Steve at The Firearm Blog has a posting about hunting feral hogs with night vision.
As of this writing Steve’s posting actually has a mix-up regarding the hog hunting businesses, but a bit fortuitous as he writes-up the Night Hogs outfit that I went hunting with back in July 2009. I notified Steve via a comment, and hopefully he’ll remedy things soon.
I’ve actually had some thoughts about calling Randy and Gerald back up and doing another hunt. Just not right now… too cold. 🙂
Stuff From Hsoi 
My property out in Caldwell county isn’t very far at all from where the Night Hogs guys do their hunting at and we too have a huge hog problem out there. Hunting at night is pretty much the only way you are going to shoot a hog since these critters are primarily nocturnal. I do happen to own a set of relatively inexpensive Russian night vision binoculars, but gen3+ night vision optics and supressed rifles are WAAAAAAAY outside my price range for hunting toys.
I have had good luck hunting over solar powered feeder lights. Basically you setup a solar/battery powered high intensity LED cluster light to shine on your feeder all night long (it automatically switches off when the sun comes up). Eventually, the hogs get used to this setup and come to the feeder during the night regardless of whether the light is on (as verified by game camera). Once they get complacent, just crawl up in your stand near the feeder an hour or so before when they commonly show up using cheaper night vision binos for spotting but use regular sights/optics for shooting while they are under the feeder. I am not convinced that supressors help all that much with hog hunting. They are generally smart enough to realize when one of their own has been hurt and aren’t going to stick around to figure out why, regardless of how loud the actual shot is (as evidenced by seeing hogs taken by bow scatter the herd just as indefinitely as a rifle shot).
Of course the most efficient method of taking hogs is trapping, but even that has diminishing marginal returns after awhile. The reason they are such a formidable pest is precisely because of their intelligence, which is something akin towards the upper end of canine intelligence. Luckily, they are also quite tasty so it looks like there will be plenty of opportunity for escalation. 🙂
I’m serious about the offer to come shoot/hunt on my property if you have the desire. I can’t offer the same amenities as the Night Hogs guys but the price/trade would be considerably less. Email me offline and we can discuss the details if you’re interested.
I know about the feeder light setup. One of the guys on my deer lease actually set that up on one of our feeders just for that reason. I’ve just been unable to go out and take advantage of it.
I’m not sure the suppressors help with the hogs because yeah, they all do run off… the hit hog freaks, the others freak as a result. BUT what it does help out with are the neighbors. You’re hunting at night… people hearing gunfire in the middle of the night might want to alert the police or game wardens. Tho all of this is kosher, it just more polite to folks… let them sleep.
I know you’re serious about the offer and I do want to take you up on it. Work and other things in life have just been quite difficult for me thus I haven’t been able to bite yet. Things should be settling down soon. My hope is after Christmas and such that life will resume some sort of normalcy and I can get out. I’d love to bag some hogs.
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