EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

 We kill and eat deer and hogs every year. I see people spending thousands to deer hunt and it amazes me because I think that a hog tastes better than deer. Anyone from 5 to 95 can pull a trigger and kill a deer, big or small but it takes some skills to catch a hog and tie it. Making it much more fun to me.

Plus I would rather have a big ol tusk trophy than a big antler trophy. Maybe Im just wierd. Any way I hope that hog hunting never becomes the big money market that deer have become. Because then I might not be able to afford to hunt them.

Im the same way, but because of all this publicity the last 10 or so yrs. I see hog hunting going in the same direction as the deer hunting, everybody's trying to make a $.  They just added feral hogs on the Nc kill tags, and raised the cost of non resident license $90.  Im afraid thats what alot of this, cutting out hog hunting is about. These people know how passionate hunters are about hunting, and will pay to play. So to speak.  They see all the money these private land and club owners are raking in and want their cut too. JMO

well i have been hunting all summer and the only thing i have seen is deer! this leads me to think there are way more deer than hogs so maybe hog hunting SHOULD be more exspensive because they are sooo rare rolleyes  ;D

I like hunting and eating both but hog hunting is definitely way better than deer hunting.

If your weird then I am weird too. I used to love to deer hunt. Thirteen years in a row I took off work for all of deer season ( its only 2 weeks in Oklahoma) now I can't wait for it to be over so I can put the dogs in the woods again

If y'all want a challenge get a bow and go to the national forest in east Texas. No feeders, no bait, no food plots. I have a lease for hog hunting and my kids shoot the deer off it for myself and my dad but me and a couple buddies bow hunt the national forest and when you are successful out there, then you are a hunter. Oh and porkloin is good but I don't know if it's better than back strap. Hard to beat good deer/pork smoke sausage.

x's 2 tom . i just ain't gonna buy that twra is stupid enough to think that if they outlaw hog hunting the hogs will stop spreading .

i think they have pulled the wool over farm bureau's and alot of other eye's with the new laws .

i can't help but wonder if they don't want hogs to get thicker than hair so they can sell more liscenses .


it worked with the turkeys ! ........ i bet nobody at twra makes a living of the land , i bet they all get their check from the givernment .

 be it deer or hog its the individual's oney to spend how they want. if its a 300-500 hog nt or a deer mnt, its what that person wants.  as far as for e both deer and hogs both make a turd it just depends on what walks in front of y stand or dogs. true any1 can pull a trigger but to pull a release trigger takes a lot mmore skill the a rifle or doggin. the dogs do all the work of finding and catching all we do is stab or tie it. archery takes ore skill than doggin for the simple fact the person has to remail still and quiet annd as sent free as possible in order for the deer hog, elk or what ever your hunting to get with in a range of 10-40yds, 30yds max for me since thats my comfort zone.again its the persons money to spend it on what ever form of hunting they choose, to each our own.

Been hunting hogs since I met my wife about 8 years ago. After my first time shooting and eating one, I gave up on deer. It was something about sitting in the swamp next to an old cypress calling them dudes in that hooked me. The adrenalin of hog hunting beats deer ten fold. If a deer walks thru while I am hog hunting he is down, but I dont walk thru the woods looking for scrapes and hookings... it is all wallows and rooting now. I got into dogging 6 months ago. Now I get to hunt them year round. ;D

I would take still hunting for hogs over deer any day... Just give me the meat musket and a pig squealer.

Shoot them pesky deer fer dog feed and we usually eat one a year. I cape out buddies deer fer dog meat; all about free feed ya know. :)

How about your hog dogs? do they trash on deer after a feast? I always  refrained from giving the dogs deer bones and scraps thinking it might cause them to trash on deer...

Yes sir, I had one dog given to me by a taxidermist that likes to run deer; HAD. No problems from the rest; I don't let them feast on venison. I just supplement dry dog food; I do the same with some hogs(wild and raised),chicken, beef, etc... I also run an e-collar while hunting them for a year to trash break while hunting. I can usually see what the dogs are after if it crosses in the head lights and they come off the hood to chase ZAP! Couple a times and it aint fun to em I guess. Let a goat have a go at my little yella dog and he ain't looked at a deer since. We have alot of deer and very few hogs so trash breaking can be done real close to home. I never thought about it like that; if that works I gonna switch em to straight wild boar. ;D

Deer Hunting all the way! Anyone that says it's easy to kill a mature buck, is either hunting in South Texas or a high fence. It may be easy to pull a trigger if your a lowly meat hunter, but don't think it's easy to kill big, Mature, sMART, old buck with your bow... Or a gun! It takes way more skill, time, and patience to take a scent free shower every day. Continually wash your clothes, hunt the same stand 15 times in a row, sitting through rain storms, ice and hours upon hours of times in the woods to finally draw that string back and punch an Easton shaft through the wheel house of the Old Man!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hog hunting to fullest extent! But I absolutely hate hogs during deer season. I'd much rather kill a trophy buck then catch a trophy hog... I'm tired of 300 + lb hogs.. I want a 150+" with my bow like none other

Plus deer hunting allOws all our spots to fill back up with hogs, let the dogs rest and regroup for another assault on swine come spring

 well said tshelly. i sat 4hrs in the rain, then sleet, then snow, all in the 4hrs. got down once i couldnt feel my feet, saw a rack easing through the crp, i pursued him, sat down on an old building foundation, hit the can, and a couple aggressive grunts and then the can again. in bout 10 min, a 168" wt camme looking for the fight. i took him at around 14yds, didnt have time to range him, put my 20yd pin just below the kill hole, released and spined him. he fell like a 200lb bag of taters.

Nice Deer! Made my heart thump just thinkin bout it. Their aint many like that around. :)

Charles: that's what I'm talking about.. Felt my adrenaline rise just reading it!

I love hog hunting with dogs, it's the most amazing rush and fun you can have at times!!! But like someone said above, the dogs are out doing the work. Your just along for the ride... "Every good hog hunter is only as good as his dogs!!"

while with a deer, it's you against him.. May the best animal win!!

 Thats right it is all about personal preference. I just cant sit still that long without being bored. After sitting for hours and then a buck walks out, you wait for it to come closer and then take the shot. After that its pretty much over. I hunt both, I just prefer hogs.

 Bar W, I cook pork backstrap the same way the I cook deer backstrap. Its tastes just as good to me.  :)

I wouldn't trade hog hunting for the world record buck. I might set in a stand couple times a year, and have killed a nice buck or two, but it just dont do anything for me. Its not about the kill, and the trophy for me, its about the Chase, the training, the raising, doctoring, feeding, ..........    ANYBODY can go set in a stand and get lucky, even a blind squirrel will find a nut every now and then. And NO, Charles, that was not directed at you and your deer. 
Just sayin, the same could said.      That is a real nice buck, bigger than any deer ive ever shot, but ours dont grow as big as the ones in Ka. But thats a monster, matter where you are.

I like it that way but recently I've started leaving them whole after I bone them out and slow roasting them in the oven for several hours on low heat. You can't hardly do that with deer because it dries out. When I was growing up I didn't know there was any other way to cook deer, pork, or fish for that matter than frying it. But anyway you cook it I'll eat it.

 I have to agree with you. Wild pork and deer is way better than anything out of a store. Yea, I like to take the pork shoulder and season it real good and then wrap it in foil and slow cook it in the oven on a low heat over a long period of time.....even the ankles are tender. LOL  ;D

hey tn hillbilly, any1 can buy, raise (mother nature did mmost of it) and train a dog, but u try to and sit hrs on end for a kill of this. (http://i848.photobucket.com/albums/ab41/charlesmann/deer01.jpg) pls excuse the ford in the background
(http://i848.photobucket.com/albums/ab41/charlesmann/Ksdeer.jpg) . aint just any1 can sit and kill a deer this old, especially with a bow. if u think any1 can do it. lets see yaw take ur dogs out of the equation and u go in and bay n catch the hog. dianna, i used to be, mayb still am like u. i couldnt sit still for mmore than an hr and would get restless, but when i didnt hav anything to do, done gave up drinking so i would hav the money for hunting, i mmade myself adapt sat still. the pics are proff. i used to never horn hunt, always looked at it, that u cant eat the hirns and they make lousy soup, but after that kill, my first kill out of 9 that yr with a bow, i shed a lil light on the horns.

Yes sir, I have spent countless hrs sitting in a stand holding a bow in freezing rain, sleet and snow. used to be a die hard bow Hunter. Hadn't set in a Stand for about 12- 15 yrs. Got bored one weekend in between dog seasons and borrowed a stand from one of my buddies, walked up the mtn. Just grabbed a tree, didn't really care if I even seen a deer, just wanted to go set in the woods. Shot the biggest buck I ever see in the woods.
Mother nature has alot to do with those big bucks too. Yes for the most part bow hunting takes a little skill, but so does raising and training dogs.
(http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu277/tnhillbilly/8point2001.jpg)
not near the size of yours, but for around here it was a trophy,

 thats still a fine looking deer. deer in tx aint nowhere near the size they are in kansas and wouldnt have every got to hut ks if i hadnt joind the army but glad im out. still gonna go back and try to tag out on a 1wk hunt up there.

Dinah, for me, it depends on how you hunt the deer to make it the challenge you are looking for to get that since of personal accomplishment.
I love to bow hunt them on the ground and in a climbing stand. Spot and stalk is one heck of a challenge when its just you and the deer.
Putting the sneak on a doe in an open field to finally run an arrow through it is some kind of excitement for me!
I don't knock it at all but I have never killed a deer from a box stand overlooking a feeder or food plot. Its not a challenge for me and don't care to do it.
I have legally shot a few meat animals from a truck though and will continue to do so. They tasted good but I didn't get any satisfaction as far as hunting goes.

Other than that, Id rather hunt with a dog than anything.

Yea, we have a deer lease which seems to be more of a camping experience. I love to camp but we actually do more deer hunting, sitting very still either on the ground, or on the 4 wheeler on the woodline next to a hay field not too far from our house. It is very difficult for me. I guess I am too hyperactive.  LOL I don't have anything against it, I just get more pleasure from hog hunting with the dogs. I guess, in my original post, what I meant to say is that hog hunting is way cheaper than deer hunting and I find that hog hunting is more fun ( to me ) and I hope that hog hunting never becomes the big business that deer hunting has become. I wasn't trying to poke diehard deer hunters with a stick.  :D

Hey Ninja! Good to see you back around, I figured a bad hog finally got ya.  ;)

When I was 12 years old, all I did was hunt, and mostly deer hunt. I didn't have friends, and if I wasn't in school or working, I was in the woods. Bow, gun, it didn't matter. I would pass deer up just so I didn't tag out and could hunt all season. Several years while in my teens I passed up some nice deer and shot a spike on the last day of season. lol I still enjoy the heck out of it, but if given the choice to have to give up deer or dogging hogs I would give up the deer first for sure. That may change in years to come, but that's how it is for me right now.

Here is one that I killed while he was working a scrape last year. I feel the same way as the Ninja about feeders and such. This deer came from a spot that has produced numerous deer, hogs, coyotes, bobcats, etc. It is a fancy stand. A tree fell several years ago and I sit in the fork of the trunk on the ground overlooking a couple of natural funnels and feeding/bedding areas.

(http://i836.photobucket.com/albums/zz282/levibarcus/2010deerandhogs018.jpg)

Tom, you look like a young Ray Stevens.

HAHAHA, thats first time ive heard that one.

get you a walker gyp and cross with your birddog and you'll have some sure enough good deer dogs,or you can come buy old repo and have you a real hog dog if he let you gwet in your buggy.lol

I don't care much for deer hunting, mayb if we could run dogs here I might ,
I like the chase you never know how big a hog they got bayed or shoot it might get away , I been chaseing a 400 pound hog for over a year he a smart dude an keep loosing my dogs but one day I will get him. , alot of people ask me why I dnt shoot him but that another no fun , If I never catch him it's fine with me but  the excitement I get when I think my dogs are after him or I see him hightailing down one of the trails that's fun to me , he sure gives the dogs a good work out , even if I do catch him I may not even kill him I prolly let him
Go ,

Seems to me that you are either a dog person or not.....as for me...I AM. I have had the drive to pursue and either catch or kill some kind of critter for as long as I can remember....it's part of what makes me....me. I have always loved dogs and I've had one for as long as I can remember. I have hunted deer since I was about 14 and I've taken a lot of them ....and a couple of very impressive bucks for the southeastern U.S. But come on people....deer hunting doesn't hold a candle to hog doggin'.....IF.....you are a dog person.....if you aren't, then you probably enjoy deer hunting or some other pursuit as much as hog hunting with dogs. Not a thing in the round world wrong with that at all....not a thing,....BUT,....in my humble opinion.....nothing can compare to hunting with a big game dog if you are a true, dyed in the wool dog person. I'm guess that there are varying degrees of this....I'm pretty sure I'm on the high side of it though. ;D I've hunted big bucks in NM, TX and here in AL....killed 2 very impressive mule deer in NM and I'm going to Utah to hunt the Paunsaugunt in early Nov. where some mighty large mule deer reside,....but none of this campares to hunting hogs down in southern GA where there's a lot of them and we kill a bunch every year. I enjoy wild hog meat as much as anything I put down my neck......and we eat a lot of deer too....but hog is better to me. Deer are fun until I can run a hog.....my dogs have my heart.....simple as that.