Who do you blame when hogs get away?

Wmwendler

Boar Slayer

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Who do you blame when hogs get away?

« on: June 30, 2009, 07:05:31 pm »

1. You can blame the hogs and claim they are super hogs, that are super smart and super fast and its only gonna get worse. That is the most common scape goat that I hear, but probly the one that is in my opinion, the least of the causes. Its like gost stories when we were kids, its fun to talk about the big bad hog that got away because he was a super hog. Not so cool to say we just were'nt good enough and the regular ole' hog got away.
2. you can blame the increase in hunting pressure from all the new yahoos and thier sorry dogs, because they can't possibly have perfect dogs like me that never let a hog get away. But the reality is we all let hogs get away to a varying degree. Even if you have super dogs that let very few hogs get away. If you hunt a population long enough the hogs will get educated to dogs and probly more so to YOU
3. you can blame the dogs. Maybee they were too gritty or not gritty enough, or too many dogs, or maybe not enough dogs. This probly on the right track most of the time because the right ballance of too little or too much pressure is a fine line, and hard to find. Also It changes from one hog to another. This is were a dog with finnesse is great in my opinion, one that will judge the situation first and put just enough pressure on a hog, or none if it is not needed, or loads of pressure if thats what it takes. But those dogs are hard to come by. Then again if you have one dog that has no finesse it can kill your chances even if the other dogs do. They won't have time to do thier thing the other dog has pushed the hog from word go. This is not a very common scape goat, because almost everyone has some sort of emotional connection to thier dogs and they dont wanna admit that what they have his causing the problem even if the signs are pretty obvious. Most of the time people go back to reasons 1 or 2 because that takes it out of their hands.
4. You can blame yourself. Human error! You approached from upwind and the hog winded you and thats what broke the bay, you missed a shot you should have made, you were too lazy to get off the 4-wheeler and the hog heard it and was ready to run when the dogs found him, you let the excitement get the best of you and ran to the bay making sound like a D8 dozer and the hog heard you, you yelled at your dog for running deer and the hog heard you. There are any number of scenarios here, but in my opinion human error is the number one cause of hogs getting away. With 4-wheeler noise and hogs hearing or smelling the hunters being the most common cause. This is just based on my experience hunting hunting ~18 years with countless different people, different styles, different terrain; walking, horseback, motorscooters; different numbers of dogs, 15 dogs, 2 dogs, Catch dogs, bay dog, pot lickers, loose dogs, rough dogs, trashy dogs, you name it...... all that and everything in between. I beleive hogs are not scared of dogs like we think. But one thing I think we can all agree on 95% of the places hog are scared of humans, human sounds, smells ect. I have seen hogs come around houses and barns eating cow feed or spilled grain, with house dogs barking at them from 25 feet away and the hogs dont bat an eye just keep eating. Now you tell me does a hog know the diffrence between a house dog and a hog dog(bay dog). Now its the Same hogs when we hunted them after my uncle got tired of them rooting around his grain bins... we came up on them in the truck and spooked them, they hit the road in high gear and we kicked dogs out and never got anything bayed, just scattered hogs and dogs. Same hogs again, same spot, different day we parked the truck and walked in, found the hogs in the woods this time, bayed hogs as pretty as you could want killed a half dozen or more, all were shot while standing at bay. Same hogs and same dogs, the only thing different was the hogs did'nt know we were there untill the gun went boom boom. That kept the hogs away for a few weeks but they came back to the grain bins and we hunted again, this time we got a boar hog bayed in the same woods, get to the bay, but I don't have the wind just right and the hog winds me and busts bay and leaves the country, so to speak. Now you tell me what the problem was, was he scared of the dogs or scared of me? Finally got the dogs back, and it was one of those few days that was'nt hot or deer season and the dogs still had something left in them so we kept hunting and not 400 yards away from where I spooked the other hog, the dogs found another hog and got it bayed, I got the wind right, and got the hog. Same hogs, same dogs, the onlything different between the suscess and failure was Human errer letting the hogs know we were there. I can't tell you how many times I have bayed hogs on the other side of the river, sat on the bank wating for someone to get a boat and listen to hogs bayed for ever right on the other side. Then finally get a boat and get across, only to let a hog wind me and the hog then runs 3/4 a mile before they get him stopped again. But its not often that people will blame them selves.

It is human nature to find a scape goat when things go wrong and the hog gets away. We all do it, its an adaptation that allows us to figgure out how to do things better next time. But the problem is we dont always find the right reason and we don't usually look for problems when the outcome is good and hogs get caught or bayed even though there may have been problems, they just did'nt affect the outcome this time. Its like lots of penalty yards in a football game, but you still won. Well, next time you face a better aponent, those penalties might be the difference between sucess or failure.

So who do you blame when hogs get away?

Waylon


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Noah

Hog Doom

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