Since our visit last week, I’ve been pretty busy with the construction of a little hunting cabin my buddy and I decided to build back in the woods. A couple of months ago, we decided to put some of the surplus wild hogs around my home to good use in the form of cured ham and pulled pork. We constructed stands and put up several feeders with night lights. Since the majority of hog movement is after sunset, we installed automatic lights (Feedlights) on the feeders. Now, when the sun sets the lights come on and turn off at the break of day the next morning.
Our hunts begin around 7 in the evening and usually last until a hog is taken, often before 9 p.m. but we always commit to stay until 11 p.m. just in case a late arrival might show up. After hunting, field dress and, when the weather is warm, quartering a hog after dark and putting the meat on ice, it will be nice to have a comfortable cabin for our guest to stay in.
I’ve also visited with a couple of very interesting fellows this week, gleaning information for articles and my radio shows. Don Gresham with Goin Fencing (www.goinfencing.com) in Forestburg, Texas makes his living constructing and setting up 30-foot hog traps with gates that are triggered via a cell phone. Gresham and his son Matt have traps on ranches and farms from Mississippi to west Texas and via computers and Smart Phones, they monitor the traps on a daily basis.
Gresham’s traps are monitored by cameras. When a hog approaches the trap door, an image is sent to the trap owner’s Smart Phone. The camera can then be activated repeated times so that the ‘trapper’ can determine exactly when he wishes to trigger the gate to fall. He can wait until that big boar he’s targeting walks into the trap or, when the entire sounder of hogs walks in to feed on the corn.
I really like this method of keeping hog numbers in check, for several reasons. The meat is put to good use. Trapped hogs are usually sold to hog buyers; the meat is processed and sold to restaurants worldwide. In this light, wild hogs which I consider to be one of the most challenging and fun animals to hunt, become somewhat of a cash crop rather than varmints that need to be removed. The ranch or farm owner that owns the trap can quickly re-coop the initial expense of the trap system by selling the wild hogs he catches.
Gresham says that one of his clients that uses his system not only quickly recovered his initial investment by selling the wild porkers, but he enjoys an annual family vacation with the profits he makes from trapping hogs on his place.
The meat is not wasted as it often is in the so called helicopter ‘hunts’ or by hunters using night vision and thermal imaging scopes that leave the meat to rot. There are just too many hungry people to waste all this free ranging pork.
The live catch traps have little impact on wildlife other than hogs. Since the trap door is triggered via Smart Phone and the ‘trapper’ can see almost the entire area inside the 30 foot diameter trap, non targeted animals such as deer are not disturbed.
While interviewing Gresham, I learned a great deal about hog movements that was absolutely amazing information. Who would better learn the nocturnal habits of wild hogs than someone with cameras set on traps in several states? Gresham says that the nights of the first and last quarter of the moon is prime time for hogs to be on the move.
“These are definitely the periods when hog movement is at its peak,” says Gresham. “There is always some hog movement throughout all the moon phases but when the moon is in its first and last quarter, hogs are really up and moving. Almost without fail, on nights with heavy hog movement in Mississippi or Louisiana, we note heavy activity on all our cameras everywhere.”
I can truly say that I have little understanding of just why the moon phase is of such importance to fish and wildlife but, I know that it is. Have you ever been fishing on a day when action was slow then, as though a light switch was turned on, fish all over the lake become active? I’ve observed this phenomenon on countless occasions. The same is true with hunting.
Bet you’ve been on the deer lease with other hunters and experienced periods when deer were not moving and then, as though some internal alarm clock was triggered in the animals, they began heading out of bedding areas to feed all over the lease. We can put a man on the moon and explore Mars but I’ve yet to have anyone that could explain these major fishing and wildlife activity periods to me.
I also spent time visiting with Joe Wilson, president of Squirrels Unlimited. That’s right I did say SQUIRRELS UNLIMITED. We have Quail Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, why not squirrels unlimited. After all, I can’t think of a harder working, more challenging or better-eating game animal then a wild squirrel.
When I was a boy growing up in northeast Texas, back before deer numbers became plentiful, squirrels were the game animal that taught most of us young hunters the art of stalking and still-hunting. I grew up relishing a big platter of fried squirrel, squirrel and dumplings or squirrel and gravy and rice.
Back around the mid seventies, the number of squirrel hunters began to decrease and by the nineties, a whole generation of hunters had abandoned small game hunting for the deer woods. Many hunters under the age of forty have never discovered the simple, affordable and exciting sport of hunting squirrels. Joe Wilson and Squirrels Unlimited would like to see that change.
“I’d like to invite folks to visit our website, www.squirrelsunlimited.com,” says Wilson. “There they can join our origination and participate on our forum, share hunting tips and tactics, learn new methods of cooking squirrel, etc. It’s a great place for veteran squirrel hunters and novices to gather, a world wide coffee shop of sorts.”
Squirrels Unlimited also hosts the World Championship Squirrel Cook Off in Bentonville, Arkansas each September and Wilson says the event draws hundreds of cooks from across the country. The web site for this event is www.squirrelcookoff.com.
Andrew Zimmern, host of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel, recently spent time with Wilson and other members of Squirrels Unlimited and Wilson says the popular show host was a very good shot as well as a great sport. They enjoyed some very tasty squirrel dishes that will be highlighted when the show they filmed in northwest Arkansas airs in early April on the Travel Channel.
Yes, it’s been a very interesting week, constructing a hunting cabin and learning some very interesting bits of information about two game animals that I dearly love to hunt and…. eat, hogs and squirrels.
We’ll see what the week ahead has to offer. Make sure and tune in right here next week. We might just talk a little turkey! Spring turkey season is almost here you know!
Listen to Outdoors with Luke Clayton at www.catfishradio.com. Email Luke via the website with outdoors news from your area.