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Archery only hog hunt - unlimited hogs.

I searched for hog hunts and got several names to check out. Wondering if anyone has recommendations for an archery only hog outfit (anywhere, but guessing Texas is best shot?) that allows for unlimited hog kill. Reasonable cost would help and willing to do "out" of busy season. Thanks for advice.

Why unlimited and for how many?

3-4 guys and not going to go on a hunt to just kill one. I know there are a couple of outfits that are unlimited (no extra charge for hogs after the first) and am hoping that some on the forum know of them and can recommend. Thanks

welka, have you posted this on the Texas forum ? There may be more guys notice it there, but I don't know. My advice: Be wary and diligent in your research, there are several scam artists in the hog- hunting -for -pay game.

Check on Big Oak Hunting, I don't know their policies, but I know they're legit and honest. Shiloh Ranch in OK seems to be a favorite of bowsiters. Just to clarify, I've never been to either of these places, I have hogs running out my ears that I need to kill, so I won't be paying anybody to hog hunt. If "my" hogs could be counted on to show up consistently in the daytime, I wouldn't have to stay up past my bedtime to kill the bastards with a rifle ! :-)

You have the Texas shoot-out, Lincoln Ranch and many more.

Dry Creek can me and Welka come help you out with that problem???

How many days are you wanting to hunt?

Drycreek, I hear ya! My cousin has hogs but you never know what day and only at night. Still fun to throw out some sour corn and hope.

Mule, I've thought about that several times, but IMO, there are only only a couple ways to kill hogs consistently with a bow. Both of them involve corn and small fenced in places. I suppose on large ranches in STexas you can corn roads and stalk, but not on my place. I use the corn poured in a line and bust them with a night vision scope on an AR15. It's really not as much hunting as it is executing, and I still have sat from dark until midnight several times and have seen zero hogs. Last Friday night, I had a good night. I put lead in at least four hogs and recovered two. I'm pretty sure there's at least one more dead one in the woods. I don't eat them, and I don't follow them up at night, it's too risky. I had a friend knocked down and rolled back in November when he killed one deer hunting. He went down there with no weapon and started to drag the dead hog off and the other one charged out of the woods, knocked him down and rolled him around. He was very lucky to get away with scratches and bruises. A nephew of a friend almost bled to death a few years ago trailing a wounded boar. He was alone and had to drive himself to the emergency room after the hog cut him on his .......hindmost parts ! When a hog gets to weigh 150 pounds and up, nothing in the woods scares him except a human being, and if you corner one, or hurt him, well it can get western in a hurry. As the risk of offending, I'm posting a pic of the biggest hog I killed Friday night. This hog measured 45.5" around his chest and according to the "hog weight measuring system" should weigh between 225 and 250 lb.

Don,

Your killing hogs that have beer guts !!

Im headed to Texas Tuesday for 5 days of hog hunting [unlimited hogs/no fence]. The bow is staying home

Where are you headed to cnelk?

Unlimited usually means small hogs and not many. Polar bears have an unlimited bag limit in texas too.

Are polar bears bigger in Tx than in the Artic?

Might get a more accurate answer from a Texan !

Common sense pressured pigs are harder to kill and pigs are smarter and have a better smeller than whitetails. Most of these hunts are bullshit.

I guess the ranch is south of Abilene somewhere, never been there

It doesn’t matter to me if the pigs are small, good practice for shooting button bucks :)

Pete, not many polar bears left here, I guess global warming and all...

cnelk, I hope you kill a truck load of hogs ! Unlimited may mean they have lots and hate 'em as much as I do. I was looking at a lease out S of Abilene years ago and saw 40/50 in a newly plowed field rooting it up. I'll bet the rancher was none too proud of them.....

Well we kill hogs every year with a bow and never use corn or hunt fenced areas. We hunt Ft Stewart in Georgia. All set and stalk with traditional gear. It is a hunt not a shoot but is plenty of fun with a little boot work. Nice thing is is is cheap. $60 for a base permit and $32 to hunt 3 days in GA. Each additional day is $6.

Drycreek that's nice looking sight, is it thermal or night vision? What brand?

This place is near my hometown. Never been there and know nothing about it but it may be worth a call.

If an operation allows hunters to shoot unlimited hogs, do you really believe you will see a hog when you get there? I suggest you think about that before sending in a deposit. :)

Skippy, it's an ATN Night Arrow 4x NV scope. It's a Gen II so not nearly as expensive as Gen III, but still pretty expensive. I wish I had thermal, but can't afford it on my wife's pitiful school salary :-) It does well though, I killed a 100 pounder at 200 yards on a cloudy night so I can't complain.

Once again, let me explain that while it's fun, it isn't as much hunting as it is an attempt to control hog damage. Bowhunting will never put the fear of God into them like killing two or three out of a sounder with the noise associated with it. We try to rain down hell on them for a couple months before and during food plotting time. What we don't kill will go to the neighbor's place for awhile. Then they'll be back until we do it again. We never pass on hogs during deer season whether with bow or gun and I always have a rifle if I'm on the place working. It's an ongoing problem !

Yeah, Ft Stewart. Priced right and unlimited hogs. Plus it's real hunting.

+1 Matt

If it's to good to be true- beware!

drycreek... your situation sounds VERY similar. :)

See a few posts above and Check out “trad man and huntress’s” operation in Oklahoma. They seem to have a good thing going!

Thanks for the info creek, I have the same issues as you. I shoot them at night also with this. ATN thermal sight, works great. It's fun but not really hunting. The hogs are very nomadic. Here today gone tomorrow. Night shoot them by stalking with bows with a light, very exciting and spooky at the same time.

We offer free range hog hunts at No Mercy Hunting in addition to fenced hog hunts. We offer a 3 afternoon/evening hunt for unlimited hogs free range which includes one fenced hog too for $700 per hunter including 3 nights of private lodging. What I tell anyone that books a free range hog hunt in our area is that realistically you have about a 30% chance of success while gun hunting for roughly 6-8 hours per day in the late afternoon (3-4 hours) and after dark (3-4 hours over feeder lights). So while it is "unlimited" on the free range portion of the hunt if you have 10 guys maybe only 3 guys kill a free range hog. That may seem like a low percentage rate but its a realistic one. If someone tells you something different then it may not be true. There are of course places in the country where you might experience higher percentages but in our area of the country that is a realistic percentage. Of course guys coming on this do get to kill one fenced hog as well so everyone leaves with a hog and that hog can be killed with any weapon basically but the free range portion is more of a gun hunt. We do however have some free range archery spots too but that further decreases the free range success rate.

30% with a gun for free range is terrible. The place in TX I hunt is 120,000 acres and typically I get at least one shoot opportunity a day (that's 15 yards or closer with my longbow) without baiting or night hunting. I might not actually kill a pig a day with my bow but if I had a shotgun instead of my bow, it would be a bloody mess and not very Koser. Other guys that are more hard core then me corn the road, dig a pit 5 yards off the road and sit all night. They kill the really big hogs. Me, I just like walking the bush all day and sleep all night. Size don't matter to me (I'm a pitcher not a catcher of course) and if I can't catch it by hand it's worth shooting. In GA at Ft Steward you can gun kill 2 or 3 a day sometimes (ask Tracker) or bow kill 2 or 3 in a week if you can figure them out. And the hotel in Glennville is $75 a night.

Free range is just that.......free range. Hogs on my place are as inconsistent as hell. Twenty tonight, none tomorrow night. We saturated my place with cameras last year (12 cams on 217 ac.) and my buddy did a spread sheet after about a month. The only consistency we could arrive at was if hogs showed up at a location, they were likely to be there approximately the same time for two to three nights, and mostly arrived a little earlier in successive nights. Daytime appearances were all over the map. Hogs in my food plots at 10:30 am or 1:30 pm ?? This was with summer temps in the nineties. WTH, hogs are supposed to be largely nocturnal, or at least laying in a cool mudhole. Now we have no idea what pressures are brought to bear on the neighbor's places, so that might have had an effect and probably did. I can see how a very large place would be different, less pressure and virtually none from neighbors that would bother hogs on 120k acres. Apples and oranges.

It's also after deer season drycreek. That's the biggest difference. On Ft Stewart it takes month for the pigs to settle down after deer season ends. On the big ranch in TX pastures are leased out for deer season and few big wigs will have quail leases on a number of pastures if the quail numbers are up. Hogs will get shot on sight by the ranch manager year round but the boys feeding the cattle and driving more of the roads everyday could care less if the hogs come running when the siren sounds off.

But on the other hand, we stayed at a beautiful ranch west of San Antonio a couple hours that was maybe 10 years ago where 10 of us never saw a pig the whole week. The ranch manager was super surprised we didn't kill anything and said "this place was over run with hogs a month ago. We trapped and killed about 300 of them." Yeah, hogs figure things out watching their buddies disappear.

We do a few hog hunts a year and do well at them most of the time. I would expect an unlimited hog hunt the first time would be great on our place but as that went to two, three and four times the second third and fourth group success would suck pretty bad.

I like the idea of the unlimited success rate but that may only look good on paper rather than in real world application.

Good luck to all and if anyone is looking for an unlimited unicorn hunt, we have them success is low but you never know when someone will run into that magical herd and pile them up.

Thanks to all for responses. Post was specifically looking for names for archery only hot outfits. I have killed many with my bow over corn, during daylight, out of ground blinds. Unfortunately, it's at a customer ranch that is not open for others. So, was looking for something similar and not interested in spot/stalk as have people that can't do that. If anyone knows an reputable outfit that offers hunting out of blinds or tree stands over corn, that allows for unlimited hog harvest, then thanks in advance for relaying the names. May be a big ask, but can't find out if you don't ask! I will check into names already mentioned and probably try Texas forum also. Thanks to all.

At most places I've hunted, if your billfold is "unlimited" the hogs will be "unlimited" also.

Most reputable ranches will be booked far in advance- it's not normally call'em up and get a "come on down this weekend" response You might catch a single opening occasionally, but not likely for a group. Most ranches also reserve a ranch the entire ranch with a certain minimum group of hunters.

Welka what you want is a biological impossibility. Read these posts. You cant run any kind of commercial operation if you let everybody blast away at will. These are all experienced people. Most of us are very experienced hunters and some run hog hunting operations. Go to a pay for play fenced area and you might get what you want but it wont be cheap. You got those right in tennessee. It aint happening.

You have to be careful about the word "unlimited" and its meaning. In some States it may mean there are so many of whatever species it is unhealthy for the ecosystem so the State needs thin the subject species as much as possible.

In New Mexico unlimited means the tag required species hasn't had a confirmed sighting in a thousand years but we'll take the money anyways, thank you and good luck.

Call Matt & Cheryl at Shiloh Ranch and see what they can offer. You will have lot's of shot opportunity.

Killinstuff, I completely agree about the effects of pressure on hogs. They may actually be more akin to elk than deer in the way that they react. Deer seem to just get out of sight and start moving at night. Hogs, on the other hand, tend to get outa Dodge if you put the heat on. Why stay on this place where your getting your butt busted when you can cross the fence ( small properties) and be left alone ! I have 200 acres just S of me that isn't hunted and that's where they go, which suits me fine, but they won't stay there because it's on the side of a hill. My place has two creek bottoms which equals easy rooting and FOOD PLOTS ! :-0 It's a war I'm afraid I'm losing......

Just an FYI - finding plenty of potential locations (based on what I asked for) via Texas, OK, Ga forums. Good luck to all.

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