EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

Well I been thinking and was really trying to put this whole Barr thing behind me but it just still eats on me. I became a member of ethd a couple years ago now I had a surgery and was laid up with nothing to do and found this site. It has been a good site. When I first seen the pictures in dogs and hogs when people were killing big boars or lots of hogs I would not comment on there threads because I did not approve of them just killing and waisting good hog meat. In easttexas we always practiced barring so I did not know that other people hated hogs.We always loved them. I slowly started to adjust to the fact and would comment(good hog) on post that were killed hogs. Then made friends and started understanding why they kill them. But to tell you the truth from the history of the old cowboys they all worked and drove hogs from Texas to Florida.Then these boar slayers came alone wanting to hunt and kill boars. This to me is where they started crossing dogs and trying to breed the so called boar slaying dogs. Yes they would land on a decent dog every now and then but never produced a sure enough line of dogs. If they did those dogs went on the market not holding the genetics. Here in our area these guys have been breeding and striving for the best dogs for decades to work hogs. There is proven fact of this. When most of these boar slayers hunt behind these old Barr making dogs they have never seen anything like them and of coarse try and get there hands on one.  I hate to see these competition rule out Barr hunting when there is more history showing and fact of these Barr making dogs being around before we became boar slayers. Believe it or not we still work the hogs for food on the table.I like every dog man and have hunted with several of these slayers and love them to death. But some need to look at our history and the dogs history before they decide to change rules in the competition.

Unless it's crazy extreme circumstances, we eat everything we kill.

Yes mam. I have hunted behind a ton that get pictures and go.

There was a time if my dogs killed baby pigs they got whipped for it. If a dog chewed the shoulder out of a hog more than three times we culled the dog. I dogs was not supposed to damage the hogs.

  I may be reading it wrong but your post comes across as my way is better then yours. Knowing you only via internet I am sure it isn't ment to come across like that.
  People around me don't Barr hogs. I leave a lot of hogs in the woods dead. Different strokes........ I am sure there are just as good dogs in other parts of the state.

Cantexduck it was not supposed to come across that way. I was pointing out at first I thought it was when I first seen it.. I came to understand why y'all do the things ya'll do. My point is there is dog history from Texas to Florida barring hogs longer than hunting for removal. Did not mean it to come off mine is better there yours.

When I started out I looked at hogs as a curse, now I look at them as livestock. I would love to have enough country in one spot to manage them as such. If I was a corn farmer I'm sure I would think differently. Different strokes for different folks.

Im not talking about my dogs in general. Im talking about any old breeder that worked hogs for years. Levi that is why I say I understand why ya'll do what ya'll do.  But the competition should understand why we do what we do.

I know you are right.

You told me on several occasions that these types of dogs are able to clean a place completely out and time has shown that you weren't bragging, you were warning. I haven't fully changed my boar slayin ways  ;) but I can definitely say I have learned that lesson and let alot of hogs walk off wherever I'm able.

Hopefully common sence will prevail with the tournament promoters and things will change to make it right again.

And cantexduck, I'm sure there's lots of good dogs here and there, but there sure does seem to be a surplus of great dogs all stemming from the same basic families throughout the big pine country. Not just yellow ones but reds, blacks, saddlebacks and even some leopards.

but, why kill hogs and let them lay?  Is your freezer, your family's, your friends, your neighbors all full?  Heck, skin and quarter it, freeze and feed it to the dogs that found it for you...if you dont want it.  I'm sure people have their reasons, i just dont understand?????

I grew up making Barrs out of them.  Think it is the best way for everyone.   It's a win--win it stops them from breeding and makes great food.    To really put a dent in the hog population we need to be killing all these sows!    I don't cut anymore but wish I could.  Last year I caught 6 Barrs so someone is cutting them still.   :))     I don't really see what it would hurt to cut one now and again if I kill the rest.   Say I kill 200 hogs in a year say 120-150 are sows and I were to cut 10  am I not doing my part to help stop the hog problem?    I will continue to kill and not cut any because of land owners wishes.   I am very fortunate to have good places to hunt around my house so I will do as they wish!    CWard I'm sure I don't have the caliber of dogs that many do but I grew up with stock dogs!   Catching the livestock by the dogs wasn't allowed.   But it was ok to tree a squirrel..  Many a cow penning also turned into roping a hog or two if the opportunity presented itself.   I guess all the places being cut up and being owned by weekenders has changed too much!    I am a slayer now.   But I also have another goal.   I don't no if I will ever get it done or not but I want to drive hogs!    If it can be done on these running hogs, that get chased by everything or shot at by everyone who sees them, it will take great stock dogs to do it!

I can see the points that were made in the original post for sure. I personally hunt to harvest, and because it's just so darn fun and something productive to do with my dogs. I know we all have our own reasons and do what we do. My perspective is......I see ALOT of folks barr hogs, that hunt on leases. But any landowner that calls us up to roll out just plum wants 'em GONE, cause they're usually causing ALOT of damage, as we all know. Even then, we take the hogs with us. They either go in the freezer or sometimes in a pen. I dunno. My personal thoughts are that it's kind of disrespectful in a way to leave a carcass with good meat on it behind, but then again, somethin' out there in nature is sure to eat it and gain from it. Circle of life kinda deal. I do not look down on ANYONE for how or why they hunt, as I hunt along side folks that prefer all different methods. I just get out there with my dogs and have some fun, and stock the freezer while doing so. I think maybe the times have changed partially because I'm thinking there are WAY more feral hogs out there now than there was back then....(maybe?) and even more folks are out there huntin 'em now. As for the dogs, well, I can tell ya, I've met ALOT of good folks that run dogs, and I swear it seems that everyone expects different things from their pack, lol. We all have our personal preferences. I just thought it'd be fun to chime in and share my thoughts. It's always interesting reading others' point of views and such.

I dont have a problem with people that barr there hogs or people that harvest them for food to feed their family like I usually do.  But it seems wrong to kill a hog and leave it to waste without taking the meat, or to just kill a hog because you hate them.  It goes against the reason people ever started hunting to begin with.

I'm not doubting for a minute that there is a good amount of great dogs in east Texas. Should be - lots if hogs out that way, but some of the most successful hunters with great dogs that I've had the pleasure of meeting never touch a computer.

If some of you were ever a farmer and your paycheck was at stake, you would understand leaving a hog for the buzzards and yotes. Turning a hog loose to cause more damage???  What sense does that make?

If you're hunting forest land or land not detrimentally affected by the hog population, I don't see an issue cutting a hog to harvest some tasty sausage later. If you're hunting crops/hay fields it's a different story as there is a purpose behind the hunt. Eradicate.

I think as far as the tournaments go, it's about an even playing field. I've been hunting in this particular area for about 7 years now. Let's say I catch/kill/sell 100 hogs a year - that's 700 less hogs in my set of woods than someone who releases.  Now sometimes that's my choice and with some landowners it's not.  But am I willing to pay a healthy entry fee and $3.75 diesel prices when the odds ( hog numbers and "tournament spots") are stacked against me - no.

I also understand it's my choice to enter or not, so I'm not complaining here.

I don't feel I'm right or wrong on this. Just trying to maybe explain some people's thought process.

Easier said than done. I wish I had help and or the freezer space. I usually fill up all of the locals freezers pretty fast so I have no choice but to leave a good bit for Coyotes. Besides by the time I get the dogs rounded up for the day it has gotten to hot to do anything with the meat and if I have tied them they will usually stress out and die or they go to the pen. However, we don't make too much of a habit of it because we actually have the perfect habitat for hogs to thrive. 10s of thousands of acres of crops, small pine thickets and CRP lands, and very consistent supply of water. Hogs reproduce faster than we can kill them and hurt the farmers so if we want to keep our place we better do our job right and killing them anyway possible is all the farmers care about.

I'm a younger guy (30) so I haven't been in this game as long as a lot of you have been but I've always been told by the old timers that a "Barr" hog doesn't travel as much as a regular old boar do to them not chasing the females and more or less get kicked out of the pack and they get fatter due to lack of testosterone much like a steer. With that said, I've never been in a tournament but I would think they wouldn't allow them because if "barr" a bunch of hogs in an area they might figure you could go back there and BY CHANCE (nothing is a sure thing) and catch the same hogs that will be heavier and POSSIBLY slower now. That's not my opinion, I'm just trying to brainstorm some ideas.

We never "barr" them, either take them to the sale or eat them unless there is no way we can get them out.

We don't have near as big places as many do , but we have cut several boars and released them on decent size places and haven't caught or seen ANY of them...

I don't Barr them so I can't say one way or the other but my buddies caught 4 Barrs in the same 40 acre cut over last year that averaged over 300lbs. They didn't cut them either but the fella who did lived less than a mile from there. I think other factors such as pressure, food and water determine their range. Who knows they could return to where they originally came from that could be a couple of miles away and set up there. I have been doing studies on the range of boars and so far they seem to stay in a 1-2 mile radius and traveling 7-10 miles a week in that radius, a d sometimes do it in one night. They also never use the same trail everyday, but use the same corridors. Same goes for the sows we have studied, but we still have a lot more studying to do.

Sure would like some more info on your studies,

Very nice! Your thoughts are very well put together and communicated nicely! And I agree with all of it  ;D

I hunt for a living, be it guided hunts, removal, food, to fill someones freezer, or someones high fence. All the hogs I catch are used in some way. I have barred a few, but preffer to let em keep there nuts, the game ranches sure pay good for them big boars. That said, sometimes a hog is too dog chewed or chewin up my dogs...Thats a dead hog, my dogs are far more valuable to me than any hog. In my opinion any hog caught in the woods(barr or boar) should be counted with any other hog caught in the woods. 

Here's a couple of FACTS to ponder...

1.  Lot of things that people did years ago were done without any knowledge of what the likely implecations of such actions would be later on down the road.  People used to move hogs all around as well as releasing domestic hogs when times got tough or they simply were tired of messing with them.  No one had any idea of the future problem they were contributing to both with population issues and disease transmission.  Just because something was done one way a long time ago doesn't always mean it's the right way.

2.  Feral hogs are NOT indigenous to our country.  Therefore there are no natural predators, no habitatat that solely supports them, no areas which will confine them, nor any naturallly occuring ways to control population.

3.  Feral hogs are classified by the State of Texas in addition to many other states as nuisance animals.  Only difference in them and cockroaches is that they are edible....and no one seems to have any heartburn about stomping a cockroach and leaving it lay.   I agree perhaps more could be done to make use of the meat as there are people out there starving, but I don't believe a person's choice as to what they do with the animals has anything to do with a persons moral convictions or stance regarding the value of wildlife.

4.  The fact that feral hogs are prolific and are a nuisance are the sole two reasons why 99% of us have land available to hunt them.  Even if they still existed but in far fewer numbers, we would be paying landowners to hunt them just like deer.  Research has shown that in Texas alone, even to keep the CURRENT feral hog population balanced, 66% of the population would have to be killed or captured annually.

5.  Like it or not, The day that a population control method is discovered will be the beginning to the end for hunting hogs with dogs.

6.  Whether you catch and tie hogs, kill and let lay, kill and eat, barr every boar you can, or drag everything you have out and donate it to charity has nothing to do with the quality of dogs a person is hunting.  I would personally argue that the quality of a person's dogs has way more to do with the quailty of person behind them than any other factor.

We are trying to gather more but the company that makes the collars that we get from USGS need to rework the collars and better their design so we can track hogs other than the dominant mature hogs that we have been tracking. Also, hunters go out if their way to shoot our hogs with collars so we haven't really gotten a lot of data for more than a few months.

    good post bryant . and that governmental hog eradication day is comeing sooner than most think . that's why i'm breeding a lot more tree power into my curs  lol  . i'll just go back to treeing coons and cats wich i would rather do anyway  . i try my darndest not to waiste any kill but sometimes you get so deep in the woods a big ol boar hog just ain't worth dragging . like josie wales said best [ buzzards gotta eat same as worms  ]  lol i have mixed emotions on a barr hog  [coming from farmland ]  on one hand it ticks me off to know that someone had their hands on a hog and turned it loose  and on the other hand ain't no finer eatin to be had . as far as tournaments go well it's for charity after all and to feed hungry folks and winning and prize money be damned that's what should be the driving force for some-one to enter them . i may enter one or two this year and consider my entry fee no more than a donation to a cause win or loose . people [ especialy hog hunters ] are just too darn emotional these days . relax , hunt like hell weigh your pigs . and above all else remember why your hunting or competeing . life is short enjoy it .

 ;D

old friend  i hunt with will pick up choates if his dogs kill them cook them an feed them to his dogs ... i've been at the camp when we kill a hog an literally cook the whole thing cause we dont want it to spoil .. we eat good an so do the dogs i agree with what you said 100%

Chance, we live 1500 miles apart but I feel your frustration every day! Our way of thinking and hunting is slowly dieing!

I leave lot of dead hogs in the woods. If my freezer is getting low i will stock up. But the of places i hunt want them gone plain and simple. Another thing is time. If i kill a hog at 7 in the morning and my dogs get on another hog an stay gone 3 hrs i dont have time to mess with the hog bc i have to be at work at 3 every day

I've tried to give away hog meat to homeless shelters, missions, the pregnancy center in town here that takes in pregnant teens and women and none of them will take a single bite of it.  So once my freezers fill up, and the freezers of my friends that are willing to pitch in and help process a hog are filled up some hogs start getting left in the woods. That, and the ones that I catch a half mile away from where you can get with a vehicle.  I haven't had a landowner complain about a dead hog yet.  If I could I'd barr some and turn them loose, but I'd sure lose a hunting spot if I got caught at it.   

It has no choice but to die out. They are a "nuisance" animal that are taking over what undeveloped land there is left.


At the end of the day its a tournament to support a cause far greater than bragging rights. Enter it and have fun. I know I will knowing I will never catch a big barr on the places I hunt. So I will donate my money to the cause and have a good time with some good folks...

Sorry i havnt been on lately. ive been showing my dogs videos and pictures daily for Tournament Hunting...  "Boars & Sows= bark"... "barrs= illegal hog= No bark".. my old dogs are getting it, the young dogs are coming along slower LOL

I was brought up in hog hunting the way chance described. The old way.. I'm not saying it is better, it's just the way I was brought into hog hunting. 

It's really just a different breed of hunter. Like many of y'all write on here. You would lose your place to hunt. Well we lease extra land just so we can hog hunt it. Barr hogs, deer hunt, spend $1000's, etc. How are you gonna knock on something we spend hard earned money on?!?  We are not in it to exterminate the hogs or kill everyone on the place like "99% of the other hunters out there!!" We are trophy hog hunters. Sure, just like yall, we get places to hunt where we have to kill everything for the landowner and only have permission to hunt that place because of hog destruction. But for every place like that we have 1 or 2 more that we pay to be on.

People can talk about population control, pest, etc. I get that, I agree with Bryant that you have to kill 66% of the herd to keep it at is current holding capacity. Im a Biology major and have written an 18 page report on feral hogs and their destruction. I'm all for killing hogs in crop and pasture land where damage is real. We've done it before where we stuck everyhog and just let it lay.

Sure we have a good bit of hogs around the piney woods where we hunt,  BUT in NO way are we over run like other parts of the state. Is this do in some fact that we cut lots of hogs? maybe? mabye not? Probably driven more by food supply than sex.. Why do you think we always go to the buffalo/Fairfield/freestone county area to hunt these tournaments??? I would venture to say that our group has participated in more tournaments than most. We've hunted about 15 in the last 4 years. nearly winning all or placing in the top few spots everytime. Kinda funny that us "barr hunters" would rather go hunt "feedlot hogs" vs these "livestock barrs" we have all over the pineywoods. Because we honestly don't have the shear number of hogs in our country as other places, nor do they carry the size. It's hard to get an intact boar hog to be 250+ on pine straw and youpon bush. But you cut a boar hog and MAYBE 5 years later you may have the chance at a trophy hog over 300#'s that you can eat.

It comes down to the "haves" and "have nots"... Generally people who live in the eastern side of the state where they have a chance at catching Barrs or participate in the ol tradition are all for Barr hogs in the competitions. Most of the newer breed of hog hunters, hunt because they get land to hunt through crop/land destruction and kill/sell everything. They are the have nots and feel slighted when people bring in stuff they "can't or don't" have acess too.

This country has too much whining in it now. Listen we don't care if you don't Barr hogs. We understand why and actually support it, but it is un-American to be upset about a tradition we have been carrying on that is older than dirt. Don't be mad because we catch and cut hogs, accept the fact that it's something that was going on long before most of y'all even knew what a hog was.

As for the tournaments go, they are changing. I have watched them evolve over the last 4 years. They are set up in cliques.. Either people are adjusting the tournaments to best increase their own chance of winning  their own tournament/trail OR tournaments are being adjusted such as TDHA because of the overall whining of the losers. There's even been rumor of them not letting is in a certain hunt because we catch too many hogs.  I'm sorry some of y'all say just do the tournaments for the sake of them, have fun, support the cause. We get that, an we support/promote the sport in many other ways but we do tournaments to WIN, plain and simple!!

No longer is it in the hands of the dogs as the way it should be... Either way the dogs an guys are so fired up to start hunting. I even heard Erik mention something about night hunting?!? What's that lol. It's been entertaining to see the viewpoints brought up by everyone

Not only has the type of dog, the way you hunt, and what you do with the hogs changed but the terms used in discussing the sport have changed. "Strike dog" is really a hound term used to describe the dog that finds a track. "Find dog" is the old term for a Cur dog that "finds" stock whether it be cattle or hogs, Cur dogs find stock then "bay it". Cur dogs don't "strike" unless they are open trailing.

[This country has too much whining in it now. Listen we don't care if you don't Barr hogs. We understand why and actually support it, but it is un-American to be upset about a tradition we have been carrying on that is older than dirt. Don't be mad because we catch and cut hogs, accept the fact that it's something that was going on long before most of y'all even knew what a hog was.]


  
Good point.  It does not effect me one way or another what yall do with your hogs.  I will kill hogs because that is what the landowner wants me to do. I will drag them out regardless if I know someone that wants them or needs one.  I will not break my back on a hog if I don't have somewhere to go with it. I've been burnt on that too many times.

Your in woods doing what you love so do whatever makes you happy.

Personally I could care less if anyone barrs hogs like I said in previous posts I would be willing to bet that we have barred as many hogs if not more than a lot of people and still don't catch any hardly ever and the ones we catch are pretty simple no running and not much fight at all so all this talk about barrs is crazy everyone needs to do what they do and as long as everyone is having fun at hunting that's what matters. It seems like all this is just a pissing match for no reason really in my opinion

Just to be clear, this issue is only about ONE thing. Catching and moving hogs, barrs or otherwise, in an effort to re-catch those hogs for a contest. Catching, transporting, and releasing hogs is against the law and can't be endorsed by TDHA. Breaking the law to try and win a contest is not acceptable.  I can't speak for any other contest other that the TDHA.

Also, I have written the rules for the TDHA hunt for the last several years. I have read several posts saying that the "losers" were complaining about the barrs and wanted the rules changed. Well I have a little inside info for you. I have never personally received a single complaint about barrs being allowed in the TDHA contest.

The complaints have been about the possibility of hogs being moved and teams loading spots for the contest.

I am not on the TDHA BOD this year, I am only an adviser. So I have no say on this years rules.

Finale rules will be released, as always, on Feb, 1st.