Hog Hunting In The Time Of Coronavirus
The Federalist,
by
John Daniel Davidson
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
4/28/2020 5:17:09 AM
Preparing for a hog hunt is like preparing for the end of the world. You need a reliable rifle and ammunition, of course, but you also need a bunch of other stuff—a sidearm, maps, binoculars, compass, flashlight, knife, raingear, boots, food and water, two-way radios. Once you’re all geared up, you can’t help but think that if the end came, you’d be ready.
The feeling is even more intense when you go hog hunting during a global pandemic. It might not be the apocalypse, but when it comes to buying guns and ammo—or toilet paper—it might as well be.
I know, because I recently went on a hog hunt in East Texas.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Flyball Dogs 4/28/2020 6:08:49 AM (No. 393975)
Fun read. It’s not too pandemic-related and more intelligent than reading about the Sussexes. (Although those reads have a place, too)
Plus which, i rarely skip anything OP posts.
Happy hunting.
4 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 4/28/2020 7:14:35 AM (No. 394016)
The biggest hogs are in Washington DC. Unfortunately for the country only four leg and small two leg hogs are ever in season.
11 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
GO3 4/28/2020 7:33:13 AM (No. 394031)
Last year at our place there were only a few hogs which did a little damage. This year a pack of 20 or so hit us hard. I could step out the back door and start shooting. After that they scattered and on succeeding nights the somewhat distant neighbors opened up. Collective effort, is good, but it never ends.
8 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
rikkitikki 4/28/2020 7:53:39 AM (No. 394042)
Related historical anecdote: I recall reading of a much earlier encounter of the hog kind when the rather famous architect of Central Park in NYC, Frederic Law Olmstead, was on a hunting 'safari' in Texas...in the 1850s. One mid-day, while the group was away from camp, a group of wild hogs found their unattended campsite, and tore it apart looking for something to eat. As I recall, Olmstead documented the incident in a journal he was keeping, which is how the story survived. That camp was located near the same town as in this article...Crockett, TX.
6 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
rikkitikki 4/28/2020 7:57:34 AM (No. 394049)
In addition to any pigs the Spanish may have set loose, the early Texas settlers often let their pigs roam freely about and feed on forage (cheaper to keep them), and those free-range pigs had ample opportunity to leave their offspring to go feral.
Only my speculation, but I suspect the overall hog population took a big hit during the Great Depression of the late 1920's, as did the White Tailed Deer population (lots of hungry folks with more ammo than food), but whose recovery was accelerated by the proliferation of corn feeders put out by an expanding group of deer hunters in the 1970s and 1980s.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
MattMusson 4/28/2020 7:59:55 AM (No. 394052)
If God did not want us to hunt pigs - He would not have made them out of bacon.
13 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
MickTurn 4/28/2020 8:09:52 AM (No. 394068)
Hog as in Reporters for the MSM?
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 4/28/2020 8:13:17 AM (No. 394074)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure early settlers did NOT just let their hogs roam free all the time. The pigs would have disappeared--ohhh, about the first day and never come back. However, when times got tough--which is a VERY frequent event in many parts of Texas--people did turn their hogs loose because they couldn't feed them anymore.
And now the grandchildren of those pig-freers complain day and night about the "problem" their grandpappy created! Go figure!
Again, they're not a problem; they're an opportunity!
4 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Edgelady 4/28/2020 8:39:27 AM (No. 394111)
I live 19 miles from Hearne, rural area. At least once a week I have to slow down while a herd of hogs go over the road while I’m driving into town. They seem completely unconcerned that I’m there, perhaps a bit irritated by it. They’re prolific, destructive. I have concealed carry, but don’t have long guns in the car. Besides, even though it’s a country road because it is a road it would be dangerous to pull out a gun and start waling away at the damned things because a car could appear on the horizon or around the curve at any minute. They’ve become emboldened.
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
HotRod 4/28/2020 10:03:14 AM (No. 394213)
Here in Florida we even have licensed hog-catchers that trap them, keep them penned up for a specified period of time and then are permitted to sell them. They must follow state guidelines for the process, and are monitored for compliance. The one I talked to said he had no trouble selling them.
5 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Digger 4/28/2020 11:08:33 AM (No. 394266)
On a deer hunt in south Texas several years ago, the ranch hands trapped hogs. They told me they castrated the boars, knocked out their tusks, clipped their ears and turned them loose. I asked why. Castrating and turning them loose made for good meat when they were harvested. Knocking out the tusks kept them from rooting, digging and causing damage. Why clip their ears? Those were the castrated ones which were good to eat.
3 people like this.
So glad he explained all that to those high rise city dweller mavens. It seems those hogs need birth control.
0 people like this.
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