Ok, I wasn't going to respond to the hunting issue that always gets brought up during these discussions BUT alas I just couldn;t help it
I took this part and parcel from previous discussions.
-There are competing interests between being a landowner and a hunter but until you are a landowner, there is really no sense in hashing it over. I will say this, NO WAY IS NORMAL HUNTING going to stop the hog infestation in Texas and other areas. Say 5 guys go out for a weekend hunt. If we hunt all weekend,
all night, with the proper gear etc, we might kill 10-30 hogs during normal times. Big dent you might think? Not really. So now as the ranch manager, I have spent a LONG, labor-intense weekend pissing in the wind so that 3-5 rightminded guys can come help us. If you want to stand hunt and drive the roads, same 5 guys might kill 5-10.
* The one time this will vary is right after harvesting when we can kill up to 100 the first night out. That time is right now and quite honestly it's miserable hunting in Texas in June-July, even at night. Every night thereafter, our success is cut in half.
Now I've personally spent 3 days, two nights with a couple of guys bc we can't just let the group, no matter how good of hunters they are, just freely roam around on a 6K acre working cattle ranch, with 14 miles of river bottom, at night with weapons. The liability is crazy even with a ranch guide leading the group. Although I have never had an issue with the few times I have done just that, another guide had a group kill a cow one night. A $1,800 mistake they had to reimburse the rancher, not to mention a big credibility issue for that guide. If we were to charge $300 per day to hunt, as a guide I'd probably earn $15 PER HOUR and the ranch might clear $800-$1,200 for the weekend. The risks don't outweigh the liability honestly. And even one good weekend isn't going to curb the hog population.
As a side note, most average hunters are going to want to pack it in about 2 am in the morning as they have killed 20ish pigs and feel they had a good hunt and want to get some sleep. No time for that, the hogs are just getting active with best times 2am-6 am. It's WORK!! We aren't on a pleasure hunt. After doing one of these weekends, it takes me 3-5 days to get right again.
We have the helicopter come out at $600 per hour and they usually kill 100 each trip on 6k acres. The ranch has been flying 4+x per year for the past 7 years. Every time, they kill about the same numbers depending on the season. The landowner and share crop farmer split the costs. After 7 years of flying, the hogs have learned to run into the river bottom at the first noise of the copter flying.
Although we do have a very large trap, no one wants to be responsible for setting, checking, killing, or disposing of the hogs on a daily basis so it just sits where it is.
We might be interested in the poison that has come out but we are waiting for more people to try and hear their experiences.
