EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

I've been thinking about some of the pictures of large hogs that I see caught, and how diverse the terrain seems to be. So I thought I would put up a poll to see what type of land produces the largest hogs for y'all.

The four heaviest hogs that I have ever caught were in the following areas.

#1. Grain field - Corn, about ready to harvest - early summer
#2. Grain field - Corn, already harvested, and plowed under - late fall
#3. Grain field - Corn, same field as #1, almost a year later to the day.
#4. Feed lot - bunk feeders full of grain.

So, where have you caught your largest hogs, and what would you assume their feed source to be?

Piney woods of East Texas... barr hogs! ;D

#1 dint get a weight but bigger than #2 ,Barr rough mountians, acorns, deer feeders,fall of year
#2 425lbs , Boar corn field, sept.. corn ready to harvest
#3  376 lbs, Boar corn field, sept. one year later not 50 yrds from #2 hog.

these are the top 3.

Trinity River bottoms below Livingston dam. Oak, River cane and 50% or so hay fields. Tons of deer feeders spread all over.    John

only big hog i've caught was about 320lbs on a wheat field with rice just up the road.  everything else has been pretty normal size 200-250lbs for a big one.

Mike,

   The biggest barrs you have caught out there, do you think there was any supplemental feed?   corn feeders, rice slurry, other grains?  or do you think it was just naturally available food sources?

i thought i would go back and ad weights to make this a little more interesting..      

#1 Sow winter wheat within city limits and no pressure to move very far just eat and sleep, the boar/barr with her was bigger but didnt catch him, back in the no catch dog days ;D 350lb scale maxed out not sure what she wieghed.
#2 Boar oak bottom and stayed in one large block of timber
#3Corn and wheat with txhoghunter
#4 Toss up between about 5 or 6 hogs in corn/wheat fields

250 to 300 (on the scale) is a damn big pig here in the hills. We do catch quite a few 250s which I would assume are on wild forage and deer feeders, but not many that push 300. It seems like all of the pigs we catch over 300lb come from game ranches or cattle ranches that feed protein. Our biggest, that we have actually run across the scales, was 347 and he was caught with his head in a protein deer feeder.

Steve

#1 East Tx Piney Woods (Major Creek bottom)
#2 Tx Post oak savanna (River Bottom)
#3 Tx Post oak savanna (Cattle Country about 1.5 miles from river bottom).

Ive hunted corn fields in Millican Tx a few times but thats about it. Those few times were a blast though! Huge tracks everywhere but our biggest hog out of a half dozen hunts was around 225 lbs. There was much bigger there but we never ran them.

River and major creek bottoms produce the biggest hogs for me because of the obvious. Thats what I mostly hunt.

Well we aint got any grain fields (unfortunately) around where im at in the swamp but we get some bigguns down in the deep swamp and marshes in South LA. biggest was a 355lb boar. All natural feed i guess

325 lbs (confirmed)- River Ranch, FL in a palmetto head
407 lbs (confirmed)- River ranch, FL in a myrtle thicket
400 lbs +/- Van Zandt County, TX in a pasture
several between 250-300 lbs Kaufman County/ Van Zandt County, TX in pasture/bottoms

In 1998 Milam County a 419 lb boar in a creek bottom with grain feilds on every side of it .  Have never even come close to another one that size. Lots of 250 to 300 but none like that.

biggest i got was 325+ and it was next to a property where a lady didn't want us hog hunting on. she fed the pigs corn daily. this one ventured off the property at the wrong time and we got him.

Some were and some weren't. The ones that were ate a steady diet of rice slurry that the rancher dumped to his cattle... we caught a couple of big sows out there also that would give those barrs a run for their money weight wise. Never weighed most of them, but the biggest confirmed was 385 lbs gutted... I would guess around 450 or better on the hoof?

Ours all come from either the Sabine River bottoms or the pine thickets of east Texas. Biggest one we ever caught bottomed out a set of scales that went up to 350# so dont know exactly what he weighed but they feed alot of protein for the deer on that place. Everywhere else is just acorns corn, and whatever they can root up.

#1 west texas rocky hills, cedars,the hog had been around feeders
#2 river bottom, wheat fields thick cover

Our official biggest was 365 lbs weighed on DNR scales.  This was a big spotted boar hog with 4 inch cutters.  He came out of swamp and marshland not far off of the SC coast.  He cut up two bay dogs, one catch dog and bit the antenae off of a garmin collar.

Lived on a chicken farm once upon a time.  A BIG chicken farm.  We fed 2 million chickens & all that feed was sifted and filtered before being run into the houses.  There was always lots of chicken feed and even whole corn that didn't get ground up that we had to dumb at the back of the chicken ranch.  Caught a barr hog a couple of hundred yards from where we dumbed the chicken feed.  Not sure how big he was, but the biggest I ever caught.  I'd say 350+, but he may be 400 by the next time I tell this story???  :o

Biggest i ever caught and ran across scales was last year at my deer lease. He was 289 lbs. I dont think I want anything to do with a hog any bigger, he was plenty. Mostly hay meadows with some corn, wheat and soybeans around the area I caught him. Caught several in the 260-275 range, mostly from cattle pastures.

Caught a big Toothy boar south of Dallas on the Trinity River bottoms that we all agreed would go 450 plus

Caught a Huge Sow in town (McKinney TX) every bit of #350

Ive probably only caught 5 hogs that have been over 250.
3 on one orange grove in hobe sound FL
2 sugarcane fields port mayaca FL

385lb barr on scale with 4" of its snout still touching the floor.
caught on private ranch,  on a swamp edge surronded with thick palmettos.
food source would probably be lots of acorns, and everything else it could find.

565 pounds, so large could not hardlly get hands around back legs above hooves to toss.  Gave up on rollng it and just stuck it standing up.  Catch dogs were two 35 lb game bred pitts, with one cur bay dog.  It did not have but 2" teeth. Caught coming from alfalfa and barley fields in open mowed field.  Recently, 355 pound Barr, big cutters 4"+, eating in abandoned soy bean field (rains ruined crop).  Killed 4 boars over 300 lbs in 2009, and all were much easier on the dogs than the 200 pounders by a wide margin. Still looking out for one we bayed twice last sprins with green dogs and lost it in flooded swamp, tracks so large you make a fist in the track and still see track all around your fist.

peanut field on the red river

In the last 20 or so years around 15 boars 300+ with biggest at 335, he was the only one out of farm land. The rest came out of the hill country. Only 1 of those boars was killed behind a mostly hog proof fence.

Most of them were killed late spring to early fall, right in the hardest part of the year as a rule or late winter agian hard part of year.
I believe where I am these boars or forced to break thier habits when it gets hard and that is why they get caught.

When boars used to kill livestock up here all the time they never did it when the grass was green and the acrons were falling, they killed when it was hard and dry, but once they started they couldnt stop. I believe it still holds true with other parts of their lives and I will even go out on a limb here.................some are going to disagree but dont judge till you walk in the other mans shoes. After 35+ yrs of doing this in the hill country the thought that a hog has to water everyday and lives close to water is not true and the bigger the boar with the more fat content the less I think this is true, the same way with feeding. NOW I AM TALKING ABOUT WHERE I LIVE AND HUNT NO WHERE ELSE, I believe those ole big boars like Chris is talking about at times almost go in to a hibernation, hardly moving and when they do it is only cause they have to (i have reasons for this that i wont type here cuase it will make this to long to read). I also think that during this time when they decied to feed they know it will be worth the effort they put into it and replace the energy lost doing it, in other words an ole big boar isnt going to waist his time rooting up 3 acres looking for a handful of grubs that will not even fill him when he knows he can walk a mile and feed off a dead cow that could keep him filled for a couple of days.

Again this is where I live and hunt, we dont have the fields, feed lots, woods and things most of the rest of the state has. Is there a defference from region to region? Yes for sure, not only in size but habits, life style, diet and many other things.

Jay, that makes sense. It just amazes me, the few times i've been out to the Hill Country, that hogs can even live out there.

me 2  ;D

Txmaverick (Jay)

You are dead right.  Many scientists declare hogs need water 2 x day and have no sweat glands and need water to cool and all that.  They are tougher then most realize.  I knew a guy that went away on vacation and left two 20 pound wildhogs from south teaxs brush land (about an 2-3 hour or so drive south of Victoria, almost to Mexico, in a pen raised off the ground on a wooden platform.  He forgot to leave them water.  Two weeks later he got home, it has not rained, and they were alive.  Plus he hardly fed them for the first year.    his dogs killed one.  I figured the one left  was stunted in its growth.  It is now near 300 lbs and fat as they get.

Very few boars become predators, but as you state, they become serial killers.  The Calif. ranchesr would dig a large trench with a dozer than drag dead cattle to the pit with trucks, etc.  They did not fire up the dozer to bury them one at a time, but waited until they had a bunch of dead cows in the pit.   In the dry season as you describe, the hogs would hollow out the cows and would come bustin out from inside them with mouths full of maggots.  Nothing better than catching a  maggot mouth  boar eh?

got one with my dad years ago .  was a monster and was probably just feedin on wheat fields and out in the forest .  the biggest i got by myself was at the same spot and would eat the same stuff i would say

1. july 4th wheat stuble next to slick hills 365 3 1/2inch teeth built like a supersized 200# fighter probaly from living in those rough ass hills, my cousin shot the hog 5yrs before we caught em nocked em down with 06 then got up and ran off found .30 caliber bullet in shield when caping                                        2 a month ago 331 on the scales fat as hell 2 inch teeth caught with to curs and one 50# pit couldnt even get the one med size larry paris hoble on correctly mostly pecan bottoms hayfields and some grain      dont usually weigh anything these were just extrodinary in size and as someone else said I dont know what I would do with anything any bigger (both hogs were caught alive) im 6"3 230 fairly stout mybuddy is 5"10 250 and stout as a OX and his brother is 6"2 185 and stout and was a choir  to get down ( sorry I talk so much)

1. 450 lb barr hog-pearl river swamp-acorns and deer feeders-was so old his teeth came out curved and grew back into his head about an inch overall tusk lenght was close to six inches
2. 415 lb barr-piney wood land-deer feeders and some cattle farms-bout 4 inch teeth
3. 375 lb barr-not to familiar with the terrain other than big pine plantation was the first and only time i ever hunted it-bout 3 in teeth
4. 350 lb boar-real dog wrecker-dairy farm-bout 3 1/2 teeth

As far as body size my largest hog consistantly come from land that has hardwoods bordered by agricultural fields.