“The pigs are back.”

It was the email I’d been waiting to see for over a month.  Time to step out of the sport hunter role and into the role of exterminator… and time to put some theory to the test.

It all started…

Damn, isn’t that a cliché way to start the tale?  Ah well… screw it.

It all started with an email back in April.  A homeowner down near Carmel sent me a note to tell me that she was having hog problems on her 40 acre horse property.  Her neighbors were also getting fed up with the swine invasion.  She’d taken out a depredation permit, but the hunter she’d brought in moved to Alaska after only a couple of months.  She had one trap, but it wasn’t catching anything.  Could I help?

Now I don’t (intentionally) represent myself as a hog eradication expert, or anything of the kind.  I don’t even feel comfortable being called an expert on hogs, because there’s a whole body of knowledge around these animals and I’m only on the periphery.  I know some, and think I know some more… but “expert” seems a bit of a stretch.  That’s the realm of folks like John Mayer of South Carolina, or Billy Higginbotham of Texas, and my money says they’d both admit there’s even more for them to learn.

But of course I was interested.  The expansion of wild hogs and the associated conflicts with landowners has been a recurrent theme on the blog.  I’ve done a lot of reading and research on both the impacts of feral hogs and on methods to mitigate those impacts.  I’ve talked to professionals and amateurs about their techniques and methods for eradicating hogs, and I’ve learned a lot about ideas that work and some that didn’t.  I’ve taken part in a few eradication “hunts”, for hogs and for whitetail deer.  But I’ve never had an opportunity to put any of this to work on my own.

My first step was to return the email, which shortly led to a phone call.  This was the opportunity to learn more, not only about the hogs, but about the lady who called.  I wanted to make sure, along with everything else, that this wasn’t the case of someone complaining about the nocturnal visit of one old boar, or an occasional pass-through by scattered animals.  That would have been a waste of my time (and fuel).

But that wasn’t the case.  It turns out that she and her neighbors were seeing dozens of hogs in groups across about 400 acres of contiguous property.  They were doing damage to landscaping, as well as rooting up the wooded lots around their homes.  They also travelled the horse trails that cut around the property, spooking the horses and making it unsafe to ride.  In short, these pigs had become a true nuisance.

My second step was to travel down to the property and have a look around.  If I was going to be walking around with guns, I thought it best to meet face-to-face with the landowners, as well as to get an idea of how safe it would be to use a gun on the place.  Would it be shoulder-to-shoulder homes, or would it be mini-estates?  How much damage would I find, and would it be something I could help to mitigate?  Is this a place where I can use the rifle, or will I need the shotgun for close work?  In fact, the list of questions was longer than the drive down to the property… about two and a half hours south of my SF Bay Area home. 

As I left the main highway and made my way up the winding, mountain road, I marvelled at the habitat I was seeing.  This was pig paradise!  Long, rolling ridges covered with oaks were interspersed by deep and steep canyons, so densely wooded that no person would ever get through.  The whole thing dropped into a beautiful, fertile valley.  Springs dotted hillsides, and big meadows and oak groves created a picture right out of a pig hunting how-to manual that would sport the caption,  ”this is where you will find pigs.” 

When I entered the gates to drive into the landowner’s community, I was even more blown away.  There was rooting under the oaks, and visible trails indicated consistent use.  The foliage was still green, and the place was full of other wildlife.  Deer were browsing in a meadow, coveys of quail darted along the road as I drove through, and turkeys bobbed their heads suspiciously while I passed.  I didn’t see pigs on the long, slow drive up to the house, but there was no question they spent a lot of time here. 

The hog hunter in me was getting excited, and I had to remind myself.  “This isn’t going to be sport hunting.  I’m not out for an afternoon adventure.  There’s work to be done here, and I need to take it seriously.”

I arrived at the home, and was greeted by my landowner and her husband.  We chatted a bit about the hogs, how often they were seeing them, and what time of day they showed up most often.  It turns out that the heaviest damage had actually occurred earlier in the year when the majority of the rooting had taken place (which is typical).  The pigs were still showing up almost daily, however, and at all times of the day.  I asked where they’d been seeing them, and she suggested we go out to walk the property and have a look for myself.

We’d barely left the house when I saw the first, fresh tracks.  As we neared the back of the property and a fenceline, she told me that the last depredation hunter had access to the property across the fence and had actually taken several pigs back there.  She’d try to contact that property owner to see if I could go there too.  One good look told me that the thick brush and high ridges on the other side of the fence were most likely the holding area where these pigs were bedding up… or at least it was their main travel corridor.  I immediately thought that pushing that area with dogs would yield some good results.  But first I needed to get access.

In the meantime, I’d see some more of her property and see if we could concoct a plan.  We talked about trapping, and I thought that maybe a corral trap might be a good call if there were as many pigs as she’d said.  I’ve heard mixed reports on the effectiveness of corral traps, but hadn’t tried one myself.  This seemed to be the right place to use one, though. 

As we strolled back down one of the horse riding trails, I spotted movement about 100 yards away.  A huge group of pigs was milling around.  I looked at my watch.  3:00pm!  Broad daylight, and these animals were in full feeding mode.  The landowner turned to me.  “Too bad we don’t have a gun,” she said. 

“As a matter of fact,” I replied, “I do have the pistol in the truck.  I didn’t want to be too presumptuous and carry it around at our first meeting.”

“Well, go get it,” she told me.  “Maybe you can get a couple the first day.”

I double-timed back to the truck and got the .44 out of the locker.  I loaded it up and started back up the trail.  As I was about to go down into the area where we’d seen the pigs, I heard rustling above me.  I turned just in time to see a whole line of pigs trotting up the hill on the far side of the fenceline.  I don’t know if they sensed danger, or if they just decided they’d eaten enough, but they didn’t wait around to explain it to me.  I tried to get a bead on a straggler as it hit the fence, but there was no way. 

After walking around a bit more, looking for strays and hoping maybe the sounder would pop back out for seconds, I went back up to the house.  We made plans for me to come back out and spend a weekend hunting the pigs, and I packed up and headed north for home. 

It turns out that I wouldn’t be coming back down for a while.  The pigs decided to move off to another area for a while (they heard I was coming), and neither the landowners nor their neighbors saw them at all. 

Thus began The Wait.

To be continued in Part II…

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