I recently was introduced to the owner of Elk Springs Ranch north of Saint Jo, Texas who told me that hogs had 'busted through' his fence back in February. He showed me the patched hole. Weird. No way for a tractor or anything to hit it (trees near the hole) but something opened up a hole and hogs got in to the 800 acre ranch. This place is a warren of valleys, peaks and bluffs, more than a dozen ponds, countless seeps, 1 permanent natural spring, and few larger open spaces. A tour of the property revealed rooting in just about every pasture and by every little meadow by each of the ponds and several of the seeps.
He had in a trapper, but the trap kept catching deer. That wasn't good. Several folks have offered to run dogs for on the place, but all warned that while they won't go after deer, they had no idea what they might do with some of the other exotics. So that wasn't good either. Hence a new opportunity...
Night #1 at the property and I found a small group of hogs intermixed with fallow and whitetail deer. There was no way to take a shot because there were always deer somewhere behind the hogs. Of note was an extremely large boar that went of into the high grass and bellowed several times.
Last night was my 2nd visit. I returned to the area where the boar bellowed at me, poured out some corn along a vehicle path and waited. I got to see red deer, fallow deer, white-tail deer, scimitar oryx, llama, black buck, and ram before it finally got dark. That was pretty neat. Finally, I saw a small hog come out of the trees and into a ravine at a couple hundred yards and a few minutes later, the boar came out, only I could not tell for certain for a while that it was a boar. I had discovered that exotic animals present some confusing silhouettes on thermal. Hogs and any predators are fair game...
He had in a trapper, but the trap kept catching deer. That wasn't good. Several folks have offered to run dogs for on the place, but all warned that while they won't go after deer, they had no idea what they might do with some of the other exotics. So that wasn't good either. Hence a new opportunity...
Night #1 at the property and I found a small group of hogs intermixed with fallow and whitetail deer. There was no way to take a shot because there were always deer somewhere behind the hogs. Of note was an extremely large boar that went of into the high grass and bellowed several times.
Last night was my 2nd visit. I returned to the area where the boar bellowed at me, poured out some corn along a vehicle path and waited. I got to see red deer, fallow deer, white-tail deer, scimitar oryx, llama, black buck, and ram before it finally got dark. That was pretty neat. Finally, I saw a small hog come out of the trees and into a ravine at a couple hundred yards and a few minutes later, the boar came out, only I could not tell for certain for a while that it was a boar. I had discovered that exotic animals present some confusing silhouettes on thermal. Hogs and any predators are fair game...
