, it didn’t play out that way. The wind was not in our favor and was blowing pretty strong. We sat for a while and shot the breeze. Early in the night we had a deer that kept walking through the field and right around midnight we had a solo hog come in and go straight to the Big & J hog attractant marinated corn pile!

For us it’s rare to see a solo hog like this unless it was a really big male. So we waited thinking that more would eventually come out. And we waited and waited and waited. It seemed like forever, but it was probably around 10 minutes or so. Evidently the hog was there by itself. We decided to go ahead and pull the trigger because we didn’t want that one to get out of there before we could get a shot off and nothing else seemed to be showing up.

As you can see on the video below, the Anderson Arms 308 with Pulsar Trail XP50 made quick work of this hog. The hog flopped on the spot and our tracking job was easy! We loaded her up, took some pics, and took her to the processor.

Another nuisance South Carolina hog headed to the freezer.

Do You Have Hog Problems?
If you have hog problems we’re happy to help. Learn more about how we are helping land owners and farmers with their hog problems on the SC Hog Removal page.