Let me give you a bit of background on me. I’ve been hunting hogs for over 20 years along with many other species of animals {predators 31+ years}. I’m not a very patient person, so I spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how to make animals come to me quick!!!!!!! I can’t stand to sit and watch feeders. I want to cover as much ground as I can and either get on targets or make them come to me quick! I wish I had a dollar back for all the gimmicks and gadgets I’ve bought over the years trying to make me something I wasn’t at the time. I always knew there had to be a way to call hogs. There had to be. Any animal that vocalizes to communicate will respond to a call. It’s just a matter of figuring out what to say and when. I had tried everything with limited success over the years and had just about given up. A strange thing happened over time and guess what I became a better hog hunter without calling. I still had the desire to call them in.
One day while listening to a boar attempting to breed a sow I discovered a few new things. For one I was unable to get to the hogs undetected, so I sat and recorded the sounds with my video camera. I also filmed many boars coming and going from many different directions. This taught me that they were responding to more than just the odor of a sow in heat. They were responding to the sounds as well. I practiced those sounds on an ordinary grunt tube, until my wife was sick of hearing it! A few weeks later as I sat in a bow stand deer hunting, I heard two boars fighting. I was able to call one of those hogs to me several times. Make a long story short I went back to the same area a few days later and killed 7 hogs by calling with an ordinary deer grunt tube.
This fueled my fire to learn more. I caught juvenile hogs and raised them. I performed a c-section on a dead sow and raised two of the baby boars. In the last 6 years I’ve learned so much from those hogs and more that it is unreal. So you see I’ve taken it to extremes. I can’t recommend that anyone else do this or even watch farm hogs because there is a difference. Not everyone can go to these extremes and I realize this. However if you pay attention to what I’m trying to tell you or watch the seminar from the world expo you might learn a few things about hogs even if you are never able to call one.
Here’s the deal on calling hogs. If you are not already consistent at finding and killing hogs on a regular basis, don’t waste your time or money buying calls. Calling hogs is not a magic trick to make you an instant hog hunter. Just aint gonna happen! Hogs calls are however a tool to improve your odds in the right situations once you’ve mastered your other hunting skills. They can be called with grunt tubes and e-callers. Very few companies offer more than squeals and feeding hogs. Neither of those sounds is going to be very product consistently. You need breeding sounds, fighting sounds, social grunts; protection sounds and as a last resort squeals. Most of these sounds can be made with a simple grunt tube. I happen to use a haydel’s grunt tube or a foxpro.
There is going to be a time when calling hogs doesn’t work at all. There will be times when they run away. And there will be times they nearly run over you! It is no different in that aspect than calling any other species of animal. For you guys that hunt multi species and try calling, you know what I’m talking about. How many of you have called to gobblers, whitetail bucks, coyotes, bobcats etc. that you could clearly see. Yet they would not respond. How many times have you done the same and had them flee the area like the devil was after them? Ah but then there are those times that they come in on a string! Those few times when it all comes together is what makes you keep doing it.
There are so many variables that affect response regardless of species it’s just too complicated to get into in one post. I will mention a few.
Hunting pressure has an impact of course.
Terrain plays a role.
And don’t forget the individual personalities of the animal in question. I know that sounds like an anti nut comment. There are as many different personalities as there are days in the week and circumstances help form the response from each individual. Often you hear this referred to as “educated” I call it “conditioned response”.
Please watch the seminar video. It will answer a lot of questions. If you have a serious interest or questions I will be glad to answer.
a little ways into the seminar I play video clips of hogs vocalizing in responce to the calling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYKGFbbYwbU&list=PL0et1cMOo0BCI2mEYDLtOWOW0lR6Y-Kjl
One day while listening to a boar attempting to breed a sow I discovered a few new things. For one I was unable to get to the hogs undetected, so I sat and recorded the sounds with my video camera. I also filmed many boars coming and going from many different directions. This taught me that they were responding to more than just the odor of a sow in heat. They were responding to the sounds as well. I practiced those sounds on an ordinary grunt tube, until my wife was sick of hearing it! A few weeks later as I sat in a bow stand deer hunting, I heard two boars fighting. I was able to call one of those hogs to me several times. Make a long story short I went back to the same area a few days later and killed 7 hogs by calling with an ordinary deer grunt tube.
This fueled my fire to learn more. I caught juvenile hogs and raised them. I performed a c-section on a dead sow and raised two of the baby boars. In the last 6 years I’ve learned so much from those hogs and more that it is unreal. So you see I’ve taken it to extremes. I can’t recommend that anyone else do this or even watch farm hogs because there is a difference. Not everyone can go to these extremes and I realize this. However if you pay attention to what I’m trying to tell you or watch the seminar from the world expo you might learn a few things about hogs even if you are never able to call one.
Here’s the deal on calling hogs. If you are not already consistent at finding and killing hogs on a regular basis, don’t waste your time or money buying calls. Calling hogs is not a magic trick to make you an instant hog hunter. Just aint gonna happen! Hogs calls are however a tool to improve your odds in the right situations once you’ve mastered your other hunting skills. They can be called with grunt tubes and e-callers. Very few companies offer more than squeals and feeding hogs. Neither of those sounds is going to be very product consistently. You need breeding sounds, fighting sounds, social grunts; protection sounds and as a last resort squeals. Most of these sounds can be made with a simple grunt tube. I happen to use a haydel’s grunt tube or a foxpro.
There is going to be a time when calling hogs doesn’t work at all. There will be times when they run away. And there will be times they nearly run over you! It is no different in that aspect than calling any other species of animal. For you guys that hunt multi species and try calling, you know what I’m talking about. How many of you have called to gobblers, whitetail bucks, coyotes, bobcats etc. that you could clearly see. Yet they would not respond. How many times have you done the same and had them flee the area like the devil was after them? Ah but then there are those times that they come in on a string! Those few times when it all comes together is what makes you keep doing it.
There are so many variables that affect response regardless of species it’s just too complicated to get into in one post. I will mention a few.
Hunting pressure has an impact of course.
Terrain plays a role.
And don’t forget the individual personalities of the animal in question. I know that sounds like an anti nut comment. There are as many different personalities as there are days in the week and circumstances help form the response from each individual. Often you hear this referred to as “educated” I call it “conditioned response”.
Please watch the seminar video. It will answer a lot of questions. If you have a serious interest or questions I will be glad to answer.
a little ways into the seminar I play video clips of hogs vocalizing in responce to the calling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYKGFbbYwbU&list=PL0et1cMOo0BCI2mEYDLtOWOW0lR6Y-Kjl
