Ive been reading more about feral hogs , and according to the DNR in Illinois, the county my dad lives in is suppose to be overrun with them. But no one he knows has seen any. I also read they are mostly nocturnal, so i was thinking of picking up a few of the cheaper trail cameras and placing them on his property. Now , I have worked on hog farms, and can find pigs there, but I have no idea about in the wild. How would I know if I have a spot that might capture a little piggy?

In Illinois, like Missouri and Texas, and others, you dont need anything to hunt pigs, just a weapon and ability to find them. No limit either.

go for the mud and when there are trees nearby, you will also get a good idea about it's height by looking at the mud put on the tree.

Agreed with Aloy...food mud and shade.

Man I need to come out to them states. They treat hog's here like sacred cows. We can hunt them on public land but it's so not worth it- too expensive for a lot of reasons. High-fence ranches charge over a grand for these useless walking bullet traps and even toss on tusk fees by the inch!

stovepipe wrote:

Agreed with Aloy...food mud and shade. Man I need to come out to them states. They treat hog's here like sacred cows. We can hunt them on public land but it's so not worth it- too expensive for a lot of reasons. High-fence ranches charge over a grand for these useless walking bullet traps and even toss on tusk fees by the inch!

Agreed Stovie, you need to get out of Kalifornia and see what the real US is. The pigs are just starting to make a dent here and it's open shoot year round on them. There are some places in Texas that you can hire for a copter shoot and pay big bucks also.

And thats what irks me, here the farmers want you to hunt on their land and get rid of the feral pigs and heck, if you get one one their land, it's mandatory that you stay and have a home cooked meal with them.

BTW Dan, here's a pic of what wild pigs do to land.

Here in LaLa Land- all life is sacred....so they are moving felon's from the pen's into out local jails and kicking the banger's and thugs from local lockdowns to make room for them. This place is so out of control it aint funny...

24 mos to go.

I notice that Texas and OK , where they have a plethora of hogs and its free to shoot as many as you want, its hard to do it without paying a grand or more. The more I thought of this the more I wondered if that was not due to the high cost of liability insurance ? If your letting someone hunt on your ground, and they get hurt, your liable. I'm sure insurance companies will charge a premium for that, being as we live in a sue happy country. Remember, that person who promises not to worry about it, will often end up hiring an attorney if it does happen.

Thanks for the photo Omni, I have seen spots like that on my dad property, but before I knew they had feral hogs, I just though it was deer. My daughters think the deer are having a ho down there. lol

pigs look for protein because under the grass they can find all kind of wurms.
Try to use corn as bait, don't give the entire cob but only the grain. They take corn cob and run/hide. With the grain they have to stay at the spot. Even put the grain in a barrel with some small holes so that they have to work to get it out.
Have fun.

water,mud shade, scrub, or better still a rotting carcase pigs just love eating meat thats on the turn. if its your dads place and he has a dead cow dumping spot its worth checking out. look for pig trails under fences. a wallowing spot in mud is a great spot to locate them too if water is short start at a watering hole and work your way out to find a spot to set up your camera. pigs generaly come out at the same time each day.the rooting that is in the picture Omni has shown looks to have been done by a young pig (under 50lb) because its not very deep the wee fellas turn over the earth looking for grubs etc. rain =wet ground=easy earth turning. hunting pigs on a drizzly day after rain is great.

Just put up a feeder and they will come.

put a hot wire/electric fence around it with only 1 way in and you could take the lot. pigs just hate electric fences. If you put one up in the back country the pigs will not go through it even if they have been going that way for generations.

They just run through them here.
Just give a bit of a squeal as they touch and go through.
They do take a run up as they know what to expect

I'm heading down to my dads in a couple days, and plan on putting up some small feeders and a couple cameras if I can get them in time for the trip. If not, I will just put up the feeders and get the cameras next trip.
Lots of great info and thats to one and all.

Tikkat3 our electric fences will make your eyes water they have one heck of a boot if built right.I used to be able to hang on to the fences on a dairy farm but no way with the good ones we built in the back blocks those puppies sure had a boot.

Set up an arc mesh "maze" trap with a one way gate that leads into a holding pen. Works in the area we hunt. A bit of a zig zag with the gate part way along leading into a pen with the feeder...no problems.

Cheers, Vince

any progress Dan???