With winter finally in high gear and many hunting seasons winding down, land managers looking to improve their habitat need seek no farther than programs for hog removal and coyote control.
Populations of wild pigs in every shape, size and color are quickly on the rise across Mississippi, and an aggressive control program undertaken one property at a time appears to be the only recourse.
These opportunistic omnivores are hardy, effectively have no predators other than man, reproduce quickly and wreak havoc on any habitat they occupy, and officials with the Mississippi State University Extension Service say a permanent solution that gets rid of wild hogs anywhere once and for all is unlikely ever to be found, which means continuous population control is the way to go.
According to studies and hunter surveys quoted in the extension service’s content online, in any given group of wild hogs, between eight and 50 percent of the group’s population will be removed through regular hunting methods in the course of a year, with a 20 percent removal rate being the norm in most areas. Considering the frequency and size of new litters of wild pigs, officials calculate a 60 percent removal rate to be the bare minimum simply to keep any group’s population from expanding year to year, a tall order for regular hunting methods to fill.
Billy Higginbotham, with the Texas Agrilife Extension Service, says the trapping of wild hogs is a process, not an event.
Trappers should first use trail cameras to determine the number of pigs in the group, called a sounder, so that a trap of a size large enough to capture the whole sounder at once can be built.
Pigs are smart enough to learn from man’s failed attempts to eliminate them.
They respond to hunting pressure by adjusting their travel and feeding habits, and they learn from their own and fellow pigs mistakes. A pig that’s seen another pig trapped without being trapped himself is very unlikely ever to be trappable.
Location is key
Trap placement, Higginbotham says, is an art in itself. While the temptation is to place the trap in the exact area where the hog damage occurring, he says better success can be found by first backtracking the hogs to see where they may be hanging out during the day, typically an area of heavy cover near water, then place the trap upwind of their travel route from cover to feed. This way the prevailing wind will carry the scent of the bait to the hogs in route and be more likely to attract the entire group.
Once the trap is built, Higginbotham says, leave the gate off or wire it open and continue monitoring with trail cameras as you bait in and around the trap. Only after the camera shows the hogs are routinely entering the trap and eating the bait are you ready to begin setting the trap to trigger. This stage of the process may take a week, or it may take several weeks. Setting the trap too soon and catching the sounder’s most adventurous pig right in front of the rest of the group would be the worst possible scenario.
Higginbotham recommends using a soured bait, shelled corn that’s been allowed to sit in water, for example. A soured bait, he says, may or may not be more attractive to the hogs, but it’s much less likely to be eaten by non-target species. Nobody needs a hog trap full of raccoons and whitetail deer.
For more information about wild hogs, go online to wildpiginfo.msstate.edu.
Wiley coyotes
The added measure of challenge found hunting coyotes in the smaller spaces most commonly found around fields and farms the critters call home here can mean far more in the way of benefits than difficulties.
Since calls are made to coyotes that may well be within a couple hundred yards at the outset, a quiet approach and the direction of the wind become more important. The choice of firearm and optics may be impacted, and time spent calling effectively per setup may be shortened. On the other hand, the number and variety of setups available within a given area may well be greatly increased.
Call and move
One of the happy consequences of hunting tight places is the opportunity to change calling locations without changing zip codes. It’s still necessary to move a mile or so, but in a tight places hunt, it’s very possible to have several choices of terrain and set up within a mile. Among those choices will be those best hunted on a south wind, a north wind, a swirling wind, some early, some late and so on.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 24 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
