Basics to Hunting Wild Feral Hogs.

When you start thinking of feral hog hunting where do you start? For anyone just starting out hog hunting ( like myself ) probably the best place to start is at your local wildlife agency. Asking the right questions can give you alot of useful information to getting you headed in the right direction. For most of us just starting out probably the first and most important thing to hog hunting is locating a place with a substantial group of hogs on it. Most wildlife agencies can tell you all the management areas with feral hog populations on them and may even give you a list of farms or ranches. Almost every management area is open to hog hunting during the deer hunting season only and ranchers charge a fee to hunt game on their ranch so if you can, try to locate a farm that borders a management area with feral hogs and ask the owner for permission to hunt wild feral hogs on their farm. If you get permission to hunt hogs ask the owner if he can tell you any places he's seen hogs consistently or if there's any fields that the hogs are destroying. Once you've located a farm to hunt and created a good repoor with the owner your next objective should be to look over the farm and decide from the signs and sightings the best place to ambush the hogs. Decide whether you want to hunt from a stand, a blind or just standing by a large tree. If your going to be using tree stands be sure to get permission to use them and never attach them to the trees with nails or any other damaging hardware and the same goes for using screw-in steps, get permission first. Now that your set-up is complete, make sure you acquire all the proper licenses for hunting wild feral hogs. Here in Tennessee, law requires a hunting license and a big game license (either gun, archery or muzzle loader depending on the weapon you hunt with. ). Once you've taken a feral hog it's not mandatory to check it in at a checking station here in Tennessee however, the wildlife agency would appreciate notification of the location and quantity of hogs taken. Okay now, you've taken your first feral hog so now what? Do you take it to a local processor or do you process it yourself? This would depend on you and your abilities, do you have the right equipment? Do you have the knowledge to properly process and package the hog you've taken? Is there someone that can guide you through the process and help you? If you have any doubt about processing your hog properly then perhaps it would be best for you to carry your hog to a processor until you can gain the knowledge to do it yourself. Well your now armed with some of the basics for getting started into wild feral hog hunting so get out there and help thin out the feral hog population and enjoy yourself while in the woods and fields this year and good luck.